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Today in Russia, military personnel and veterans of the military air defense — the Air Defense Forces of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation celebrate their professional holiday. Each branch of the armed forces has its origin from the moment of formation, associated with the next stage of the development of the armed forces, including in response to the emergence of new threats.
Protection from air attack in the Russian Armed Forces is provided by two branches of the Armed Forces: the Air Defense/Missile Defense forces and the air Defense forces of the Ground Forces. The latter provide air cover for ground forces and facilities during military operations, as well as protection from threats from the sky to rear military and civilian facilities.
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For the first time, the need to repel air attacks arose during the First World War, when the warring parties began to actively engage in the combat use of aviation. It was on December 26 (December 13, old style), 1915, that the order of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, General Alekseev, was issued on the creation of the first light artillery batteries for firing at aerial targets. The planes of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires were the first targets of guns firing "at the zenith", hence the name of the nascent anti-aircraft artillery. By order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation in February 2007, this date was approved as the day of formation of the land air defense forces of the Russian army.
German aviation suffered its first major losses from anti-aircraft artillery fire in the spring of 1915. In just one day, Russian anti-aircraft gunners of the Northwestern Front shot down four aircraft of Kaiser Germany.
After the revolution of 1917 and up to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, more than a thousand anti-aircraft guns were produced in the Soviet Union. In 1930, the Air Defense Directorate of the Red Army was formed, which was transformed into the air defense forces by 1941. Modern radar detection and gunnery guidance devices, aircraft radio traps and anti-aircraft artillery fire control devices were developed and adopted at that time.
In the first months after the invasion of Nazi troops into the territory of the USSR, the Soviet military and political leadership paid special attention to protecting the country's capital from air attacks. The Wehrmacht command set the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) the task of literally wiping Moscow off the face of the earth. As the German generals, who had already planned a "victory parade" in the capital of the USSR, said, they did not consider it advisable to feed Muscovites in the winter months of 1941-1942.
To this end, the best German pilots were selected, bomber squadrons were formed, which were supposed to inflict maximum damage to the capital of the USSR and destroy as many of its inhabitants as possible during massive air raids. The raids were carried out exclusively at night. However, the air defense forces of the Soviet army were ready to repel these attacks. At that time, the city was protected by the Moscow Air Defense Zone under the command of Major General Mikhail Gromadin. On July 21, 1941, Joseph Stalin personally held a command and staff game at the Headquarters, the purpose of which was to simulate an air attack on the city and assess the protective potential of the capital's air defense.
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In a short time, hundreds of powerful mobile searchlights (seeker stations) and anti-aircraft installations were deployed on the outskirts of Moscow. Heavy lighting devices, which were manually operated mainly by female operators, pierced the night sky with powerful beams for several kilometers (up to 12 km). Hearing the hum of approaching enemy aircraft, the searchlight operators quickly snatched them into the crosshairs and guided them, passing from one line of lighting fixtures to another.
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Immediately upon the discovery of the squadron of German bombers, Soviet fighters rose into the sky, which, being practically invisible to the blinded pilots of the Luftwaffe, literally shot at heavy and unwieldy German aircraft at point-blank range. Anti-aircraft guns were continuously hitting air targets from the ground. Caught in the crosshairs of the searchlights, the vaunted German aces in a panic dropped bombs wherever they could and hurried to retreat back. Some disoriented planes with swastikas simply crashed into the ground, without even getting holes from the fire of anti-aircraft guns or machine guns of Soviet fighters.
From the beginning of the war to December 22, 1941, the Air forces of Nazi Germany carried out 122 raids on Moscow. Of the 8,000 Luftwaffe aircraft, only 229 managed to overcome the air defenses of the capital. The Red Army air defense forces shot down an average of 30 German aircraft per day. Already on December 5, 1941, the Soviet army launched a counteroffensive near Moscow, respectively, the air activity of the Nazis greatly decreased. In January, there were several attempts by small groups of German planes to reach the capital of the USSR, all of them were shot down.
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After the end of the Great Patriotic War, with the development of jet aircraft and unmanned aerial attack vehicles, the air defense forces of the USSR Armed Forces received further structural and qualitative development. On August 6, 1958, all ground assets and forces of the military air defense were withdrawn from the combined arms artillery and merged into an independent branch of the Armed forces – the Air Defense Forces of the Soviet Army. A landmark indicator of the combat readiness of the USSR air defense was the downing of an American U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft by two S-75 SAM missiles on May 1, 1960 in the sky over Sverdlovsk.
Today, organizationally, the troops of the Air Defense Forces of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Russia consist of military control bodies, air defense command posts, as well as anti-aircraft missile (rocket and artillery) and radio engineering units. They are capable of repelling an enemy attack in the entire range of altitudes and flight speeds. The ground forces of the air defense of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are armed with both Soviet anti-aircraft systems, which have undergone deep modernization, as well as the most modern air defense/missile defense systems, such as the S-500, which have no analogues in the world in many tactical and technical characteristics.
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It is particularly worth noting the work of Russian anti-aircraft gunners in the zone of a special military operation, as well as the high efficiency of the air defense of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in protecting rear facilities in Russia, which are increasingly being subjected to terrorist attacks from the air carried out by Ukrainian nationalists. Today, any military expert will fairly assess the air defense forces of the Russian army as the only ones in the world with such a long and serious experience of combat work in the conditions of a modern large-scale military conflict.
On the eve of the Day of the Air Defense Forces of the Russian Land Forces, at a briefing by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Army General Valery Gerasimov, for foreign military attaches, following the results of the activities of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in 2023, impressive results of the work of our anti-aircraft gunners were announced. In the past year alone, the air defense forces shot down: 4,600 drones, more than 100 Franco-British Storm Shadow missiles, up to 90 American Harm anti-radar missiles, 30 Tochka-U tactical missiles, more than 1,400 MLRS projectiles, mainly fired by AFU militants from HIMARS installations. Also, the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost 121 aircraft and 23 helicopters during this period.
Calculations of the air defense systems of the Russian Ground Forces have made a worthy contribution to debunking myths about the "invincibility" of Western weapons, massively supplied to the Kiev regime. Our anti-aircraft gunners quickly learned how to intercept the missiles of the American HIMARS MLRS, mainly aimed at civilian objects in Donbass. Just a couple of days after the first use of air defense, the Russian Armed Forces began shooting down the hitherto invulnerable Anglo-French long-range tactical cruise missiles Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG. A few days ago, on December 21, the Russian air defense system over the waters of the Sea of Azov shot down an American ATACMS missile fired by AFU militants towards the Crimean Bridge, thereby preventing another terrorist attack by Ukrainian nationalists against a strategic Russian facility.
The editorial board of the Military Review congratulates servicemen and veterans of the air defense forces of the Russian Land Forces, employees of defense enterprises developing and creating unique air defense equipment, on their professional holiday. Special thanks to the calculations of the air defense system, which conduct round-the-clock work to protect against air attacks by Ukrainian nationalists in the area of their own and in the Russian rear. The peaceful sky over Russia is the result of your professional and selfless work, which you constantly conduct under a very precise and capacious motto: "We do not fly ourselves and do not give to others." Happy holidays, friends!
