Soviet Air Forces
From Worldatplay
The Soviet Air Forces have 450,000 personnel in three combat arms and one supporting branch, the Aviation Engineering Service. The Air Forces also provide and train prospective cosmonauts for the Soviet space program. Air Forces personnel operate all military aircraft except aircraft belonging to the Air Defense Forces and the Naval Forces. The Air Forces are organized into air armies consisting of several air divisions. Each air division has three air regiments with three squadrons of about twelve aircraft each.
[edit] Strategic Air Armies
The Strategic Air Armies were organized in the late 1970s from elements of Long-Range Aviation. Their mission is to attack the enemy's strategic delivery systems and infrastructure, including missile and bomber bases. The Strategic Air Armies are organized into five air armies of bomber aircraft of several types.
Although its name implies an intercontinental mission, most Strategic Air Armies aircraft are medium- and short-range bombers.
[edit] Frontal Aviation
Frontal Aviation is the Soviet Union's tactical air force assigned to the military districts and the groups of forces. Its mission is to provide air support to Ground Forces units. Frontal Aviation cooperate closely with the Air Defense Aviation arm of the Air Defense Forces. Protected by the latter's fighter interceptors, Frontal Aviation in wartime would deliver conventional, nuclear, or chemical ordnance on the enemy's supply lines and troop concentrations to interdict its combat operations. It would be under the operational control of Ground Forces field commanders. Frontal Aviation is divided into sixteen air armies composed of fighter, fighter-bomber, tactical reconnaissance, and electronic warfare aircraft.
Frontal Aviation operates about 5,000 fixed- and rotary-wing combat and reconnaissance aircraft, in addition to the 450 that belong to the Strategic Air Armies.
[edit] Military Transport Aviation
Military Transport Aviation provides rapid strategic mobility for the armed forces. Its missions are to transport the Airborne Troops for rapid intervention by parachute and to supply and resupply Soviet forces abroad, and deliver arms and military equipment to Soviet allies around the world. Military Transport Aviation has five air divisions.
In addition to these military transports, in wartime the 1,600 aircraft of Aeroflot, the national airline, would be used to augment the capabilities of Military Transport Aviation. For this reason, the Ministry of Civil Aviation closely coordinates its activities with the General Staff and the Air Forces. Aeroflot flight crews, for example, are reserve officers of the Air Forces. Moreover, the Soviet minister of civil aviation is an active-duty general officer.
Military Transport Aviation assumed a high-profile role in foreign policy in the 1970s when it airlifted weapons to such allies as Egypt, Syria, Ethiopia, and Angola. In December 1979, its transport aircraft flew 150 sorties to drop and land an Airborne Troops division and its equipment into Afghanistan. Western analysts estimated that Military Transport Aviation can lift one Airborne Troops division a distance of 4,000 kilometers. With Aeroflot transports and passenger aircraft, three divisions can be lifted at once.
