Soviet Army
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Soviet Army | |
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Советская армия | |
Land warfare | |
Size |
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Nickname(s) | "Red Army" |
Motto(s) | За нашу Советскую Родину! Za nashu Sovetskuyu Rodinu! "For our Soviet Motherland!" |
Colors | Red and yellow |
Equipment | |
Engagements |
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Commanders | |
Notable commanders | Georgy Zhukov |
Soviet Armed Forces |
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Components |
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Ranks of the Soviet Military |
History of the Soviet Military |
The Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union (Russian: сухопутные войска,
Until 25 February 1946, it was known as the
After the
After World War II
At
The Land Forces Main Command was created for the first time in March 1946.
From 1945 to 1948, the Soviet Armed Forces were reduced from about 11.3 million to about 2.8 million men,[12] a demobilisation controlled first, by increasing the number of military districts to 33, then reduced to 21 in 1946.[13] The personnel strength of the Ground Forces was reduced from 9.8 million to 2.4 million.[14][verification needed]
To establish and secure the USSR's eastern European geopolitical interests, Red Army troops who liberated
Within the Soviet Union, the troops and formations of the Ground Forces were divided among the military districts. There were 32 of them in 1945. Sixteen districts remained from the mid-1970s to the end of the USSR (see table). Yet, the greatest Soviet Army concentration was in the
Cold War
From 1947 to 1989, Western intelligence agencies estimated that the Soviet Ground Forces' strength remained c. 2.8 million to c. 5.3 million men.[12] In 1989 the Ground Forces had two million men.[16] To maintain those numbers, Soviet law required a three-year military service obligation from every able man of military age, until 1967, when the Ground Forces reduced it to a two-year draft obligation.[17] By the 1970s, the change to a two-year system seems to have created the hazing practice known as dedovshchina, "rule of the grandfathers", which destroyed the status of most NCOs.[18] Instead the Soviet system relied very heavily on junior officers.[19] Soviet Armed Forces life could be "grim and dangerous": a Western researcher talking to former Soviet officers was told, in effect that this was because they did not "value human life".[20]
By the middle of the 1980s, the Ground Forces contained
Soviet planning for most of the
From the 1950s to the 1980s the branches ("rods") of the Ground Forces included the Motor Rifle Troops; the
In 1955, the Soviet Union established the
Korean War
The Red Army advanced into
Vietnam War
Soviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to PAVN/VC forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam. Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to the Central Office for South Vietnam, North Vietnam's southern headquarters. Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move "perpendicularly to the attack trajectory." These advance warnings gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill a single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes.[35]
The
Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, and 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million.[37]: 364–371 From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers—in all more than 10,000 military personnel.[38]
The KGB had also helped develop the signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities of the North Vietnamese, through an operation known as Vostok (also known as Phương Đông, meaning "Orient" and named after the Vostok 1).[39] The Vostok program was a counterintelligence and espionage program. These programs were pivotal in detecting and defeating CIA and South Vietnamese commando teams sent into North Vietnam, as they were detected and captured.[39] The Soviets helped the Ministry of Public Security recruit foreigners within high-level diplomatic circles among the Western-allies of the US, under a clandestine program known as "B12,MM" which produced thousands of high-level documents for nearly a decade, including targets of B-52 strikes.[39] In 1975, the SIGINT services had broken information from Western US-allies in Saigon, determining that the US would not intervene to save South Vietnam from collapse.[39]
Soviet-Afghan War
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up its puppet government, provoking a 10-year Afghan mujahideen guerrilla resistance.[40] Between 850,000 and 1.5 million civilians were killed[41][42] and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.
Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet
While the Soviet government initially hoped to secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the communist regime, and withdraw from the region within the span of one year, they experienced major difficulties in the region, due to rough terrain and fierce guerrilla resistance. Soviet presence would reach near 115,000 troops by the mid-1980s, and the complications of the war increased, causing a high amount of military, economic, and political cost.[47] After Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev realized the economic, diplomatic, and human toll the war was placing on the Soviet Union, he announced the withdrawal of six regiment of troops (about 7,000 men) on 28 July 1986.[48] In January 1988 Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze announced that it was hoped that "1988 would be the last year of the Soviet troops stay"; the forces pulled out in the bitter winter cold of January–February 1989.
Military costs
The cost for the military due to the war is estimated to have been roughly 15 billion rubles in 1989. The combat casualties estimates at 30,000–35,000. During 1984–1985, more than 300 aircraft were lost, and thus a significant military cost of the war is attributed to air operations. Since the first year, the government spend roughly 2.5–3.0% of the yearly military budget on funding the war in Afghanistan, increasing steadily in cost until its peak in 1986.[49]
The Soviet Army also suffered from deep losses in morale and public approval due to the conflict and its failure. Many injured and disabled veterans of the war returned to the Soviet Union facing public scrutiny and difficulty re-entering civilian society, creating a new social group known as "
Military districts
The extent military districts in 1990 were:[51]
- Leningrad Military District
- Belorussian Military District
- Baltic Military District
- Carpathian Military District
- Kiev Military District
- Odessa Military District
- Moscow Military District
- Volga-Urals Military District
- North Caucasus Military District
- Transcaucasian Military District
- Turkestan Military District
- Siberian Military District
- Transbaikal Military District
- Far Eastern Military District
- Central Asian Military District (dissolved in 1988 with the Volga and Urals Military Districts merged around 1991)
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
From 1985 to 1991, General Secretary Gorbachev attempted to reduce the strain the Soviet Armed Forces placed on the USSR's economy.
Gorbachev slowly reduced the size of the Armed Forces, including through a unilateral force reduction announcement of 500,000 in December 1988.
In February 1989, Defence Minister
The Armed Forces were extensively involved in the 19–21 August
After the
In mid-March 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed himself as the new Russian minister of defence, marking a crucial step in the creation of the new Russian Armed Forces, comprising the bulk of what was left of the Soviet Armed Forces. The last vestiges of the old Soviet command structure were finally dissolved in June 1993, when the paper Commonwealth of Independent States Military Headquarters was reorganized as a staff for facilitating CIS military cooperation.[57]
In the next few years, the former Soviet Ground Forces withdrew from central and Eastern Europe (including the
Post-dissolution influence
After the
In 2007, the
Equipment
In 1990 and 1991, the Soviet Ground Forces were estimated to possess the following equipment. The 1991 estimates are drawn from the
- about 54,400 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty area, types unknown.[1]
- About 1,000 PT-76 light amphibious tanks as of 1 June 1991, including about 410 inside the CFE treaty area.[1]
- over 50,000
- about 28,000 armoured infantry fighting vehicles (AIFV), including BMP-1, BMP-2, BMP-3, about a total of 3,000 BMD-1, BMD-2, and BMD-3. Over 16,500 AIFV were inside the CFE treaty area.[1]
- 8,000 reconnaissance vehicles as of 1 June 1991 including 2,500 BRDM-2.[1]
- 33,000 towed artillery pieces, including 4,379 field/anti-tank guns.
- about 9,000 self-propelled howitzers, including 2,751 .
- 8,000 rocket artillery pieces, of which about 2,330 were inside the CFE treaty area,BM-25, and BM-14multiple rocket launchers.
- tactical ballistic missiles.
- 1,350 ZSU-23-4, and ZSU-57-2army air defense vehicles.
- 12,000 towed anti-aircraft guns estimated in 1989.KS-19.
- 4,500 helicopters as of 1 June 1991, including some 2,050 armed helicopters, of which 340 were reported as
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in 1992 that the USSR had previously had over 20,000 tanks, 30,000 armoured combat vehicles, at least 13,000 artillery pieces, and just under 1,500 helicopters.[63]
Commanders-in-Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces
- Georgy Zhukov, from 21 March 1946[7]
- Ivan Konev, 1946–50
- position of commander of ground forces did not exist from 1950 to 1955
- Ivan Konev, 1955–56
- Rodion Malinovsky, 1956–57
- Andrei Grechko, 1957–60
- Vasily Chuikov, 1960–64
- position of commander of ground forces did not exist from 1964 to 1967
- Ivan Pavlovsky, 1967–80
- Vasiliy Petrov, 1980–85
- Yevgeny Ivanovsky, 1985–89
- Valentin Varennikov, January 1989 until 30 August 1991
- Vladimir Semyonov became Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces on 31 August 1991, and remained in that post until 30 November 1996.
See also
- Formations of the Soviet Army
- Military history of the Soviet Union
- Military ranks of the Soviet Union
Notes
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i International Institute for Strategic Studies 1991, p. 37.
- ISBN 978-1-84908-635-6.
- ^ Established by decree on 15 (28) January 1918 "to protect the population, territorial integrity and civil liberties in the territory of the Soviet state."
- ^ Suvorov 1982, p. 51.
- ^ Urban 1985.
- ^ Feskov et al 2013, pp. 146, 147.
- ^ a b c Feskov et al 2013, p. 119.
- JSTOR 1888505.
- ^ Scott & Scott 1979, p. 142.
- ^ Kormiltsev, Nikolai (2005). "The main command of the Ground Forces: history and modernity". Military History. No. 7. pp. 3–8.
- ^ Tsouras 1994, pp. 121, 172.
- ^ a b Odom 1998, p. 39.
- ^ a b Scott & Scott 1979, p. 176.
- ^ Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – Land Forces, Agency Voeninform of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation (2007) p. 14
- ^ Feskov et al 2013, p. 99.
- ^ Zickel & Keefe 1991, p. 705.
- ^ Scott & Scott 1979, p. 305.
- ^ Odom 1998, pp. 47–48, 286–289.
- ^ Odom 1998, pp. 290–291.
- ^ Odom 1998, p. 48.
- ^ Orr 2003, p. 1.
- ^ Defense Intelligence Agency (6 September 1983). "Warsaw Pact: Division Categorization DIA IAPPR 102-83". United States: Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
- ^ International Institute for Strategic Studies 1987, p. 34.
- ^ Feskov et al 2013, p. 90.
- ^ Holm, Michael (1 January 2015). "High Command of the Far East". Soviet Armed Forces 1945-1991: Organisation and Order of Battle. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
- ^ Feskov et al 2013, pp. 91–93.
- ^ Feskov et al 2004, p. 21.
- ^ Suvorov 1982, p. 36.
- ^ Odom 1998, p. 69.
- ^ Odom 1998, p. 72–80.
- ^ Parallel History Project, and the documentation on the associated Polish exercise, Seven Days to the River Rhine, 1979.[full citation needed] See also Heuser, Beatrice, "Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 1970s and 1980s: Findings in the East German Archives", Comparative Strategy, October–December 1993, pp. 437–457
- OCLC 605327300.
- ^ "Cable No. 121973, Meretskov and Shytkov to Cde. Stalin". Retrieved 20 April 2023 – via Wilson Center Digital Archive.
- ^ "Ciphered Telegram No. 9849, Gromyko to the Soviet Ambassador, Pyongyang". Retrieved 20 April 2023 – via Wilson Center Digital Archive.
- ISBN 978-0-15-193636-6.
- ^ "Soviet Involvement in the Vietnam War". historicaltextarchive.com. Associated Press.
- ISBN 978-0-89141-421-6.
- ^ "Soviet rocketeer: After our arrival in Vietnam, American pilots refused to fly" (in Russian). rus.ruvr. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
- ^ a b c d Pribbenow, Merle (December 2014). "The Soviet-Vietnamese Intelligence Relationship during the Vietnam War: Cooperation and Conflict" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 April 2019. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
- OCLC 1258040790.
- PMID 12317412.
- ISBN 978-2-7384-3525-5.
- ^ Bennett, Andrew (1999). "A bitter harvest: Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its effects on Afghan political movements" (PDF). Penn State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2007. Retrieved 4 February 2007.
- ^ ISBN 9781845112578. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
- ^ "Timeline: Soviet war in Afghanistan". BBC News. 17 February 2009. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
- ^ "How Soviet troops stormed Kabul palace". BBC News. 27 December 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
- ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
- OCLC 28798156.
- ^ "The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan" (PDF). United States: Central Intelligence Agency.
- ^ Konovalov, Valerii. "Afghan Veterans in Siberia". Radio Liberty Report on the USSR. 1 (#21).
- ^ Schofield 1991, pp. 236–237.
- ^ Odom 1998, pp. 273–278.
- ^ Odom 1998, p. 278.
- ^ Odom 1998, p. 161.
- ^ Odom 1998, pp. 305–346.
- ^ International Institute for Strategic Studies 1992, pp. 72, 86, 96.
- ^ Matlock 1995.
- ^ a b c Hamm 2011.
- ^ Lee, Rensselaer (1999) Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union and Europe. New York: St. Martin's Press, cited in Hamm, Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups, 2011, p8.
- ^ Killicoat, Phillip (April 2007). "Post-Conflict Transitions Working Paper No. 10.: Weaponomics: The Global Market for Assault Rifles" (PDF). World Bank. Oxford University. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 July 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2010.
- ISBN 978-1-58160-069-8
- ^ Zickel & Keefe 1991, p. 708.
- SIPRI (December 1992). "Post Cold War Security in and for Europe"(PDF). Retrieved 25 August 2020.
Bibliography
- Feskov, V.I.; K.A. Kalashnikov; V.I. Golikov (2004). The Soviet Army in the Years of the 'Cold War' (1945–1991). ISBN 5-7511-1819-7.
- Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, V.I.; Kalashnikov, K.A.; Slugin, S.A. (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской [The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN 9785895035306.
- Hamm (2011). "Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research and Prevention | Office of Justice Programs". www.ojp.gov. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
- Heuser, Beatrice, 'Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 1970s and 1980s: Findings in the East German Archives,' Comparative Strategy, October–December 1993, pp. 437–457.
- International Institute for Strategic Studies (1992). The Military Balance 1992–93. Tavistock Street, London: Brassey's for the IISS.
- International Institute for Strategic Studies (1991). The Military Balance 1991-92. Tavistock Street, London: ISBN 0-08-041324-2.
- International Institute for Strategic Studies (1987). The Military Balance 1987-88. Tavistock Street, London: Brassey's for the IISS.
- Isby, David C. (1988). Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army. Jane's Publishing Company.
- ISBN 978-0-679-41376-9.
- Odom, William E. (1998). The Collapse of the Soviet Military. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
- Orr, Michael (2003). The Russian Ground Forces and Reform 1992–2002 (Report). Conflict Studies Research Centre. D67. Archived from the original on 19 December 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
- Schofield, Carey (1993). The Russian Elite: inside Spetsnaz and the Airborne Forces. Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal, Limited. ISBN 9781853671555.
- Schofield, Carey (1991). Inside the Soviet Army. London: Headline Book Publishing PLC. ISBN 0-7472-0418-7.
- Scott, Harriet Fast; Scott, William Fontaine (1979). The armed forces of the USSR. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-89158-276-2.
- Suvorov, Viktor (1982). Inside the Soviet Army. MacMillan.
- Tsouras, Peter G. (1994). Changing Orders: The Evolution of the World's Armies, 1945 to the Present. New York: Facts on File.
- Tsouras, Vladyslav B. (2024). Red Alert: Structure of Soviet Infantry Regiment. New York: Safar Publishing on File.
- ISBN 978-0-7110-1442-8.
- Zickel, Raymond E; Keefe, Eugene K (1991). Soviet Union: a country study. Washington, D.C.: Library Of Congress. Federal Research Division. For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O.
Further reading
- Roy Allison, "Military Forces in the Soviet Successor States," International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1993.
- Durie, William (2012). The British Garrison Berlin 1945 - 1994: nowhere to go ... a pictorial historiography of the British Military occupation / presence in Berlin. Berlin: Vergangenheitsverlag (OCLC 978161722.
- David M. Glantz (2010) The Development of the Soviet and Russian Armies in Context, 1946–2008: A Chronological and Topical Outline, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Volume 23, No.1, 2010, 27–235, DOI: 10.1080/13518040903578429. This chronological and topical outline describes the institutional and doctrinal evolution of the Soviet and Russian Armies from 1946 through 2009 within the broad context of vital political, economic, and social developments and a wide range of important international and national occurrences. Its intent is to foster further informed discussion of the subject. Each of the article's sub-sections portrays military developments in the Soviet or Russian Armies during one of the eight postwar periods Soviet and Russian military scholars, themselves, routinely identify as distinct stages in the development and evolution of their Armed Forces.
- Andrei Grechko (1977). The Armed Forces of the Soviet Union. English-language Soviet book put out by Progress Publishers.
- A.Y. Kheml (1972). Education of the Soviet Soldier: Party-Political Work in the Soviet Armed Forces. English-language Soviet book put out by Progress Publishers.
External links
- Central Intelligence Agency (November 1982). "The Readiness of Soviet Ground Forces, Interagency Intelligence Memorandum 82-10012" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 January 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
- Soviet Army rank insignia
- A Safeguard of Peace. Soviet Armed Forces: History, Foundations, Mission
- Soviet Armed Forces 1945–1991
- WW2 Soviet Army tank crew uniform and insignia