Soviet Airborne Forces
The Soviet Airborne Forces or VDV (from Vozdushno-desantnye voyska SSSR, Russian: Воздушно-десантные войска СССР, ВДВ; Air-landing Forces) was a separate troops branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. First formed before the Second World War, the force undertook two significant airborne operations and a number of smaller jumps during the war and for many years after 1945 was the largest airborne force in the world.[1] The force was split after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the core becoming the Russian Airborne Forces, losing divisions to Belarus and Ukraine.
Soviet Airborne Forces
4 September 1941 – 14 February 1992
Soviet Union (1941–1991)
Commonwealth of Independent States (1991–1992)
January 1990 – 53,874
August 1991 – 77,036
Войска дяди Васи
(Uncle Vasya's Troops)
Никто, кроме нас!
(Nobody, but us!)
Gen. Vasily Margelov
Troops of the Soviet Airborne Forces traditionally wore a sky blue beret and blue-striped telnyashka and they were named desant (Russian: Десант) from the French Descente.[2]
The Soviet Airborne Forces were noted for their relatively large number of vehicles, specifically designed for airborne transport, as such, they traditionally had a larger complement of heavy weaponry than most contemporary airborne forces.[3]
The HQ 9th Guards Army was redesignated Headquarters Airborne Forces in June 1946 after the war ended.[16] The units of the army were removed from the order of battle of the Air Forces of the USSR and assigned directly to the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
In 1946 the force consisted of five corps (the 8th and 15th had been added) and ten divisions:[17]
In the summer of 1948, five more Guards Airborne Divisions were created. The 7th (Lithuania, 8th Airborne Corps), the 11th (activated 1 October 1948 in Ryazan, Moscow Oblast, from the 347th Guards Air Landing Regiment, 38th Airborne Corps),[19] the 13th Guards (at Galenki, Primorskiy Kray, with the 37th Airborne Corps), the 21st Guards (Estonia, Valga, with the 15th Airborne Corps), and the 31st Guards (Carpathians, 39th Airborne Corps). At the end of 1955 and the beginning of 1956 the 11th Guards, 21st, 100th and 114th Guards Airborne Divisions were disbanded as well as all the airborne corps headquarters.[17] The number of divisions, thus, decreased to 11. In April 1955 the transport aircraft were separated from the VDV and the Air Force Military Transport Aviation was created. In 1959 the 31st and 107th Guards Airborne Divisions were disbanded, but in October 1960 the 44th Training Airborne Division was formed. In 1964 the Soviet Airborne Forces were directly subordinated to the Ministry of Defence.
The creation of the post-war Soviet Airborne Forces owe much to the efforts of one man, Army General Vasily Margelov, so much so that the abbreviation of VDV in the Airborne Forces is sometimes waggishly interpreted as Войска дяди Васи or "Uncle Vasya's Forces".
Airborne units of two divisions (7th and 31st Guards) were used during Soviet operations in Hungary during 1956, and the 7th Guards division was used again during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The first experimental air assault brigade – the 1st Airborne Brigade – was apparently activated in 1967/1968 from parts of the 51st Guards Parachute Landing Regiment (PDP) (Tula), after the Soviets had been impressed by the American experiences in Vietnam War.[20][21] In 1973 the 13th and 99th Airborne Divisions were reorganised as air assault brigades, and thus the number of divisions dropped to eight.[17] There were also independent regiments and battalions. However, even by the 1980s only two divisions were capable of being deployed for combat operations in the first wave against NATO using Air Force Military Transport Aviation and Aeroflot aircraft.[22]
Airborne Forces Commander-in-Chief Vasily Margelov had the idea to introduce the Telnyashka blue-and-white striped shirt as a sign of elite status of the airborne troops. In 1970, the telnyashka became an official part of the uniform.[23]
In accordance with a directive of the General Staff, from August 3, 1979, to December 1, 1979, the 105th Guards Vienna Airborne Division was disbanded.[24] From the division remained in the city of Fergana the 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment (much stronger than the usual regimental size) with the separate 115th military-transport aviation squadron. The rest of the personnel of the division were reassigned to fill out other incomplete airborne units and formations and to the newly formed air assault brigades. Based on the division's 351st Guards Parachute Regiment, the 56th Guards Separate Air Assault Brigade was formed in Azadbash, (Chirchiq district) Tashkent Oblast, Uzbek SSR. Meanwhile, the 111th Guards Parachute Regiment became the 35th Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade.
However, there was also a mistaken Western belief, either intentional Soviet deception or stemming from confusion in the West, that an Airborne Division, reported as the 6th, was being maintained at Belogorsk in the Far East in the 1980s.[25] This maskirovka division was then 'disbanded' later in the 1980s, causing comment within Western professional journals that another division was likely to be reformed so that the Far East had an airborne presence.[26] The division was not listed in V.I. Feskov et al.'s The Soviet Army during the period of the Cold War, (2004) and the division at Belogorsk, the 98th Guards Airborne Svirskaya Red Banner Order of Kutuzov Division moved to Bolgrad in Ukraine in late 1969.[27]
The 103rd Guards Airborne Division, 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment and the 56th Air Assault Brigade fought in the Soviet–Afghan War.