Vasily Gerasimov, Senior Scientist of the Military History Department of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia
This year the president signed an order on celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Air Forces. But the date was chosen figuratively. We mark the 100th anniversary of the Air Forces just like we marked the 400th anniversary of the fleet in its time. The date is the day of the signing of order 397 on the War Department in August 1912, according to which aeronautic troops were established in the Head Department of the General Staff. It is clear that the Air Forces couldn’t be formed suddenly, but this date is its rise. The time limits of the first period are 1912-1920. To be more precise, the second period began on March 25, 1920. On this day the corresponding order was signed by the Revolutionary Military Council: “All aviation, aeronautic and hydro-aviation affairs should be united under a common command.” The common command was the Head Department of Workers’ and Peasant’s Red Air Fleet. In the period from 1920 to 1940 there was an absolutely different approach to construction of aircraft. The process was not chaotic anymore. Special orders of certain organizations were fulfilled. Previously, there had been the principle “we need something we can get,” after which another principle appeared – “things that are needed for defense of the country are needed for the country’s life.”
The third period – from 1940 to 1960 – is characterized by the Great Patriotic War, where our aviation travelled a difficult path, but saved its face in the war. Aviation was developing under the slogan “Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory!” In the early post-war years the state spent great sums on development of aviation. In the early 1950s jet aviation appeared in our country.
The fourth period of Air Forces development was 1960-1991. This was the period of the most rapid development of aviation in our country. Quality aircraft were created, which fulfilled the requirements of that time. In this period, aviation was divided into long-range aviation, military transport aviation and front aviation.
The fifth period began after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ended, in my opinion, in 2008. This period is characterized by a significant decrease in the number of Russian aircraft and by constant changes in aviation management structures, troops, as well as by the combination and uniting of the Air Forces. Moreover, one significant event happened in this period – before 1997 we had a five-branch structure of the Armed Forces, the Air Forces were a separate branch and Air Defense was another separate branch. In 1997 there was unification: one branch called the Air Forces appeared on the basis of two branches. Since that time, the Air Forces exist in this format, and aviation became a part of the Air Forces.
As far as I remember, the Air Forces has not, but Sea Aviation still has one regiment which is based on the heavy air-capable cruiser “Admiral of the Soviet Union Fleet Kuznetsov,” it is the 279 Separate Ship Fighter Wing, and it remains as a regiment. But in general there is a basic system, they shifted to air bases. In the future, the Air Forces’ aviation armament systems will include air complexes of the fourth generation, modernized air complexes 4+, 4++ b air complexes of the fifth generation. At the moment the aircraft Su-24 is replacing the Su-24m.
Alexander Khramchikhin, Deputy Director of the Political and Military Analysis Institute
The Armed Forces in general and the Air Forces in particular exist for resistance to external threat. That is why it is pointless to consider them independently from other countries. Everything is comparative, and comparison should be carried out against other countries. Of course, first of all, we should consider NATO as a main subject for comparison. Many conflicts in 20 years show us that aviation is of high importance in the West. Aviation became the leading branch of the armed forces, and all wars are determined by aviation. Moreover, today 28 countries are included in NATO, while 20 years ago there were only 16 countries. 20 years ago the USA had more war-planes than NATO has today. It means the process of aviation reduction was no less intensive than it was in our country. The interesting thing is that NATO has more old aircrafts than we do. For example, ther Phantom which was shot down by the Syrians about a month ago was 40 years old. The majority of Turkish aircraft are old. Even in the United States (of course they have the most powerful, modern and high-tech Air Forces in the world; their main power is high-accuracy armaments and network-centric warfare) the average age of war-planes is the oldest for the whole history of their existence. Therefore, the Americans face serious problems of Air Forces modernization. Great sums of money are needed for that. Furthermore, they experience serious technological problems with their aircraft of the fifth generation, the F-22 and F-35. This is an important lesson for us, because our T-50 fighter is considered to be our pride, but it is unknown whether the concept is right. I.e. the American experience doesn’t provide us with optimism.
European Air Forces have decreased to insignificant amounts, and the Libyan operation confirmed it. Europe could provide only 100 aircraft for this operation, and they had a tough time. High-accuracy armaments seem to be a very nice and effective thing, but practice shows that their effectiveness is dubious. A very expensive missile or controlled munitions strike the target, for example, a tank or an arsenal from 1970, which are cheaper than the missile which attacked them. It is a dubious way of conducting military operations. We saw how Denmark’s Air Forces exhausted all their munitions in three months, even though they sent only six aircrafts for the Libyan operation.
Today everybody is waiting for NATO intervention in Syria. Intervention won’t happen, if the Armed Forces of Syria don’t collapse internally. Syria has a very powerful missile defense system, and the Air Forces of NATO are not ready to fight against it, especially considering the fact they have used so many munitions in Libya. We should look and learn, because it is said we are turning to high-accuracy munitions as well. Is this reasonable? We need a combination of this and that, i.e. high-accuracy munitions should be used in priority directions, while old armaments can be effective in other directions.
At the same time, there is a country neighboring us, and its Air Forces are developing rapidly. And we support this development. In the early 1990s we helped China to skip a generation of aviation development by selling them Su-27s, at first planes and then the license for production. Later, they started to produce them without a license, because China copies everything from everywhere and thinks it is alright. China has robbed not only us. The country is developing its Air Forces in quality and quantity. The West sacrificed quantity in favor of quality, and it led to great problems, but China combines both parameters. They are increasing military power, even though they still cannot produce engines and have to buy them in Russia. However, they are quick to eliminate these obstacles. In this case, comparison is not in favor of Russia. According to the amount of heavy fighter aircrafts, China is the leader in the world, they beat both us and the US.
