[dragoon500ly]

There is a joke from a Russian military magazine that goes along the lines of...

It is after World War III has ended and two Russian tank generals met on the streets of Paris. After exchanging greetings, one asks the other if he has heard who has won the Air War. The second general shrugs and answers that he didn't know as the Air Forces were still fighting.

The Soviets recognize that air power is important, but their current doctrine stress that, at best, the skies will be neutral, neither side holding air superiority. Because of the threat from the air, the Soviets organize their air defense by four guiding principles:

Mass: Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) and surface to air missiles (SAM) are provided at all levels of command and on a scale greater than any other military.

Mix: This is achieved by the issue of complementary weapons systems, the different types providing air defense in spite of countermeasures reducing the efectiveness of any single system.

Mobility: This is intregal to the designs themselves, even static systems such as the SA-2 and SA-3 can be moved to new positions within four hours.

Integration: Air defense forces are integrated throughout the Red Army from forward area SAM brigades to the platoon's SA-7 launcher.

While the Soviets have a strong ADA doctrine, they realize that if attacking aircraft have the determination to press on, take their losses and attack their targets, all ADA can do is to make it more costly, more difficult and more time-consuming for the attacker to accomplish his mission. They don;t have to destroy enemy aircraft, all they need to do is reduce the effectiveness of enemy aircraft for the first, crucial days of the war.

By 1972, Hanoi was defended by 6,000 AAA guns (three times the number that defended Berlin), supplemented by 156 SA-2 launchers with stockpiles large enough to enable the firing of 100 missiles simultaneously. This mass of ADA was still not enough to prevent US aircraft from breaking their barrier and bombing the targets in Hanoi. It took five days to do so and it required that 50% of the US sorties flown be for air defense suppression. Thats half of all air attacks being delivered on emplaced defences and not being used on more productive targets.

In the long run, modern aircraft with effective ECM and creative tactics can defeat the Soviet air defense system. The Soviet concept of the short, victorious war is intended to deprive NATO of that long run.

The PVO-Strany (Soviet Air Defence of the Motherland) still fields large numbers of antiaircraft guns of the 130mm, 100mm and 85mm variety. Although these are being phased out and replaced by SAMs, they are still in reserve stockpiles, ready for use.

KS-30 130mm AA gun. Weighs 24,900kg in firing position. Sustained rate of fire is 12rpm. Max Altitude is 22,000m and effective range is 16,500m. It can throw a Frag-HE round weighing in at 22.4kg. Crew requirement is 11 men.

KS-19M2 100mm AA Gun. In the firing position, it weighs 11,000kg. Rate of fire is 20rpm. Max Altitude is 14,500m and the effective range is 11,900m. Its Frag-HE round weighs 15.7kg and it requires a crew of 9 men.

KS-18 85mm AA Gun. Weighs 4,986kg in firing order. Rate of fire is 20rpm. Max altitude is 12,300m and effective range is 8,380m. Its Frag-HE round weighs 9.75kg. Crew requirement is 7 men.

S-60 57mm AA Gun. Weighs 4,600kg in firing order. Rate of fire is 70rpm. Maximum altitude is 8,800m and effective range is 4,000m (optical control) or 6,000m (radar control). Its HEI round weighs 2.8kg. It requires a crew of 7 men and it has a basic load of 200 rounds in 4-round clips.

ZSU-57-2 SP AA Gun. A modified T-54 chassis that mounts two S-60 guns provided with optical fire control. A outdated design that is being replaced with SAMs. Considered to be a failure as a design due to inadequate sights. Mostly sold to various Third World countries.

M-39 37mm AA Gun. Weighs 2,100kg in firing order. Rate of fire is 80rpm. Maximum altitude is 6,000m and effective range is 3,000m. Its Frag-HE round weighs 0.74kg. It requires a crew of 8 men. Its ammuniton comes in 5-round clips and two can be held in the weapon at any time. It has a basic load of 400 rounds. Experience in Vietnam shows that it needs up to 3 37mm hits to destroy an F-4 Phantom.

ZU-23-2 AA Gun. A towed mount with dual AZP-23 cannons. It weighs 893kg in firing position. Rate of fire is 200rpm per barrel. Maximum altitude is 5,100m and effective range is 2,500m. Its HEI round weighs 0.19kg, it also comes with a API round weighing 0.19kg. Ammunition is via a box magazine holding a 50-round belt, usually loaded with one round of API for every three HEI. Crew requirement is 5 men. Basic Load is 600 rounds.

ZU-23-4 SP AA Gun. The standard AA weapon of the Red Army, each regiment has a AA platoon of four of these weapons. The vehicle (a development of the PT-76 tank) weighs 14,000kg. Has a road speed of 45km/h, a road range of 260km. It mounts 2 dual AZP-23 cannon mounts and carries a basic load of 2,000 rounds. Crew is 4. It also mounts a "Gun Dish" radar for fire-control. The Gun Dish is stablized and the "Zoo" can fire on the move, but with degraded accuracy. The Gun Dish is also fitted with a moving target indicator which assists in picking out aircraft from non-moving backgrounds, such as chaff, jamming and ground clutter. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Zoos were responsible for the destruction of 30 Israeli aircraft, lost in making low level attacks on Arab units or when driven into the Zoos engagement zone while evading SA-6s, a perfect example of the principle of mix. The 23mm round is not very lethal, requiring an average of 16 hits to destroy a F-4 Phantom.

ZPU-4, ZPU-2, ZPU-1 AA Guns. These are respectively, the quad, twin and single mounts of the basic KPV 14.5mm heavy machine gun. The ZPU-4 weighs 1,810kg in firing position. Rate of fire is 150rpm per barrel. Maximum altitude is 5,000m and effective range is 1,400m. Ammunition is API and HEI (0.065kg). Crew is 5 men. The machine gun is fed from a 150 round belt in a drum magazine. Unit of fire is 4,800 rounds. The ZPU is considered to be a very effective weapon. The larger weapons are cumbersome, and easier to spot and destroy, so much so that many experts consider the ZPU to be far more deadly than the Zoo. The ZPU can be dismantled and man-packed, permitting effective antiaircraft ambushes to be set up.