When the Second World War ended in 1945 the Soviets had numerous
conventional anti-aircraft guns and piston engine fighters in service
but with the rapid advances of aviation technology much of this was
facing obsolescence. Worse, the war-ravaged country was facing new
challenges as the end of the war did not bring a time of universal peace
but instead a new rivalry with the West in a Cold War, which could at
any time turn hot both figuratively and literally. Western competitors
for world domination, primarily the United States, could boast a huge
bomber fleet capable of delivering devastating nuclear strikes.
Developing and fielding technologically and qualitatively new
ground-based defenses and fighter aircraft became a most urgent
imperative and in a relatively short time remarkable progress was
achieved in these fields. Guided surface-to-air missiles were developed
and fielded, and jet powered fighters entered service, their performance
ever improving from high-subsonic to supersonic speeds. Similar advances
were made in the fields of air-to air armaments and detection and early
warning technology.
While nuclear-armed Western bombers never appeared in the skies over the
Soviet Union numerous foreign reconnaissance aircraft did. Thus, the
Soviet air defense arsenal was tested many times in actual combat
against actual and perceived violators of their airspace and other
challengers, in which the Soviet air defenses experienced both
embarrassing defeats and exhilarating victories. Relegated to dusty
files, the story of Soviet air defenses in arguably the hottest period
of direct US-Soviet Cold War confrontation.
Volume 1 of Defending Rodinu examines the development of the Soviet
air defense forces from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War
up until 1960. It looks at the development of dedicated interceptor
aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and the radar network needed to
support these, along with a detailed history of the attempts, successful
and otherwise, to intercept and destroy Western aerial intruders.