Soviet & Russian Airborne Forces Combat Vehicles

The Soviet Union was a pioneer in the formation of airborne forces, with the first airborne brigade formed as early as 1932 and Soviet military exercises in 1935 already practicing the air-landing of heavy support vehicles and armament. During the Second World War Soviet airborne operations were limited, but with high losses due to ground dispersal and a lack of heavy support weapons against enemy ground forces equipped with armoured vehicles. The Soviet military determined based on wartime combat experience that airborne forces required integral armoured firepower support, with the first specialised prototype armoured vehicles specifically designed for airborne forces being developed before the end of the war. In the immediate post-war era, specialised armoured vehicles began to be introduced into Soviet airborne divisions, primarily as tank destroyers, with the initial lead in such work being taken by Plant No. 40 in Mytischi under the direction of the light tank designer N.A. Astrov. As a direct result of the combination of pre-war experiments and wartime combat experience, Soviet airborne forces during the Cold War became the most heavily armed and equipped airborne forces in the world, with specialised armoured vehicles and artillery that could be air-landed or parachute dropped. After a hiatus in the 1990s following the break-up of the Soviet Union, specialised airborne vehicle development continued in the Russian Federation, such that the modern Russian airborne forces still retain the Soviet era accolade of being the most heavily armed airborne forces in the world. This is the story of these specialised vehicle developments, written entirely from original sources. AUTHOR: James Kinnear was born in Scotland and graduated from Aberdeen University in 1982. He first visited the Soviet Union as a young teenager during the Cold War era and subsequently lived and worked in the Russian Federation and the other former Soviet republics throughout the three decades that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union. James has written hundreds of articles on Soviet and Russian military technology for the usual defence analysis suspects, and has published books on the subject with Barbarossa, Canfora, Darlington, Osprey and Tankograd. 160 b/w photos, 100 colour photos, 2 tables