The 11th Red Banner Air and Air Defence Forces Army (Russian: 11-я Краснознамённая армия ВВС и ПВО) is a formation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, located in the Russian Far East, whose zone of responsibility covers the Eastern Military District. The 11th Army Air Force and Air Defense Army was reformed within the Eastern Military District on 14 August 2015.[1]
The designation "11" for an aviation formation of this size in the Far East was introduced during the Second World War. In August 1942 the Air Forces of the 2nd Red Banner Army were redesignated the 11th Air Army. But this formation only last less than two and a half years, because in December 1944 the formation was reduced to the 18th Aviation Corps, which in June 1945 joined the 10th Air Army.
In April 1960 the designation "11" was taken up again by redesignation of the independent Far Eastern Air Defence Army. For decades thus the aviation forces in the area consisted of the 1st Air Army of the Air Forces, reformed on 1 July 1957 by merger of two existing armies when the higher command arrangements in the Far East were reorganised, and the 11th Air Defence Army of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. In 1998, six years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the two were merged into the 11th Air and Air Defence Forces Army, covering the Far Eastern Military District. Russian Naval Aviation also handed over a regiment of Mikoyan MiG-31interceptor aircraft on the Kamchatka Peninsula which was included in the new force.
The 11th Army of VVS and PVO was disbanded in 2009[2] by being redesignated the 3rd Air and Air Defence Forces Command. The army was reformed once again in 2015 from the command.
11th Independent Army of the Air Defence Forces[edit]
The army traces its lineage back to the formation of the Far Eastern Air Defence Zone on 11 August 1941. The zone was broken up in spring 1945 to form the Priamur and Primorsky Air Defence Armies. Postwar, in October, the Priamur Air Defense Army was renamed the Far Eastern Air Defence Army, and soon reorganized as the Far Eastern Air Defense District (okrug PVO) in 1946. The Far Eastern Air Defence District took over responsibility for air defence east of Lake Baikal, including the old sector of the Primorsky Air Defence Army. In a February 1949 reorganization, the Far Eastern Air Defense District (raion PVO) was formed as a raion of the 1st (okrug) category, and the headquarters of the former Far Eastern Air Defence District became that of the Komsomolsk-Khabarovsk Air Defense District (raion PVO). The Amur Air Defence Army, headquartered at Khabarovsk, was formed in December 1954 during PVO restructuring from the Komsomolsk-Khabarovsk Air Defense District and the 50th Fighter Aviation Corps PVO, merging anti-aircraft and interceptor units. The army was reorganized as the Independent Far Eastern Air Defence Army in December 1956, its responsibilities expanded with the takeover of air defense units previously under naval control. The army was numbered in March 1960 as the 11th Independent Air Defence Army (or 11th Army of the Air Defence Forces (11 OA PVO). The army was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on 30 April 1975. Under the Ogarkov reforms, the army headquarters was disbanded in May 1980 and its units placed under the air force and air defence forces of the Far Eastern Military District. These changes were reversed in May 1986 and the army headquarters reformed, receiving a new battle flag.[3]
During the Soviet period, the 11th Air Defence Army gained headlines due to the defection of Viktor Belenko in September 1976, and the KAL 007 shootdown in 1983. The KAL 007 shootdown occurred on 1 September 1983. After a protracted ground-controlled interception, three Su-15 fighters from Dolinsk-Sokol airbase and a MiG-23[4] from Smirnykh Air Base managed to make visual contact with the Boeing 747 and later shot it down.
In the late 1980s the 11th Independent Air Defence Army of the Voyska PVO, controlled two corps (23rd in Vladivostok & 8th in Komsomolsk) and four divisions (24th in Petropavlovsk, 29th in Blagoveshchensk, 6th in Okhotsk, and 25th in Chukotka) with 12 fighter aviation regiments (IAPs), 19 SAM brigades and regiments and ten radio-technical (radar) brigades/regiments.[5] The army underwent dramatic reductions during the 1990s, leaving it with only the 8th and 23rd Air Defence Corps. A 1990 reorganization eliminated the 24th and 25th Air Defence Division headquarters, with the units in Sakhalin and Chukotka coming directly under the 72nd Air Defence Corps, formed from the 6th Air Defence Division in Kamchatka. The corps reverted to the 6th Air Defense Division in 1994 when the last Chukotka air defense units were eliminated. The 29th Air Defence Division was eliminated in 1994.[3] By mid-1998, the 6th Air Defence Division was abolished after the last units in Sakhalin disbanded and its units became part of the new Aviation and Air Defence of the Joint Command of Troops and Forces in Northeast Russia.[6]
In 2001 the 8th and 23rd Air Defence Corps were renamed the 25th and 93rd Air Defence Divisions, respectively, and in 2009 became the 11th and 12th Aerospace Defence Brigades.
24th Air Defence Division was activated 5.60 in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Khomutovo), Sakhalin Oblast.
The 303rd Fighter Aviation Division fought with the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps of the Air Defence Forces during the Korean War, flying Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s, though it is not certain that the current 303rd Division is the same unit that fought during that war.[10] The 303rd Fighter Aviation Division fought during Operation Bagration, and included the Normandie-Niemen regiment for a period.
In 2007 the commanding officer was General-Lieutenant Valeriy Ivanov (equivalent to a major-general), former commander of the 1st Air Defence Corps.
18th Army Aviation Brigade (formerly 573rd Aviation Base of Army Aviation (Second Rank) (Bolshoy airfield (Khabarovsk-Tsentralny), Khaborovsk, Khaborovsk Krai))
^Roshcha, Sergey (6 May 2011). "Dali prostit'sya s Boyevym Znamenem" [Is goodbye to the battle flag]. Khabarovskiye Novosti (in Russian). Retrieved 5 July 2014.
^Feskov, V.I.; K.A. Kalashnikov; V.I. Golikov (2004). The Soviet Army in the Years of the 'Cold War' (1945-1991). Tomsk: Tomsk University Press. p. 157. ISBN5-7511-1819-7. As an IAD after the war had been relocated in Primorye. It consists of 2 regiments survived the war (18th Guards and the 523rd), Twin Cities famous French air regiment Normandie - Niemen". Was part of the 54th, then 1st VA. Participated in the Korean War, having in the More and 17th Regiment.)
Lensky, A.G.; Tsybin, M.M. (2015). Советские Войска ПВО в последние годы Союза ССР. Часть 3 [Soviet Air Defense Forces in the last years of the USSR: Part 3] (in Russian). St. Petersburg: Info Ol. OCLC861180616.
"11-ya Vozdushnaya Armiya" [11th Air Army]. samsv.narod.ru (in Russian). 7 May 2014. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
Order of the Red Banner
Armies of the Russian Armed Forces
Armies of the Soviet Air Defence Forces
