In the pre-war years, the management of air defense fighter aircraft (air defense IA) and the organization of its interaction with other branches of the military, including anti-aircraft artillery, were, to put it mildly, not at the proper height. Air units were given combat orders, often without information about the missions of anti-aircraft artillery. During the day, the fighters were guided at the targets with the help of arrows laid out on the ground, showing the direction of the flying "enemy" planes. In clear weather, these arrows were distinguishable from heights of about 5000 m, and fighter pilots, guided by them, undertook a search for "enemy" aircraft. In the dark, guidance was carried out with missiles, tracer bullets, and target illumination with searchlights.
Worldwide trends, the qualitative development of Soviet aviation, its rearmament on the eve of the war with new, more high-speed aircraft, demanded the equipping of new machines with transceiver radio stations. But not all planes had them during this period. On fighters of old designs, there were no radio stations at all. A complete radio was installed on the planes of squadron commanders (one radio for 15 vehicles); the rest were equipped with only receivers. Due to the lack of two-way communication with the pilots, the commanders did not have time to direct the fighters to the targets in time.
In the first months of the war, the main methods of guidance remained the same as before the war. Only by the end of the autumn of 1941, radio communications began to gain a strong place in the air defense aviation units. The foundation was also laid for the creation of a qualitatively new fighter guidance system based on the principle of radar. It took shape gradually, on the basis of the arrival of new equipment in the troops and on the basis of the combat experience gained by fighter aircraft and other types of air defense forces in the course of a fierce struggle with the German Air Force. As early as July 8, 1941, the command of the Moscow air defense zone issued a special instruction "On the work of the VNOS posts". The instructions required that the VNOS posts not only detect enemy aircraft in a timely manner, but also determine their number, course and type, and promptly transmit these data to the Main VNOS post and command post of the regiments of the 6th Air Defense Fighter Air Corps. This document summarized the results of the first battles and played a well-known role in improving the guidance of air defense fighters on targets.
On July 9, 1941, the State Defense Committee adopted a decree "On the air defense of Moscow", which, among other things, provided for an increase in VNOS posts, radar stations and fighter aircraft of the latest designs equipped with transceiver radio stations. In accordance with this decree, more than 700 VNOS posts were deployed by the end of July. (On June 22, 1941, in the 1st Air Defense Corps, which guarded the sky of the capital, there were 580 VNOS posts.) In Mozhaisk, the RUS-2 radar unit was commissioned, which managed to play an important role during the defense of the capital, when, due to the approach of the front to Moscow the depth of the network of VNOS posts has decreased. By October 1941, 8 such stations had already been deployed. For six months of hostilities, they recorded and carried out more than 8,700 aerial targets.
In the Moscow air defense zone, important measures were taken to increase the reliability of control of Soviet fighters in the air. On the most probable flight directions of enemy aircraft, the VNOS system had special posts equipped with radio stations. The command posts of the 6th Iak Air Defense and its regiments were connected with them by direct telephone communication. In the areas of Klin and Serpukhov, there were radar stations RUS-2, for each of which an observation sector was allocated. Operationally, the stations were subordinated to the commanders of the aviation regiments, who, with their help, guided the fighters to the targets. An instruction was issued to improve the organization of guidance and control of the aircraft, which formed the basis for the combat control of fighters in the Moscow air defense zone.
On October 1, 1942, the State Defense Committee issued a decree "On improving the training of fighter pilots and the quality of fighter aircraft." This decree provided for the introduction of some improvements in the design and equipment of production aircraft of that time - Yak-1, Yak-7, LaGG-3, La-5 and required the installation of transmitting radio stations on every second aircraft produced by the aviation industry.
The command of the country's Air Defense Forces also paid great attention to improving the guidance system. It attached great importance to the use for these purposes of the nationwide wire communications network and to the improvement of the work of all types of radio communications. On November 22, 1941, the commander of the country's Air Defense Forces, Major General M. S. Gromadin issued an order "On streamlining the notification of an air enemy on the territory of the country", requiring "to revise as soon as possible the existing (develop anew) warning schemes for an air enemy throughout the territory of air defense zones and areas, including notification of neighbors in them, and in the front-line areas organize mutual notification with the headquarters of the fronts and armies. " Following this order, warning schemes were developed in all air defense zones and areas, taking into account the redeployment of anti-aircraft and aviation units.
Company and battalion radio stations began to be used more widely and effectively. For example, in the Cherepovets-Vologda Air Defense Divisional District, which provided cover for the Northern Railway, the Mariinsky Water System and industrial and economic facilities in the Vologda Oblast, as indicated in one of the orders for 148 over the Air Defense, special attention of commanders and staffs was drawn “to a clear operation of radio facilities, widespread use of radio network and battalion posts of VNOS”. Thanks to this, the pilots of the division began to better perform their assigned combat missions. Of fundamental importance for the development of the guidance system was the directive of the Commander of the Air Defense Forces of November 14, 1942 "On the immediate development and combat use of the Redut and Pegmatit radio detection stations for the purpose of guiding fighter aircraft to enemy aircraft."
The directive required the commanders of air defense areas and commanders of air formations to use "Redut" and "Pegmatite" as the main means of target designation and guidance of our fighters to targets. After receiving the directive in the units, more intensive work began on the use of radio detection stations. It was carried out especially actively in besieged Leningrad, where the specific situation of the blockade required the search for effective methods of controlling the fighter forces in the air. A group of officers from the headquarters of the 7th Iak Air Defense (later 2 Gliak Air Defense) under the leadership of Major General of Aviation N. D. Antonov, a centralized control system and flatbed guidance of fighters to air targets was developed and put into practice. The headquarters of the 7th IAC of the Air Defense used data from the Redut installation and ten SON-2s at its disposal, which served the anti-aircraft artillery regiments of the Leningrad Air Defense Army. The corps command post had a direct telephone connection with each Redut and SON-2 station. With the receipt of information from the Main post of VNOS about the detected target, the fighters were brought to readiness No. 1. At the same time, the targeting officer gave the command to the senior operator to turn on the Redut station and indicated the search sector. Having received data on air targets from the station's calculation, the operator plotted their course of movement on the tablet. The course of the fighters taking off to intercept was plotted on the tablet by the second operator. Observing the projection of the courses and controlling their correctness according to the additional information received from the Main post of VNOS and VNOS posts, the guidance officer gave radio commands to the fighters, trying to ensure that they meet the enemy at a certain point in the airspace.
The new guidance system allowed fighters to more successfully intercept enemy aircraft. In total, during the war years, pilots of 2 air defense gliac made 45395 sorties and shot down more than 900 enemy aircraft. So, in the air defense forces, covering Leningrad from fascist air raids, a method of centralized combat control and plane guidance of fighters on targets was developed and put into practice. Thanks to him, the reliability of the city's air defense and the effectiveness of each departure increased, the losses of German aviation increased.
At that time, the communication routes connecting the city with the rear of the country - water and ice communications and the railways that approached them - were of great importance for Leningrad, blocked from land. They were covered by the Osinovetsky and Svirsky air defense brigade areas in cooperation with IA 7 Iak Air Defense, the Air Force of the Leningrad Front and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. The fighters were controlled from the command post of units and guidance points, organized on the shore of Lake Ladoga. The entire coverage area was divided into zones, and the zones into sections. Each of them was marked by landmarks, clearly visible from the air. All this provided a more successful targeting of interceptors.
Radar stations were of great importance in the combat control of fighters while covering the Ladoga communications. In practice, it was proved that the information about enemy aircraft received from RUS-2 stations was so reliable and reliable that with a quick and correct decision to raise fighter aircraft to intercept, there was always an opportunity to meet the enemy at close approaches to the target.
The guidance system in the Murmansk air defense corps region had its own specific features: 122 IAD fighters were also guided at targets using radar, but according to previously developed radio signal tables and using landmarks on the ground. Alert about the enemy came from the crews of the VNOS posts and radar stations of the Murmansk Air Defense Corps Region. For a more efficient solution of guidance and interaction issues, officer 122 of the Air Defense IAD was stationed at the command post of anti-aircraft artillery 15. Thanks to the optimal use of the available guidance opportunities in the Arctic, the clear organization of the leadership of fighter aviation, the pilots of the 122 IAD Air Defense successfully performed the assigned tasks. During the war years, the division conducted 260 air battles and shot down 196 enemy aircraft.
In the summer of 1942, the German command launched a second general offensive. One of the greatest battles of the Second World War broke out. A certain role in its course was played by the troops of the Stalingrad Air Defense Corps Region and 102 air defense IADs, five regiments of which ensured the interception and destruction of enemy aircraft on the approaches to Stalingrad, covered Astrakhan and the communication routes within the air defense corps region.
The combat operations of the air defense IA were carried out in accordance with the ground and air situation. Initially, the air defense command's attempts to use the three Pegmatit stations installed in Kalach, Abganerov and Krasnoarmeysk in order to guide our fighters were unsuccessful due to delays in target designation data, which reached the performers with a delay. At the end of August, when the Germans approached directly to Stalingrad, the 102nd OR VNOS was operatively subordinate to the commander of the 102nd Air Defense IAD. From that time on, the Pegmatit stations began to successfully provide guidance for Soviet fighters. They were installed directly at field airfields, and their crews guided the aircraft to the targets in a timely manner. From July to December 1942, the division's pilots destroyed 330 enemy vehicles.
Radio and radio technical means were very actively and skillfully used in organizing the air defense of Baku. There were many specific features in the guidance process in Rybinsk-Yaroslavl, Kursk and other air defense areas. This experience, as well as the experience of the VA fighter aviation, was generalized. In the spring of 1944, the Air Force commander approved the instructions for the combat control of the IA. It outlined the principles of centralized control of fighters based on the use of radar stations.
By guiding fighters at targets with the help of radio and radio technical means, the commanders of air formations and air defense units began to more clearly direct the air battle, actively influence its course and outcome. At the same time, the capabilities of reliable and effective interception of enemy bombers from the "airfield watch" position were increased. If in 1943 the air defense IA made only 25% of all sorties from this position, then in 1944 it was already 58%. The efficiency and reliability of this method have fully justified themselves.
In June 1944, the Germans fired shells against England for the first time. The experience of the British air defense system showed that repelling shells was a difficult task. In England, human losses from cruise and ballistic missiles amounted to 53 thousand people. On the Eastern Front, where German troops suffered one defeat after another at that time, one could expect unmanned attacks on Leningrad and Murmansk. On July 19, 1944, the Military Artillery Council of the Red Army approved and sent to the air defense fronts "Preliminary instructions for the fight against missile aircraft." They contained the basic principles of organizing air defense of objects to repel unmanned means of attack, and made specific recommendations on the use of air defense systems against this new type of enemy weapon.
On the basis of these instructions, the command of the Leningrad Air Defense Army developed a plan to combat enemy aircraft-shells. In it, among other things, the commander of the 2nd Guards. Leningrad Air Defense IAC to Major General of Aviation N. D. Antonov was charged with the obligation "in the event of a methodical bombardment of Leningrad, to additionally send fighter planes to remote approaches to the waiting areas." To alert and target interceptors to targets, each unit was provided with the Pegmatit station.
The command and headquarters of the Leningrad Air Defense Army conducted several exercises to repel massive air raids by aircraft shells. Air defense pilots and anti-aircraft gunners successfully operated in these exercises. All Yak-9 aircraft, imitating the FAU-1, were promptly detected by radar equipment, intercepted by fighters, precisely aimed at the target. Not a single plane, conditionally acting for the enemy, managed to break through to Leningrad.
The other most likely target that could have come under attack from the FAU-1 was Murmansk, with its ice-free port. The use of projectile aircraft in this theater was only possible from submarines in the Barents Sea or from land using carrier aircraft. Taking into account these circumstances and the climatic specifics of the Arctic, the command of 122 air defense IADs developed a specific plan for the destruction of unmanned aircraft-projectiles.
Upon an alarm signal, the crews of 122 air defense IADs from readiness numbers one and two flew with a sharp climb to the zones set for each regiment: 767 iap - to zone number 1, 768 iap - to zone number 2, 769 iap - to zone number 3. Here, the crews echeloned in height, waiting for instructions from the command post of the division to destroy, at the approaches to Murmansk of aircraft-shells. For their better orientation, a guidance grid was developed. The area adjacent to the city was divided into 6 squares, which had coded numbers. To send to one or another square, a three-digit number was communicated to the pilot by radio. The command of the division conducted several training sorties for the pilots to master the new guidance system. The defeat of the Nazis in the Arctic in October 1944 ruled out the possibility of using UAVs in this theater of operations.
As you can see, the air defense fighter aircraft guidance system underwent serious qualitative changes during the war years. It was created gradually, on the basis of new equipment entering the troops and the combat experience gained. The basis of the guidance system was radio communication and radar. Yielding to the United States, Great Britain and Germany in the total number of radar stations in the troops, domestic models of radars were not inferior in their characteristics to the best world models and, in addition to detecting aircraft, could be successfully used in the interests of guidance. With their help, the air defense forces created and tested in practice a variety of methods for guiding fighter-interceptors to targets, which ultimately made it possible to create a system of centralized combat control and tablet guidance. This significantly increased the efficiency of the use of fighters. The principles of control and guidance of the air defense aircraft were also developed when repelling unmanned means of enemy attack. The forms and methods used for the guidance of air defense fighter aircraft fully justified themselves. During the hostilities, Soviet air defense pilots made 269,465 sorties and destroyed 4,168 enemy aircraft. This was a significant contribution to the common cause of defeating the enemy.
