After the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, N. S. Khrushchev, then General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, wanted to improve relations with Washington and was opposed to a new military clash with the United States in Southeast Asia. And only after his removal from power in 1964, serious changes took place in Soviet-Vietnamese relations, which contributed to the provision of urgent military assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). In fact, the American aggression was opposed by the Soviet Union with its scientific and technical potential and new types of weapons.
In 1965, supplies of all the necessary weapons to the Vietnamese People's Army (VNA) began, mainly for the air defense forces (Air Defense). The DRV supplied such types of military equipment as the SA-75M Dvina anti-aircraft missile systems, MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters, Il-28 bombers, Il-14 and Li-2 transports, anti-aircraft artillery, radar stations, communications equipment, etc. In total, during the war, 82 SA-75M Dvina air defense systems and 21 TDN SA-75M missiles, and 8055 B-750 missiles were sent to Vietnam. Along with the supply of equipment in Soviet military educational institutions, accelerated training of Vietnamese pilots began. And the future VNA rocket officers studied at the Military Academy of Communications named after S. M. Budyonny in Leningrad.
Our assistance to the DRV consisted in demonstrating the combat use of our equipment in the shortest possible time and preparing the personnel so that they could not only work on it, but also independently repair it in case of failure. So, for the entire period from 1965 to 1974. 6359 generals and officers and more than 4500 conscript soldiers and sergeants were sent to the DRV as Soviet military specialists (SVS). They went on a business trip in civilian clothes and without documents left for storage at the embassy. They sent those who knew this technique perfectly and had experience in launching missiles at the range. There were even former front-line soldiers among them.
By that time, all over Vietnam, the main roads had already been broken, craters were visible everywhere after the bombing. Our specialists had to share with the Vietnamese all the hardships and deprivations of the combat situation. We worked together, sparing no effort, and sometimes our own health. At the very beginning of acclimatization, the heat was especially difficult for everyone. But even with the absence of heat due to the moisture hanging in the air, everyone walked wet. After a short time, something like malaria or fever began among the newly arrived specialists. Many suffered from high fever and severe headaches for 3-4 days. Due to illness, all the work and training were slightly delayed, but the doctors were able to quickly put everyone on their feet.
The problem of training was the lack of educational literature on our technique. The language barrier hindered my understanding of complex terms. Classes were held under sheds covered with palm leaves, erected directly on the positions. Instead of desks and chairs, the cadets sat on mats, writing with pencils and pens in their notebooks everything they were taught by SHS. They had to be easy to operate with the equipment in the cabin of the air defense missile system, to remember the purpose of all buttons and toggle switches of the control panel, to correctly recognize the marks of targets on the locator screen. Round the clock, they stubbornly analyzed technical schemes and mastered complex formulas, although the majority of students had a level of education not exceeding four or seven grades.
The combat crew of the SA-75M air defense missile system could be divided into 80 Vietnamese and 7 of our specialists in terms of numerical strength. For about a month, Soviet specialists themselves sat at the panels of anti-aircraft missile technology, and the Vietnamese were nearby and, recording all our actions, they were gaining their own combat experience. Do as I do has proven to be the most effective way to learn. Then the Vietnamese were transferred to the consoles, and the task of the SVS was to insure all actions, standing behind the backs of the VNA comrades. After each battle, the entire personnel gathered to conduct a "debriefing" and the corresponding conclusions. After 3-4 months of training, a group of our specialists moved to the next division, and everything was repeated from the beginning. And sometimes I had to teach right on the battlefield, during the constant American air raids. Workers of the war, ordinary Soviet guys far from their homeland, fought on their own and taught the military craft of their Vietnamese comrades. But the Vietnamese showed perseverance in their studies and were eager to beat the enemy on their own.
A typical Vietnamese village is a scattered mess of peasant huts shaded by banana trees and palms. Several pillars with beams and light wicker bamboo walls, one of which is open during the day. The roof is covered with palm leaves or rice straw. In such huts, which ours called "bungalows", lived 4-5 people. From furniture - a folding bed and a bedside table, instead of lighting they used Chinese lanterns. For shelter during bombing - container No. 2 dug into the ground (packing from the wings and rocket stabilizers). You can shove five of us into it to survive the bombing. From a buried cap from container No. 1 (packaging from the second stage of the rocket), they built a field bathhouse in Vietnamese. The muddy water from the rice fields was first defended, then heated in a cauldron, and then the soldiers steamed in this impromptu bath upon arrival from the position. I had to be treated for prickly heat and diaper rash with baby powder mixed in half with streptocide, and even the Chinese "tiger ointment for all diseases at once" was used.
Due to the unbearable heat and very high humidity, all of our specialists were at their positions in only shorts, only a cork helmet on their heads, and in their hand an invariable flask with tea. The helmets were left on the bus, which brought them to the position. At night, the wailing frogs did not let sleep. Everyone slept under homemade gauze canopies that protected them from numerous mosquitoes. I was also harassed by various tropical animals, poisonous centipedes, snakes, etc. There were cases when especially seriously ill patients were taken to the Union for treatment.
Depending on the season, the diet consisted of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers) and fruits (bananas, tangerines, grapefruits, oranges, pineapples, lemons). Sometimes the fighters were pampered with the fruits of breadfruit or mango. The main product was rice (with pebbles). Sometimes potatoes and cabbage. The garnish included canned food, meat of aged chickens, rarely pork and a variety of fish dishes. One could only dream of black bread and herring. The peasants came, and with the words "May bye mi gett!" ("American airplane is over!") They gave their best food.
Often, the combat positions for the air defense missile systems did not have time to properly prepare, and they had to deploy in small areas among rice fields, on the outskirts of villages, on rocky mountain slopes, and sometimes right on the site of the foundations of houses smashed by bombs. The positions were mostly masked by lush tropical vegetation. Around the PU, if possible, an embankment embankment was built, and temporary shelters were dug next to the cabins. Residents of nearby villages helped in equipping the positions. Peasants dug trenches right on the cultivated field for themselves and the children who were with them in order to hide from cluster bombs. Even all the women working in the fields had weapons with them. They had to work at night so that the position would go unnoticed by enemy reconnaissance. It often happened that the division was not fully deployed, but only three or four installations out of six. This made it possible for the calculations to fold faster than the standard time and change their location in a short time. ZRDN was constantly on the move. On the go, we were doing repairs, setting up equipment and checking systems. It was dangerous to remain in the "illuminated" position, since the enemy inflicted missile and bomb strikes on all detected positions. The fact that here quickly darkened with the sunset was only in the hands of the missilemen. They transferred the equipment to the stowed position, and under cover of night they hurried to change their place of deployment.
Bamboo "rockets"
And in the abandoned positions, the Vietnamese skillfully organized their false "missile positions". On ordinary carts, they put models of cabins and missiles, frames were made of split bamboo, covered with mats of rice straw and painted with lime. The "operator" in the shelter could set all this props in motion with the help of ropes. The bamboo rockets turned to mimic the Sync command. There were also false "antiaircraft batteries" located nearby, the trunks of which were replaced by thick bamboo poles painted with black paint. The illusion was complete. Weakly camouflaged, from a height they looked very similar to the real ones and served as an excellent bait for the enemy. Usually the next day a raid was made on the "position", but the enemy again lost aircraft, since the false positions were always covered with real anti-aircraft batteries.
At night, the powerful hum from the eight engines of the B-52 strategic bomber fills the entire space, coming from all directions, even across the ground. Suddenly, a fiery tornado and roar appears from the ground - it burns out in two and a half seconds six hundred kilograms of powder charge of a PRD rocket with a thrust of 50 tons, tearing the rocket off the launcher. The roar of the explosion bends to the ground. You feel that your whole head is trembling like an aspen leaf in the wind. The rockets pierce the night sky with fiery arrows. Discharge of the PRD and the red dots of the missiles are rapidly removed. Our complexes SA-75M "Dvina" were capable of shooting down targets at an altitude of up to 25 kilometers. Within forty minutes after the command "Hang up, hike!" the division managed to turn off the equipment and go into the jungle.
Anti-aircraft missile troops of the DRV, trained by the efforts of the SAF, shot down about 1,300 US Air Force aircraft, among which there were 54 B-52 bombers. They bombed the cities of North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was used to supply troops in the south of the country. From 1964 to 1965, the US Air Force carried out strikes with impunity from a great height, inaccessible to the fire of anti-aircraft batteries. Inflicting terrible destruction, they wanted to "bomb the Vietnamese people into the Stone Age." But after the first successful firing of Soviet missilemen, American pilots were forced to descend from a height of 3-5 km to a lower altitude of several hundred meters, where they immediately came under fire from barreled anti-aircraft artillery. I must say that the batteries of small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery reliably covered the air defense missile systems, and the missilemen, even having shot all the ammunition, remained under their protection. American pilots were so afraid of Soviet missiles that they refused to fly over North Vietnam, despite the double fee for each sortie. The zone where our air defense systems operated, they called "Zone-7", which meant "seven boards for the coffin."
In the course of combat use, various shortcomings of military equipment were also revealed. Overheating and high humidity burned out individual blocks, and more often than others, the transformers of the power supply units of the PU amplifiers. The identified shortcomings were recorded and sent to the Union to the developers for revision. Continuous confrontation with the enemy and prompt response to any innovations on each side continued. It was then that significant changes took place in the military industry. This is how modern air defense systems, control systems and major changes in the methods of combat appeared.
Shrike
The American AGM-45 Shrike missile posed a particular danger to the air defense missile system. Her passive guidance system was tuned to detect the frequencies of the operating air defense system radar. With a rocket length of 3 m, a wingspan of 900 mm and a launch weight of 177 kg, its speed reached Mach 1.5 (1789 km / h). The estimated flight range of the AGM-45A is 16 km, the AGM-45B is 40 km, and the launch range to the target is 12-18 km. When the warhead was detonated, about 2200 fragments were formed, in a 15 meter radius of destruction. After launching in the intended area, the rocket activated the homing head to search for a working radar. The pilot was required to accurately aim in the direction of the radar, since the Shrike missile locator had a small scanning angle. It was a sophisticated weapon that caused a lot of trouble for our missilemen, forcing them to "rack their brains" in search of protection from it.
Complicating the fight with the Shrikes was their small reflective surface. When the CHP operator's screen was simply filled with noise, it was very difficult to detect the reflected signal from the Shrike. But the rockets found a way to deceive this beast. Having found the Shrike, they turned the antenna of the P cockpit to the side or upward, without turning off the radiation. The rocket, aiming at the maximum signal, also turned in this direction. After that, the SNR radiation was turned off, and the Shrike, which had lost its target, continued to fly by inertia until it fell several kilometers behind the position. Of course, they had to sacrifice their own missiles, which lost control during the flight, but they managed to save the equipment.
Major Gennady Yakovlevich Shelomytov, a participant in the hostilities in Vietnam as part of the 260th air defense missile regiment, recalls:
“After launching the missile at the target, the manual tracking operator V. K. Melnichuk saw on the screen a "burst" of the target and a moving mark separated from it. He immediately reported to the commander:
- I see the Shrike! Heading for us!
While the issue of removing radiation from the antenna was being resolved through an interpreter with the Vietnamese command, the Shrike was already flying up to the SNR. Then the guidance officer Lieutenant Vadim Shcherbakov made his own decision and switched the radiation from the antenna to the equivalent. After 5 seconds, there was an explosion. In cockpit "P", on which the transmitting antenna is located, the door was knocked out by an explosion, and a Vietnamese operator was killed by a shrapnel. The trees standing next to the cockpit were cut off by Shrike fragments like a saw, and from the tent in which the battery personnel were before the shooting, there were rags the size of a handkerchief. Our military was lucky - everyone survived.
In the event that a "Shrike" stuffed with balls exploded, they, scattering along the starting position, hit the missiles on the launchers (installations). The warhead of a rocket weighing 200 kg exploded together with an oxidizer and fuel. The explosion detonated and exploded rockets on other launchers. All metal turned into twisted, full of holes from the accordion. Highly toxic rocket fuel ignited and burned.
The ambush tactics of the battalion turned out to be effective. During the day they hid in the jungle, and at night they went to a prepared position. Only three out of six installations were deployed, which made it possible to launch missiles, quickly curl up and go into the jungle. True, it was not always possible to do this without losses. The American pilots had the right, instead of completing their combat mission, to turn around and strike at the detected divisions. Usually the detected positions of the air defense missile systems were attacked by pairs of aircraft F-4 "Phantom II", F-8, A-4. Several American aircraft carriers cruised along the entire coast, and for massive raids their number increased to 5 units. Ten squadrons of carrier-based attack aircraft A-4F, A-6A and six squadrons of carrier-based fighters F-8A took part in the air raids. They were joined by planes based in Thailand and South Vietnam. During the raids, reconnaissance aircraft RF-101, RF-4 and jammers RB-66 were actively used. The SR-71 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft presented a lot of problems. Flying at an altitude of 20 km at a speed of 3200 km / h, it quickly flew over Vietnamese territory and was the most difficult target for missilemen.
Ball and magnetic bombs
In Vietnam, the Americans used inhumane methods of destruction and ammunition such as napalm, herbicide spraying, container ball bombs. The body of such a bomb was a container of two halves fastened together. The container contained 300-640 grenade balls. Each grenade ball weighed 420 g and contained up to 390 pieces. buckshot about 4 mm in diameter. RDX was used as an explosive. The container itself was equipped with a delayed-action fuse from a couple of minutes to several hours, and sometimes even days. When a ball bomb exploded, the fragments flew within a radius of 25 meters. They struck everything that was at the level of human growth and to the surface of the earth.
“Once, during a raid, a container with ball bombs was dropped on the house where we lived. It exploded at a height of 500 meters from the ground. 300 "mum balls" flew out of it, and began to fall on the roof of the house and on the ground around it. From impact when falling, they exploded with a delay, and hundreds of balls-pellets with a diameter of 3-4 mm scattered in all directions. Everyone in the house lay down on the floor. The explosions of the balloons continued for several minutes. Grains flew into windows, dug into walls and ceilings. The balls that exploded on the roof of the house could not hit anyone, since the house was two-story. Those who found themselves on the street managed to hide behind the columns and the low wall of the gallery. The drinking water tank in front of the column turned into a colander, and clear water poured from it in all directions in trickles. A 24-year-old lieutenant Nikolai Bakulin, who was in the street during the bombing, then had a gray strand,”recalls Major G. Ya. Shelomytov.
Magnetic time bombs were also of great danger. The Americans dropped them from a small height near the road. They could wait for their prey for a long time, going a little deeper into the ground, lying on the sides of the road. If a metal object fell into the magnetic field of such a bomb: a car, a bicycle, a man with a weapon, or a peasant with a hoe, then an explosion occurred.
The enemy regularly used electronic warfare equipment. Most of the raids were carried out using powerful radar jamming through the target's sighting channels. And since 1967, they began to additionally connect interference through the missile control channel. This significantly reduced the effectiveness of the air defense system, entailed the loss of launched missiles. They fell where necessary, and in places where they fell, the propellant components combined and threw out streams of fire, in which the warhead exploded.
To prevent loss of control, it was decided to immediately readjust the operating frequencies in all available missiles. Technicians worked around the clock to achieve the necessary protection against enemy interference.
To create jamming on all channels during massive raids, the Americans specially re-equipped the B-47 and B-52 heavy bombers.
Cruising along the borders with Laos and Cambodia, these aircraft by their interference prevented the Vietnamese CPR from finding targets, contributing to unpunished American aircraft strikes. The missile divisions had to secretly advance to the border with Laos at night to set up an "ambush" where no one expected them. The rocketeers made night marches hundreds of kilometers long, moving on broken roads at night over the mountains in the jungle. Only after the technique was reliably camouflaged could one rest and wait. A hot meeting with a salvo of three missiles on the distant lines was a fatal surprise for the RB-47 jammer, flying under the cover of a dozen F-105 fighter-bombers and A-4D carrier-based attack aircraft.
An expensive and heavily guarded target has been destroyed. During the retaliatory attack, the bombers' guards did not manage to detect the exact place of the missile launch and, having bombed the false position, disappeared. With the onset of dusk, the missilemen turned off their equipment and returned to base. At the same time, in the Hanoi region, the enemy was delivering a massive airstrike against strategic targets. The Americans, considering themselves in complete safety, without fear of return fire from the Vietnamese air defense forces, made their flights with impunity. But they miscalculated, and with the loss of their radio frequency cover, they were easy prey for the VNA air defense missile systems, which shot down a dozen aircraft at once.
The raids on Hanoi were carried out with the use of powerful jamming in large groups of 12, 16, 28, 32 and even 60 aircraft. But the enemy also suffered significant losses in equipment and manpower. In just a week, 4 colonels and 9 lieutenant colonels were shot down near Hanoi. One of those shot down was a young lieutenant, John McCain, who later became a senator. McCain's father and grandfather were famous admirals of the United States Navy. His plane, which took off from the aircraft carrier "Enterprise", shot down the crew under the command of Yu. P. Trushechkin, not far from the position of which he fell.
The pilot managed to eject, but his parachute wing hit the lake, he broke his leg and arms. He was also lucky that the capture group arrived in time, since usually peasants could beat American pilots with hoes.
For this victory, Trushechkin was awarded the Order of the Red Star. As a souvenir, he left himself a flight book with notes on the check of the parachute, where on the cover was written in felt-tip pen "John Sidney McCain". “Fortunately, he did not become president. He hated Russians. He knew that his plane was shot down by our rocket,”said the former missile engineer.
Approximate statistics for downed enemy aircraft:
Fighter aircraft shot down - 300 pcs.
SAM SA-75M - 1100 pcs.
Anti-aircraft artillery - 2100 pcs.
In December 1972, while repelling a massive raid on Hanoi, missile divisions managed to shoot down 31 B-52 bombers. This was a blow to the Americans, after which they decided to sign an agreement in Paris to end the bombing of Vietnam and withdraw their troops on the terms of the Vietnamese side.
To protect the peaceful people from the bloodthirsty and fire-breathing dragon flying in, apparently absorbed into our consciousness from Russian folk tales. Seeing the "Phantom" decorated with a dragon, spewing fire and bringing death to peaceful Vietnamese villages, I realized that semi-literate Vietnamese peasants probably considered our soldiers to be dragons and called them "lienso lin" (Soviet soldier).
Among the Soviet soldiers who died in Vietnam, along with the pilots, were missilemen, technicians, and operators. They died, despite the fact that the Vietnamese tried to protect them at any cost, often covered them with their bodies from shrapnel. The Vietnamese really liked these open and brave warriors, who, after hard work, could arrange concerts and sing their soulful songs about a distant country.
We were not servants to some masters, And they served the Motherland in those previous years, They did not climb on the tops of the heads to the first rows, They did everything as it should, just like men.
We are so familiar with the state of risk
When some pants fall
And we were afraid of "Shrikes" and "Phantoms"
Much smaller than his own wife.
The days have passed, having fulfilled their duty, They returned to family and friends, But we will never forget
You, warring Vietnam!
List of used literature:
Demchenko Yu. A., article "In Vietnam it was so much experienced …"
Shelomytov G. Ya., article "Everyone believed that this could never be"
Yurin V. A., article "Hot land of Vietnam"
Bataev S. G., article "In zone" b "and further …"
Belov A. M., article "Notes of the senior SVS group in the 278th ZRP of the Vietnamese People's Army"
Kolesnik N. N., article "Teaching, we fought and won"
Bondarenko I. V., article "Ambush in the Tamdao Mountains"
Kanaev V. M., article "Our combat crew"
