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«Defenders of the Moscow Kremlin» in honor of the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, anti-aircraft artillery had passed the period of its formation and development for a quarter of a century. During this time, the certain successes were achieved: organizational and staff structures of anti-aircraft formations were created as a part of combat formations and units of the Red Army, the ideology of the development of anti-aircraft artillery of small, medium and large calibers was formed, the material and technical base of anti-aircraft artillery weapons (anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns) was built, as well as means of reconnaissance of aerial targets (visual acoustic, radar) and anti-aircraft fire control devices (the first calculating and solving devices, PUAZO). Military anti-aircraft artillery, despite its small number and shortcomings in combat use, inflicted serious losses on the enemy in aircraft. The share of anti-aircraft artillery accounted for about 44% of all aircraft destroyed in the air over the troops during the first year of the war. The losses inflicted by anti-aircraft artillery on enemy aircraft forced them to completely upgrade their aircraft fleet almost twice during the first period of the war, which was put into battle at the beginning of the war. During the entire war, 21645 enemy aircraft were shot down by ground-based air defence systems of the active fronts. Of these, anti-aircraft formations, units and subunits shot down 21105 aircraft, and 540 aircraft were shot down by the fire of rifle-machine-gun weapons of the troops. The experience of the air defence of the troops acquired in the defensive and offensive operations of the Great Patriotic War became the foundation for its further post-war technical, organizational and operational-tactical improvement. The obvious necessity was the widespread introduction of radar for conducting reconnaissance of an air enemy and firing anti—aircraft artillery, the creation of a new effective means of combating an air enemy – SAM, the transition to self-propelled anti-aircraft missile and artillery (cannon-rocket) and radar installations, the introduction of a significant number of effective air defence systems into all combined arms associations, formations and units.
Address: Moscow, The Kremlin Wall
