The 11th Air Army (11 Vozdushnaya Armiya) is a unit of the Russian Air Force, which was located in the Russian Far East and Pacific Coast area, and its zone of responsibility covered the Far East Military District.
It was first formed during World War II from the Air Forces of the 2nd Red Banner Army but re-created in 1998 from the Soviet Air Defence Forces' 11th Army units (except for a regiment of MiG-31 interceptor aircraft on the Kamchatka Peninsula, handed over by Naval Aviation) and the 1st Army of the VVS. In 2007 the commanding officer was Lieutenant General Valeriy Ivanov, former commander of the 1st Air Defence Corps.
The 303rd Air Division fought with the 64th Independent 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.[1] The 303rd Fighter Aviation Division fought during Operation Bagration, and included the Normandie-Niemen regiment for a period.
During the Soviet period, the 11th PVO 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[2] from Smirnykh Air Base managed to make visual contact with the Boeing 747 and later shot it down.
In the late 1980s the 11th Army of the Voyska PVO, as it was then, controlled two Corps (23rd in Vladivostok & 8th in Komsomolsk) and three divisions (24th in Petropavlovsk, 29th in Blagoveshchenk and 6th in Okhotsk), 10 fighter aviation regiments (IAPs), 8 SAM brigades/regiments and 9 radio-technical (radar) brigades/regiments.[3]
In 2007 the 11th Army included two of Su-27 fighter regiments, one of MiG-31 interceptors, two of Su-24 tactical bombers, two of Su-25 attack aircraft and one reconnaissance regiment of Su-24MRs.[4] The anti-aircraft component is much less powerful, including just three regiments of surface-to-air missiles, located in Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk and Vladivostok. The 23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment, located at Dzemgi (Komsomolsk-on-Amur), was the first Russian Air Force unit armed with the upgraded Su-27SM fighters.
The most notable unit of the 11th Army in 2007 was the 18th Vitebsk Normandie-Niemen Attack Air Regiment of Guards, stationed at Galyonki, which has been twice awarded the Red Banner and the Suvorov order. In 1943, during World War II, the regiment included the Normandie squadron of French pilots, which later became the independent regiment known as Normandie-Niemen. On 9 May 1995 (Victory Day), to commemorate these events, the 18th ShAP received the name Normandie-Niemen.[5] Since March 1993, the unit operates the Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft.
|
|||||||||||||
|
||||||||