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| Russian electronic intelligence: At the forefront of solving life-changing problems (1904-now) |
| 2024-03-20 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [RedStar] Electronic intelligence has proven in practice and continues to prove today that it is one of the most operational and significant components of military intelligence. by Stepan Petrov Over the 120-year period of its existence and development, electronic reconnaissance has demonstrated viability, high combat readiness and reliability for many years to come. The date of birth of electronic reconnaissance is considered to be March 20, 1904 (March 7 - old style), when the commander of the Pacific squadron, Vice Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov, issued order No. 27, which became the document defining the beginning of the practical conduct of radio reconnaissance. Order No. 27 FORMATION ON THE BATTLEFIELDS Organizationally, radio intelligence was formed in the Russian Army during the First World War. Already in August 1914, radio reconnaissance officers of the Baltic Fleet determined the location of the cruiser Magdeburg, which allowed Russian ships to destroy it. By 1916, about 50 radio reconnaissance units were formed in the ground forces, four for each of the five fronts and two for each of the 14 armies. In 1918, the Registration Directorate, as the central military intelligence body of the Red Army was then called, included a radio reconnaissance unit - a receiving control radio station located in the city of Serpukhov. With the beginning of the Civil War (1918), it was necessary to form mobile receiving and direction-finding radio stations for front-line radio reconnaissance. By the end of 1919, there were already 30 such units, and a year later their number increased to 90. After the end of the Civil War (1920), radio reconnaissance practically ceased and began to be restored in 1929–1930. Since 1931, despite all the difficulties in the economic development of our country, the fleet of reconnaissance equipment and vehicles of radio intelligence units began to be updated due to the arrival of the latest developments and modernized equipment. The leadership of the country and the Armed Forces in 1935–1936, realizing the importance and complexity of radio intelligence, allowed a special selection of conscripts to serve in radio intelligence units. The achieved level of development of radio intelligence allowed her to report to the leadership on August 25, 1939 that Germany was mobilizing the main forces of the ground army, and the radio stations of the German armies and divisions had been moved to the border with Poland. DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR A difficult test for radio intelligence was the participation of its forces and assets in the Great Patriotic War. The radio reconnaissance system created in the pre-war period turned out to be capable of revealing the state and activities of German troops, the creation of strike groups, operational and tactical reserves, their transfer, the preparation of enemy counterattacks, obtaining data on the enemy’s losses in manpower and equipment, the lack of weapons, ammunition, and fuel. - lubricants, establish the composition of the first echelon of troops, reveal the enemy’s awareness of the activities of our troops, and obtain proactive information. During the war, radio reconnaissance revealed the location of division headquarters of German troops in three to four days, and the location of corps and army headquarters in one day. In general, during the Great Patriotic War, radio intelligence regularly and fairly fully covered the composition, condition and activities of groupings of Nazi troops. This is evidenced by the fact that after the war, when a map with the full grouping of Nazi troops was delivered to the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (at that time this map was called the “Keitel map”), it turned out that the data on it was almost one hundred percent accurate. repeated the data obtained by our radio reconnaissance. And one more fact. During the first interrogation of the captured Field Marshal Paulus, the following happened: two cards were placed on the table in front of him, one taken from him at the time of his capture, and the other, a new one with identical settings. When the field marshal looked at the first card, no unexpected emotions appeared on his face. But when he looked at the second card, he turned pale and said one phrase: “There was a major traitor in my headquarters.” It seemed to Paulus that one of the generals close to him transferred the situation to a new sheet of paper and handed it over to the Soviet command. In reality, this map was compiled based on military intelligence data, including radio interception and radio direction finding data. On May 7, 1945, radio intelligence intercepted a radiogram that spoke of Germany's surrender to the Allied forces. The leadership of the USSR was not satisfied with the unilateral signing of Germany’s surrender, and I.V. On the same day, Stalin called G.K. in Berlin. Zhukov and said: “Today in the city of Reims the Germans signed an act of surrender. The Soviet people, and not the allies, bore the main burden of the war on their shoulders, therefore the surrender must be signed before the high command of all countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, and not just before the High Command of the Allied Forces.” On the night of May 8-9, 1945, in the eastern part of Berlin - Karlhorst, in a two-story building of the former canteen of the German military engineering school, in the presence of representatives of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the High Command of the Allied Forces, representatives of the German command signed an act of unconditional surrender of Germany. The Motherland highly appreciated the contribution of radio intelligence to achieving Victory over the enemy. Ten separate OSNAZ radio divisions, almost half of all operating on the Soviet-German front, were awarded orders, and three of them were awarded twice. Six radio intelligence units received honorary names. In the post-war period, the scope of military intelligence and its component – radio intelligence – expanded. Its sources were not only the radio communication systems of foreign armed forces, but also all other radio-emitting systems and means that ensured the combat use of troops and weapons control systems. Radio reconnaissance began to be carried out not only from land, but also from sea and air, preserving and improving traditional methods of radio interception, determining the location of radio-emitting means, and technical analysis of radio signals from control systems. The use of radar stations and weapon control systems in the armed forces of foreign states determined the need to create electronic intelligence, which was organizationally formed by the end of 1947. “Wireless telegraphy detects the presence, and therefore now put telegraphy under control... For capable young officers, this is a whole interesting area.” CREATION OF A UNIFIED SYSTEM In 1952, radio reconnaissance and radio-technical reconnaissance became a unified system of radio and radio-technical reconnaissance (RiRTR). It demonstrated its capabilities for reconnaissance in crisis situations in the best possible way, reliably and fully carrying out reconnaissance during the Lebanese crisis of 1958. In 1956, RiRTR took an active part in monitoring military operations on the territory of the Hungarian People's Republic. Since 1957, RiRTR has provided monitoring of on-board communications equipment of domestic artificial Earth satellites and spacecraft during launches, while they are in orbit, and during landings. The first bearing to the spacecraft, piloted by Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, was determined on April 12, 1961 by RiRTR serviceman Sergeant V.V. Krivoshapov. In 1960, the beginning of combat duty of American B-52 strategic bombers near the borders of the USSR was revealed. In 1961, radio intelligence took an active part in covering the Cyprus crisis and events in the Congo. TESTED BY THE COLD WAR In 1962, operational tasks to monitor the development of the Caribbean crisis and its resolution were successfully completed. According to RiRTR, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, on the day of October 23, 1962, there were 85 strategic aircraft in the airspace over the United States, including 22 B-52 bombers. At the same time, 57 B-47 bombers headed from the United States to Europe. There were 30 refueling aircraft constantly in the air. On October 24, 1962, RiRTR intercepted an order from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the US Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC) to prepare for a nuclear attack. Radio intelligence recorded the transmission by the SAC command to the commanders of strategic bombers of the following order: “Follow the course even if one engine fails.” In 1969–1970, RiRTR revealed the fact of dividing the warheads of the US intercontinental ballistic missiles Minuteman-2, Minuteman-3, Polaris-A2, Polaris-A3, Poseidon into a significant number of warheads, which is significant increased the effectiveness of the use of these deadly weapons. RIRT reliably and fully monitored the fighting in October 1973 in the Middle East, especially in terms of US military assistance to Israel. All flights of military transport aircraft from the United States to Israel were uncovered, including those with an intermediate landing at Lagens airbase (Azores). The transfers of American F-4 tactical fighters and A-4 and A-7 attack aircraft to Israel did not take place uncontrolled, if the aircraft were ferryed under their own power. RiRTR functioned at that time as a well-established mechanism for interaction between its various bodies to solve a common intelligence task. Thanks to this interaction, it was possible to timely uncover the reconnaissance flight of the SR-71 aircraft from Bill Air Force Base (California) to the Suez Canal area and back, carried out under radio silence. In 1979, RiRTR conducted full-scale reconnaissance of the Global Shield exercise, in which the US military command practiced various methods of waging a nuclear war, carrying out the real transfer of SAC forces and assets to increased levels of combat readiness, the full deployment of reserve control systems for strategic nuclear forces with the help of air command points, air control posts for launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and relay aircraft, mass lifting into the air of all combat-ready strategic bomber, reconnaissance and refueling aircraft (up to 600-700 units simultaneously), real launches of ICBMs (without nuclear warheads), simulated launches of ballistic missiles with nuclear submarines, as well as practical bombing at test sites. In 1981, RiRTR reliably tracked the test and orbital flight of the American space shuttle. In 1984, the American side announced that, as part of its Strategic Defense Initiative project, on June 10, 1984, an experimental missile intercepted the warhead of an intercontinental ballistic missile. This could be considered a strategic success for the United States, which requires reciprocal steps from the USSR: allocating billions of rubles to create and test a similar anti-missile system. However, based on an analysis of the data obtained by RiRTR, it was established that the Americans had falsified the interception. It turned out that the anti-missile missile was guided by a radio beacon installed on the target. In the period 1971-1989, the RiRTR system organizationally functioned as a complex system, the organs, formations, units and units of which were located on the territory or as part of military districts (groups of troops) and functioned as regional information-integrated subsystems of the RiRTR, providing command with information about the status and activities of the US armed forces, NATO Allied Forces and states adjacent to the USSR. It was possible to track the entry into service of the US Air Force of new B-1B strategic bombers and KC-10 tanker aircraft, the decommissioning of the Titan-2 ICBM and the decommissioning of the Pershing-2 IRBM, as well as deployment in Europe ground-based cruise missiles. RiRTR solved reconnaissance tasks by optimally using stationary technical means of reconnaissance, automation and communications from the places of permanent deployment of its organs, formations and units, as well as with the help of technical means installed on mobile vehicles (cars, armored personnel carriers), helicopters, airplanes, ships, practically in any region of the world, tracking the activities of intelligence objects on the ground, in the air, in space, on water and even under water. The tasks of combat support for the Limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan were successfully completed. RiRTR specialists worthily fulfilled their official and international duties in Angola, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Egypt, Syria and Ethiopia. NEW STATUS OF RADIO INTELLIGENCE The dramatic events of the early 1990s in the vastness of the Soviet state could not but affect the RRTR, but it was preserved in the Russian Federation as an integral system capable of solving the tasks set by the command. Moreover, it gradually increased its organizational, technical, and intelligence capabilities and in 1998 acquired the status of domestic electronic intelligence. Electronic intelligence was able to detect preparations in advance and promptly report to the high command about the start of the military operation of the US and British armed forces against Iraq, codenamed “Desert Fox,” carried out in 1998, as well as the NATO aggression led by the United States against the former Yugoslavia, carried out in 1999 year as part of Operation Resolute Force. It was the forces and means of electronic reconnaissance that first revealed the fact of the participation of American B-2A strategic bombers in this operation. Electronic intelligence constantly provides combat support to troops in armed conflicts, anti-terrorist and counter-terrorism operations, as well as in special military operations. Currently, electronic intelligence has professionally trained personnel and its main link - officers, whose training is carried out in specialized educational institutions. Electronic intelligence has modern technical means of reconnaissance, automation and communications that are capable of perceiving the features of modern electromagnetic, telecommunications, space, information and other innovative technologies. Modern domestic electronic intelligence is based on science, practice and rich historical experience. Today it is at the forefront of solving problems set by the leadership of the state and the command of the Armed Forces, and in practice has proven that it is one of the most operational and significant components of military intelligence, obtaining proactive information that allows making timely and informed decisions. |
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