러시아의 항공전 교리

[백선호]

우크라이나전쟁 항공전에 대한 책에 나온 러시아 공군 교리에 대한 부분입니다.

옛날 소련 시절부터 지금까지 러시아에서 공군/방공군의 역할은 (SAM이 큰 역할을 하는) 방공, (제공권이 필요 없는) 장거리 스탠드오프 공격, 지상군 지원이고,

1991, 1995, 1999, 2003년 미국의 항공전을 본 러시아는 SAM에 (S-400) 더욱 투자하기로 결정했는데

어차피 미국식 공세 제공 작전은 하지 않을 것이니까 제공권을 잡기 위한 SEAD/DEAD는 그다지 중요하지 않으며,

서방 국가들의 군대에서 화력의 대부분이 공군에 집중되어 있지만 러시아는 화력을 육군의 포병에 집중했고

2015년 러시아공군이 시리아에서 힘을 쓸 수 있었던 이유는 SEAD를 할 필요가 없을 정도로 위협이 거의 없는 안전한 환경이었기 때문이라는 것입니다.

To avoid mirror imagining, it merits noting that the Russian military, like the Soviet military, saw a different role for airpower than Western counterparts. From a force structure and doctrine perspective, the Russian military is an artillery army like its predecessor. Hence, it depends and invests far less in air-based firepower and does not necessarily require it or air superiority to enable ground force maneuver. Russia's airpower was oriented around three missions: air defense, long-range standoff strike, and ground support. The latter is performed primarily by combat helicopters and a dated fleet of Su-25 attack aircraft. The same is not true of Western militaries, which are optimized for maneuver warfare supported by airpower, and often presume to have attained air superiority or significant advantage prior to launching ground operations. Much of the firepower in Western militaries is displaced into the air force rather than being delivered via land-based fires. This is why Western military observers were surprised by Russian inability to achieve air superiority, which in the West is an assumed first-order requirement, whereas in the Russian military it was seen as beneficial, but not necessary for success.
As an organization, the Russian VKS integrates tactical aviation with long-range ground-based air defense for a reason, they are meant to work as components of one system. Hence, the priority is not air superiority, or offensive counter-air missions. How could it be, since the Russian air force has historically assumed Western air advantage in quality and quantity. Similarly, little training is done for suppression or destruction of enemy air defense missions, since observably North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) militaries have little in the way of ground-based air defense and primarily depend on their air forces for that role. Indeed, neither the Russian military nor the post-World War II Soviet military had ever conducted an air campaign against an opponent with an expansive air defense network. Consequently, it had neither the historical experience nor the apparent requirements to conduct an air superiority campaign against an opponent with ground-based air defense akin to Ukraine's. Ukraine's armed forces, also a successor to the Soviet military, similarly feature a large ratio of artillery and air defense units within maneuver formations. Hence, the Russian VKS, beyond its observed technical shortcomings, found itself in a fight for which it was ill suited because it faced a military structured similarly to its own, but very dissimilar to the kind of opponents it expected to face.

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As the 21st century dawned, the question for Russian military leaders was how to counter the overwhelming airpower it witnessed over Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and in the Balkans over Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999. As in Soviet times, this generation of upcoming Russian political and military leaders was consumed with insecurity relative to their Western counterparts, and with technological innovation in particular. This is reflected in Russian military writings from the period. But instead of producing truly innovative and novel solutions, the Russian military doubled down on its dependence on ground-based air defense (GBAD). This was a doctrinal quagmire for the VKS since it led to a focus on denying the adversary potential air superiority, rather than producing solutions to achieve it themselves in any potential conflict.
A useful place to start in measuring the impact of these changes on Russian doctrine might be the debate regarding suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD). The point has been made over many decades that both Russia, and the USSR before it, did not stress SEAD in the same way and to the same extent as the U.S. Air Force. The contention is that Russia's Air Force, like its Soviet Red Air Force predecessor, sees offensive airpower as a mere extension of artillery. Primarily, the AFRF stresses the effectiveness of GBAD, deployed as integrated networks of SAM defenses. Indeed, dating back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets and Russians believed their SAM and GBAD networks could inflict heavy casualties on adversaries attempting to achieve air superiority. Moscow's heavily ringed and concentrated air defense system has always reflected this confidence in the ability to blunt NATO air-power (including missiles) with GBAD.
For the Russian military, with an increasingly outdated 20th-century doctrine of warfare, the potency of Western airpower across multiple wars and their own inability to use the VKS in a similar way was certainly recognized as a problem. They had no real answer for it, however, since what the U.S. Air Force calls "air campaigning" and the doctrine, training culture and combat experience required to execute it were and remain absent from VKS doctrine and experience. Their only response was, as Justin Bronk noted, to continue to prioritize both doctrinally and financially "denying NATO airpower the ability to operate effectively rather than the ability to project VKS sorties into defended airspace.” In other words, Russia's planned solution did not include large-scale planning for a SEAD offensive, nor other air dominance missions. Whether this was a conscious decision or a default position they were left with due to their constraints is difficult to assess. Still, these doctrinal debates were not Russia's only concern in the 1990s.

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… why was Russia able to succeed in the air in Syria? The answer was that neither the Russian Air Force in Georgia nor the "new" VKS in Syria faced an effective GBAD network that truly tested their capabilities. Even though the Georgians attempted a showing of air defense in the opening days of that conflict, there was not an effective nor integrated air defense network in Georgia. Even so, the Russians took significant air losses in Georgia, including by many counts four of six fighters lost crashing as a result of friendly fire. In Syria the opposition did not have any air force in any conventional sense, so in neither conflict did the Russian Air Force have the experience of operations against an adversary that was able to seriously contest control of the airspace. That meant that the entire strategy-to-task approach and complex operational planning required to succeed against a capable adversary still had not been institutionalized for the Russian Air Force over decades. They were aware of their SEAD deficiency but had not fixed it. The lack of a developed and tested SEAD doctrine and strategic air operations planning capacity for it was thus a key flaw that would come to the fore in Ukraine.

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In Russian VKS doctrine, SEAD is not emphasized as emphatically as it is in U.S. doctrine, where SEAD and the related task of destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD) are seen as a precursor to further air operations to achieve air superiority. U.S. Air Force doctrine notes that "air superiority is normally a desired state before all other combat operations" since attaining air superiority allows the "freedom to attack and freedom from attack." Further, "operating without air superiority or supremacy radically increases risk to surface and air operations." In many respects, the most important contribution the U.S. Air Force makes to joint and coalition military operations is the air superiority that makes all other military actions easier to conduct.
By contrast, examinations of Russian air doctrine like the CNA analysis above and others from domestic Russian language sources show that prior to the Ukraine invasion, and even going back to Soviet times, Russian doctrine undervalues SEAD as a prerequisite for air superiority. As Alexander Mladenov notes, "the lack of any more or less systematic training as well as established tactics, technics and procedures for complex SEAD/DEAD operations has been tacitly acknowledged by Russian defense experts." Soviet/Russian doctrine held that their own GBAD should be able to blunt blows from any U.S./NATO attack. As a result, Russian pilots were not trained to conduct the SEAD mission the way that successive generations of US. and NATO pilots have. Once war commenced and things did not go as planned, it was too late for Russian pilots to develop the necessary competencies. This is why as the war unfolded the Russian VKS returned again and again in Ukraine to over-the-horizon solutions. At first these relied on air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) and short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), and later Iranian drones. These long-range strike campaigns were an attempt to adapt to a SEAD problem they did not have the competence to solve. Justin Bronk assessed correctly that this demonstration of a failed SEAD capability and its impact had profound consequences for the war, and also should be reflected on by Western experts analyzing their own air forces.

https://cafe.daum.net/NTDS/5q4/736

1989년 - 바르샤바 조약기구의 탄약 300만톤은 NATO가 버티면 30일만에 다 떨어질 수도 있다

"... 바르샤바 조약기구는 NATO의 방어선을 뚫기 위한 화력 지원의 80-85%는 여전히 포병이 제공하고 공군력은 나머지만 제공 "

[Minowski(김유철)]

교리도 그렇고 전력확보도 그렇고 경로의존성을 확인할 수 있네요. 나중에는 S400 등 매몰비용이 너무 커서 SEAD/DEAD 전력 확보비용도 확보하기 어렵고, 방공출신들이 방어논리도 계속 만들어냈을거고..... 그렇다고 러우전 이전까지 충격을 받을만한 사건이 아예 없었냐면 직접 겪은것은 조지아와의 전쟁에서 TU22 격추사례도 있고, 미국과 이스라엘에 무수히 박살나는 우방국들을 보고 타산지석으로 삼지 못했다는 것이 지금의 곤경의 원인이겠네요....

[위종민]

정밀유도폭탄이 널리 퍼지기 전에는 화력투발의 정밀성에서 포병이 앞섰을 수도 있겠지만, 늦어도 걸프전에선 비행기에서 떨구는 정밀유도폭탄이 화력과 정밀성 양쪽에서 압도적으로 유리하다는 걸 알았을 텐데도 노선을 못 바꾼 건 말씀대로 경로의존성 + 부족한 자원 때문이었을 것 같습니다.

[백선호]

'하늘에서는 적이 더 세다'고 일단 인정하고 그러면 어떻게 할까 궁리를 한 셈이네요.

"... the priority is not air superiority, or offensive counter-air missions. How could it be, since the Russian air force has historically assumed Western air advantage in quality and quantity. "