Talk:51st Air Defence Division

Lineage of 9th Stalingrad Red Banner Corps PVO

Dear Kges1901 can you help me. We appear to have an inconsistency between the 50th anniversary Russian article which I have translated at the page here, and Holm's writings about 12th Air Defence Corps. Stalingrad Divisional Region PVO, later Stalingrad Corps Region PVO, gained its Red Banner in 1943. Meanwhile the Russian news story/page says now-51st Air Defence Division is its successor - has its lineage, but Holm's page about 12th Air Defence Corps, an intermediate ancestor/descendant, says that 12 K PVO got its Red Banner from 10th Division PVO after the two were amalgamated, but 10 Division PVO was only awarded its Red Banner in 1968 [1]. So what happened to 9 Stalingrad Red Banner Corps PVO after 1945? Did it become 12th Corps PVO formed in 1960? Or, as it seems, not? Buckshot06 (talk) 09:46, 25 May 2022 (UTC) FYI Wreck Smurfy and B.Velikov.

The 12th Air Defence Corps does not originate in the Stalingrad Divisional Air Defence Area, but in the Krasnodar Divisional Air Defence Area.

Krasnodar Divisional Air Defence Area (Краснодарский дивизионный район ПВО): 09.12.1941 - 13.06.1943

North Caucasus Corps Air Defence Area (Северо-Кавказский корпусной район ПВО): 13.06.1943 - 25.01.1944

Odessa Corps Air Defence Area (Одесский корпусной район ПВО): 25.01.1944 - 21.04.1944

12th Air Defence Corps (12 корпус ПВО): 21.04.1944 - 01.02.1945

The 12th ADC provided air defence to the 2nd Ukrainian Front, except for its 61st AAA Division ((1776, 1778, 1780, 1782 and 1784 AAA regiments and the 6th AA Lighting Regiment), which provided air defence to the 1st Ukrainian Front.

In November 1945 9th Corps PVO was transformed into the 86th Division PVO according to Denis Solovyov's book (Денис Соловьев) All of Stalin's Generals, Volume 27, Artillery (Все генералы Сталина Артиллерия. Том 27). B.Velikov (talk) 12:14, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Boris!! So the 12th K PVO was active in February 1945. What happened to it after 1945? Did it keep the same designation? What is connected at all to the (second formation?) 12th Corps PVO formed in March 1960? Buckshot06 (talk) 23:12, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

By the end of 1946 both the 9th and the 12th Air Defence Corps disappear from the structure. It is very hard to obtain information about the post-war period. Air Defence lost its status as a separate branch of the air force. The border military districts were given this task, but the composite air defence corps from the time of the war were split and the Soviet military lost the co-ordination between the air and ground air defence components. Air defence fighter aviation was absorbed into the regular fighter aviation and I am not entirely sure, but I think that air defence artillery went to the ground forces, so to my understanding the two branches were not only separated operationally, but belonged to different services. Most air defence corps were reduced to divisions, most divisions - to brigades. By the end of 1946 there are only 4 air defence corps, and these are are air defence artillery corps:

• 5-й кПВО (Moscow) and 16-й кПВО (Leningrad) under the North-Western Air Defence District (Северо-западный округ ПВО)
• 17-й кПВО (Baku) under the South-Western Air Defence District (Юго-западный округ ПВО) and the
• 11-й кПВО (Voroshilov-Ussuriyskiy) under the Far-Eastern Air Defence District (Дальневосточный округ ПВО)

This is only my wild speculation, but since the 12th Air Defence Corps returned to Odessa after the war and disappeared from the order of battle by the end of 1946, I assume it was transformed into the 14th Air Defence Brigade of the South-Western Air Defence District, deployed around Odessa and Mykolaiv.B.Velikov (talk) 07:16, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• I would suggest asking Michael Holm for the new Lenskii excerpts that he used to write the ww2.dk page as those would likely shed light on the transformations leading to the 12th kPVO. As to the fate of the 9th Stalingrad kPVO, whose lineage the 51st dPVO inherits according to the modern news articles, I believe I've found the answer in Golotyuk and Tsapayev's biographical dictionary of Great Patriotic War PVO division commanders. The 45th Stalingrad Red Banner dPVO was at Rostov-on-Don under the Southwestern Air Defense District by August 1946 (p. 213). A new commander is mentioned as taking over the 45th in June 1946 (p. 142) although a different biographical entry mentions that in July 1946 the former commander of the 9th Stalingrad kPVO took over command of the 45th dPVO (p. 334). However in yet another entry mentions an officer serving as deputy commander of the 45th dPVO at Dnipropetrovsk from January 1947 (p. 350). From these entries I think it would be reasonable to conclude that the 9th Stalingrad kPVO became the 45th dPVO by early 1946, either at Dnipropetrovsk or Rostov-on-Don, or possible both due to relocation. Dnipropetrovsk would be consistent with the 75th anniversary news article which has the unit at Dnipropetrovsk before relocating to Rostov-on-Don in 1954. Kges1901 (talk) 01:03, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

  The forum of the veterans of 8th Separate Air Defence Army has a table with the transformation of the air defence formations in Ukraine after the war. It only covers Ukrainian units, but doesn't state, that the 45th left for Rostov. According to the table:

  In 1945 the 9th Air Defence Corps was headquartered in Kharkiv.

  Then some time mid-1945 the AAA artillery was absorbed into the ground forces of the Kharkiv Military District (СВ ХВО).

  By the autumn of 1945 the 45th Air Defence Division was formed in Kharkiv.

  By 1947 the division was renamed 45th AAA Air Defence Division (45 зенад ПВО) and most probably relocated to Dnepropetrovsk.

  In 1948 it was reorganised as the Donbass Air Defence Area (Донбасский район ПВО) under the Volga Military District (ПРВО).

  In 1953 it was used as the foundation for the formation of the Stalingrad Red Banner Air Defence Army (обращен. на формир.СК армии ПВО - here СК stands for "Сталинградская Краснознамённая) under the Air Force,

  but already in the next 1954 it was reformed into the Kharkiv Air Defence Corps under the newly independent Air Defence Troops (The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR's joint executive order for the formation of the ADT as a separate military service dates from May 27, 1954),

  only to be disbanded in 1956.

  http://8oapvo.net/images/photos/articles/istorija/istorija-vojsk-pvo/PVO-Ukrainy-1945-60/PVO-Ukrainy-1945-60.pdf B.Velikov (talk) 06:44, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Buckshot06: I have acquired Lensky's PVO books through interlibrary loan, and Lensky does in fact say that the 10th dPVO only received the Order of the Red Banner in 1968 and that its awards were inherited by the 12th kPVO on its merger in 1972-73. However, Lensky also mentions a unit stationed at Rostov-on-Don that had the Order of the Red Bamer. According to part 1 of Lensky's PVO handbook, the 161st Stalingrad IAD PVO was renumbered in 1949 from the 2nd Guards Stalingrad IAD PVO. This unit received both the Order of the Red Banner and the honorific Stalingrad for its participation in the air defense of Stalingrad as the 102nd IAD PVO. The Red Banner award date as quoted in Lensky is 6 February 1943, not 6 December 1943 from the news article; however it also was awarded the Order of Suvorov later in the war. The latter date is more likely to be correct, but this can be verified from the Soviet collections of the WWII decoration awards orders. Lensky goes on to describe that postwar the 2nd Guards IAD PVO relocated to Rostov-on-Don, then was renumbered as the 161st IAD PVO in 1949 where it became part of the North Caucasus PVO Army formed in 1954. The 161st IAD PVO was disbanded in 1959 with its regiments split between the 10th dPVO at Volgograd and the 12th kPVO at Rostov-on-Don. Seems likely that information on participation in WWII from Russian news articles, presumably provided by officers of the unit, is combining details from different PVO units. Kges1901 (talk) 19:12, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

So many thanks!! So you believe what there is of the lineage of 12 kPVO, Rostov-na-Donu, 1959, stretches back to 2nd Guards Stalingrad IAD PVO? Can you give me all the appropriate page numbers for the above data? Buckshot06 (talk) 22:30, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, I think you are telling me that Michael Holm has either mistranscribed or made some mistakes at https://www.ww2.dk/new/air%20force/division/iad/2gviad.htm, where he says 2 Guards IAD PVO disbanded 10 June 1960 without any renumbering since 1943. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:20, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Initially, I thought there might be a connection, but there is also the Order of Suvorov awarded to the 2nd Guards IAD PVO and its Guards status, which is never mentioned again, so if we are consistent with Lensky the explanation is that the 10th dPVO was awarded the Red Banner in 1968. Other PVO divisions that became Guards like the 16th Guards dPVO inherited the status from IADs of the PVO and this is explicitly mentioned in Lensky and later accounts by unit personnel. Lensky includes the detail that the PVO AA division at Stalingrad in the 1950s was the 46th zenad PVO, no honorifics mentioned (citing an officer bio in Golutyuk & Tsapayev), and the 10th dPVO had HQ at Stalingrad, formed by the combination of units of the disbanded 161st Guards IAD PVO and the 46th zenad. As for Holm, he's only as good as his sources, which appear to be a mix of forum data with the publications he lists in his biography, plus analysis of the declassified CIA reports. Still pretty good for an internet website on an obscure topic and generally correct as far as I have found. Kges1901 (talk) 01:36, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Grand. Thankyou. My estimate on the basis of this is that GK PVO re-chose a previously used and semi-associated-by-being-in-Southern-USSR west of the Urals designation, 12 kPVO, in 1959. But it had no lineage connection. Something like the new 11 AK Baltic Fleet, with no lineage to 11 GvOA. Or 15 Psychological Operations Group, number chosen because of 1st-14th Amplifer Units in the Second World War, or 77th Brigade of the British Army right now. Disagreement welcome. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Are you in a position to add some notes on postwar zenads, plus the organizational history more generally, to Anti-Aircraft_Artillery_Division_(Soviet_Union) and the main PVO article? Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 10:44, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, Lensky doesn't include much on the structure of postwar zenads beyond mentioning which units existed and their total numbers, mainly because so little is known of them that all we know is pretty much from the few units mentioned in the biographical dictionary entries of division commanders during the war. Kges1901 (talk) 19:16, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

• Please write down here the list of division zenad designations, confirmation on the total number of zenads, the exact time period concerned, and the page numbers, and I will add them to the various articles!! Great!! Buckshot06 (talk) 22:06, 22 June 2022 (UTC)