The Rear of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (RAF-RF) (), often referred to in English as the rear services, was an organization of support services for the Russian Armed Forces until 2010 when it was transformed into Logistical Support of the Russian Armed Forces.
The Rear of the Armed Forces included an unusually diverse range of services, for example medical services, firefighters, logistical services, economic analysts, scientific units, and combat-ready formations for maintaining and protecting rear installations such as pipelines and railways. The Rear also had its own central staff organization.
In addition to the centrally controlled Rear of the Armed Forces, there were also separate rear services for each armed service, e.g. the Rear of the Soviet Ground Forces, Rear of the Strategic Rocket Forces, etc. In principle, these rear organizations were coordinated by the Rear of the Armed Forces.
History
The formation of Russian rear services is commonly ascribed to the year 1700, when Peter I of Russia signed an order On Management of the Grain Supplies of All Military People to okolnichy Yazykov with Elevating Him to Commissary General After That, thus forming the first supply service (Proviantskiy Prikaz). In 1711 all military supply services were incorporated in the army. However the word "rear" (тыл) as a separate term appeared only in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Shortly after the onset of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Russian rear services experienced severe difficulties, which were fixed after the order "On Organization of the Rear Services Management Office of the Red Army..." was enacted by the People's Commissar of Defence, Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko. The Rear Services of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union were renamed as the Rear Services of the Armed Forces of Russia in 1991.
In 2010 it was transformed into the Logistical Support of the Russian Armed Forces.
Road Troops The Road Troops (Russian: Дорожные войска) are a part of Material and Technical Support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. They included road commandant units and formations, bridge, pontoon-bridge, as well as road units and subdivisions, designed to perform road maintenance tasks.
In Russia until 2017, there were also road construction units (since 1996 officially called road-building military formations), which were outside the size norms of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and included: from 1992 to 1997 - as part of one of the central authorities of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, and then the Central Road Construction Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (TsDSU), then the Federal Road Construction Administration (:ru:Федеральное дорожно-строительное управление) of the Ministry of Defence; from 1997 to 2017 - the Federal Service for Special Construction of Russia, then Spetsstroy of Russia, which carried out defence-related road construction.
At present, the main composition of formations, units and subdivisions of the road troops, their institutions, institutions, enterprises and organizations, are part of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Road-building formations are also part of the Military Construction Complex of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.
History of military road building
Road construction troops date back to Imperial Russia and even before.
In 1930, by the decision of Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union (the SNK USSR) and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, five automobile and road institutes were organized within the TsUDorTrans system of the People's Commissariat of Communication Routes of the Soviet Union. These five institutes were the Moscow Automobile and Road Institute, in Leningrad (LADI), in Saratov (at the Saratov State Technical University (SADI)), in Kharkov (HADI) and Omsk (SibADI) for the training of highly qualified engineers roads, bridges, mechanics and motorists. At the same time, the universities had to train within their military departments reserve officers for the Soviet Armed Forces, since the training profile of civilian specialists, who were trained in road institutes, completely coincided with their military specialties.
By the Decree of the Council of Labour and Defence of the USSR, dated December 11, 1933, the Department of Road Construction of Eastern Siberia and the Far East (Daldorstroy) was established in Khabarovsk, with the task of building strategic roads in Eastern Siberia and the Soviet Far East. Construction plans were announced at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), held in Moscow from January 26 to February 10, 1934, when the Second Five Year Plan was adopted. In accordance with it, it was planned to build the Vladivostok-Khabarovsk highway, with a hard (gravel) surface, 600 kilometers long.
For Daldorstroy, the Red Army from December 1933 to January 1934 formed two brigades of road troops: the first - in the city of Rostov-on-Don, led by brigade commander N. M. Anisimov, and the second - in the city of Kiev (brigade commander - Lebedev), with a total number of personnel of about 15,000 people, and redeploy them to the Far East. The headquarters of the first brigade is the village of Dmitrievka, Primorsky Region, the second is the city of Khabarovsk. The first brigade was building from Vladivostok to Iman, and the second - from Iman to Khabarovsk. On November 4, 1935, the central press organ of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the newspaper Pravda published an article signed by the head of Daldorstroy, Comrade Yu.Apanasenko:
Starting to get acquainted with the affairs of the front and operational plans, Apanasenko discovered that along most of the Trans-Siberian Railway, with its dozens of bridges and tunnels, there is no reliable highway (Moskovsky Trakt) that would run parallel to the railway. This circumstance made the troops of the front extremely vulnerable, since the railway line sometimes passed very close to the border. It was enough for the Japanese to blow up several bridges or tunnels to deprive the armies of the front and freedom of maneuver, and reliable supplies. Apanasenko immediately ordered the construction of a reliable road with a length of almost a thousand kilometers, using not only the construction units of the front, but also the population of the surrounding areas. The deadline for this huge work was set as short as five months. ..Apanasenko's order was carried out, and the road from Khabarovsk to the station Kuibyshevka-Vostochnaya was built by September 1, 1941.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941, transport difficulties required emergency measures by the country's leadership. The State Defence Committee (GKO) adopted Decree No. 163 "On the organization of a road service on unpaved highways and the formation of motor transport battalions" on 15 July 1941. According to this decree, additional automobile and road units and formations are being formed, ten military highways (VAD) of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command are being deployed. To manage motor transport and road support, an automobile and road administration of the Red Army was created, which was transferred from the Red Army General Staff to the Rear Services of the Red Army. The need for motor transport and road support for Red Army offensive operations required further reorganization. By GKO Decree No. 3544 of June 9, 1943, the Main Road Directorate of the Red Army was created, and the Motor Transport Directorate was included in the established Main Automobile Directorate of the Logistics of the Red Army with the corresponding structures in the fronts, armies and military districts. Not a single Second World War operation was possible without the motor transport and road services, and soldiers of automobile and road formations and units.
The GKO of the USSR decreed on 16 January 1942 that separate road construction battalions (odsb) with a strength of 477 people be formed: 8 odsb in the Moscow Military District; 6 odsb in the Volga Military District; Central Asian - eight odsb in the Central Asian Military District; 3 odsb in the Siberian Military District, 4 odsb in the South Ural Military District; six battalions in the Transcaucasian Military District, and separate bridge-building battalions (omostsb) with a personnel strength of 501 people : four in the Moscow MD, two bridge battalions in the Arkhangelsk MD, two bridge battalions in the Privolzhsky MD, two bridge battalions in the Central Asian MD, one bridge battalion in the Siberian MD, two bridge battalion in the Ural MD, one bridge building battalion in the South Ural Military District, and ten bridge building battalions in the Transcaucasian MD.
By order of the People's Commissar of Defence No. 310, the road troops emblem was introduced, consisting of symmetrically crossing axes and shovels (silver-plated for commanding officers, gilded for engineering and technical staff, brass for cadets of military schools [schools], as well as sergeants and privates). Subsequently, by order of the Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union No. 104 (23 June 1955), a common emblem was introduced for Automotive Troops and Road Troops (previously only the emblem of the Automotive Troops), and from that period it became a common emblem for these military branches until 1988.
By the middle of 1943, the road troops of the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of: 294 separate road battalions; 22 Military Highway (VAD) directorates with 110 road commandant areas (DKU); 7 military road departments (VDU) with 40 road detachments (DO); 194 horse transport companies; repair bases; bases for the production of bridge and road structures; educational and other institutions.
In total, there were 400,000 road warriors at the front. During the Great Patriotic War they restored, repaired and built about 100,000 kilometers of roads, more than a million running meters of bridges, harvested and transported for road construction over 20,000,000 cubic meters of sand and stone. The total length of the military highways maintained by the road troops was 359,000 kilometers. For exemplary performance, 59 units of the road troops were awarded orders, 27 of them received honorary titles, more than 21,000 soldiers were awarded orders and medals.Military Encyclopedic Dictionary, page 243 [2001?].
After the end of the war, it was decided to reduce the "road troops" of the Soviet Armed Forces. Of the reduced units and units in 1945, by the decision of the State Defense Committee, a road construction unit was created - the Special Road Construction Corps of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), consisting of four road construction divisions, for the construction and restoration of the Soviet road network destroyed during the war (main highways of national importance, roads of defense significance). The new NKVD road corps was to be formed on the basis of the disbanded Armed Forces road troops. Two divisions participated in the construction in the territories of Tsimlyansk hydroelectric complex, Kuibyshevskaya HPP, oil fields of Tatar Republic and Bashkiria, mica mines Transbaikalia, the third in Rostov-on-Don and the fourth in Kharkov, built the main roads of national importance Kharkov - Rostov-on-Don, Kharkov - Simferopol and other BP. Between 1946 and 1956, he built 3,244 km of paved roads, 17 km of bridges, and laid 2.7 km of reinforced concrete pipes.