Inspired by the success of an experimental 12-man group paradrop during exercises outside Voronezh in southwestern Russia on August 2, 1930, Soviet military strategists approved the rapid growth of Airborne Forces from platoon and company-strength units to battalions, brigades, and ultimately, entire divisions.
Experiments through the 1930s with new generations of heavy aircraft, air-droppable armored vehicles and support equipment, from customized TB-3 bombers and T-37A light tanks to 37-mm anti-tank guns and 82-mm mortars, led to the Airborne Forces being envisioned as the frontline troops of the army of the future, able to rapidly break through the front and ensure speedy victories across vast geographic areas.
Fighting alongside the ground forces in elite Guards divisions during WWII, the Airborne Forces mounted nearly half-a-dozen major operations of their own during the war, fighting to push the Nazis back from Moscow in 1942, forge bridgeheads on the Dnepr in 1943, and carry out lightning landings and transport to smash a 1.1 million man-strong Japanese garrison in Manchuria in 1945.
Soviet Airborne Forces troops prepare to depart during operations against Nazi Germany, December 1941.
© Photo : Author Unknown
Vasily Margelov, an Army general who took command of the Airborne Forces in 1954, is often credited as the “father” of the modern Russian VDV. Under the wing of the WWII Hero of the Soviet Union, who got his first experience commanding an Airborne division in 1948, the Airborne Forces were reorganized, adopted new tactics, weapons and equipment, and gradually earned the status of one of the most elite formations in the Soviet (and subsequently Russian) militaries.
Margelov was no armchair general, carrying out over 60 parajumps over his tenure as commander, the last time when he was 65 years old, and ordering his deputy commanders to do the same. In 1973, to convince then-Defense Minister Andrei Grechko of the safety of a new tactical innovation– a paradrop of armored vehicles with troops inside, Margelov asked his son Alexander to be part of the crew of a BMD-1 infantry fighting vehicle dropped from an An-12 airlifter. The test drop proved successful, and Alexander would go on to be the first to test the new Reaktavr parachute-rocket system for armored vehicle soft landings in 1976.
Field review of troops and military equipment during the Zapad-81 wargame, including the BMD-1 IFV.
© Sputnik / V. Kiselev
/ General Margelov lobbied for the creation of a new generation of modern vehicles, weapons and other equipment for the Airborne Forces, from the aforementioned BMD-1 to the BTR-D APC, the An-22 and Il-76 strategic airlifters, man-portable SAMs, custom small arms, communications systems and improved chutes.
Commanding the forces from 1954-1959 and again from 1961-1979, Margelov was responsible for instilling in the Airborne Forces the ideal of the hero paratrooper with high morale and superior combat training, and lobbied the creation of special uniforms - including blue-and-white striped undershirts and light blue berets, to distinguish the Airborne Forces from the rest of the military.
VDV troops on parade on Red Square. November 7, 1983.
© Sputnik / Yuryi Abramochkin
Affection for Margelov among his troops, including a reputation of being easy to communicate with and concerned about their fates, gave rise to the use of the term ‘Uncle Vasya’s Troops’ (‘Voyska Dyadi Vasi’) – a play on the Airborne Forces’ VDV (Vozushno-Desantniye Voyska) acronym.
Margelov was also known for uttering some of the Soviet and Russian military’s best-known Chad aphorisms, including:
“If you’re knocked off your feet, fight on your knees. If you can’t walk, advance lying down.”
“From any height into any hot zone.”
"Only a paratrooper knows the true value of life, because he looks death in the eyes more often than others."
"To sit in the saddle, your butt is enough, but to stay in the saddle, you also need your head."
"Even death is not an excuse for failure to comply with a combat order."
"A paratrooper needs to know only two operations in mathematics: subtract and divide."
"Don't get in the way of a paratrooper or you risk becoming a mystery subject for a surgeon."
“In the event of war, the guys in blue berets will be thrown into the jaws of the aggressor, with the goal of tearing those jaws apart.”
VDV Commander General Vasily Margelov speaks to troops after training. May 31, 1969.
© Sputnik / Лев Polikashin
“To fulfill our role in modern operations, it’s necessary that our formations and units be highly maneuverable, covered with armor, have sufficient fire efficiency, be well controlled, capable of landing at any time of day or night and quickly proceeding to active combat operations. That, by and large, is the ideal for which we must strive,” Margelov once said.
More than forty years after Margelov's retirement from command and over three decades after his death in 1990 at age 81, the Airborne Forces have proven their mettle again and again in hotspots around the world.