Soviet shelters in the GDR



In 2020, I created an extensive webpage about the USAFE TAB-VEE shelters and their genesis. A similar page describing the Soviet aircraft shelters would be a logical next step, but it requires a lot of research. Maybe the information shown below will be the kernel for such an article.




Templin (Groß Dölln) shelter layout

In the old notes from my aircraft spotting years, I found this drawing with text. It's around 30 years old, and unfortunately I forgot who gave it to me. But I thought it was too unique not to show to a wider audience. Here's an automated translation. One comment is that the 'mufflers' could be intake and exhaust covers - oh the joys of a double translation :-)

Attached is the shelter layout as I found it on Templin in a box, and took it with me. I translated the text, and this immediately yielded some interesting information, but first the translation.

1 tow bar
2 front muffler (probably these are sound hoods)
3 wheel chocks
4 compressed air container
5 SPPU-22 gun pod
6 UB-32 missile pod
7 missiles for UB-32 pods
8 fuel tank
9 armament table (for mounting fuzes etc)
10 rear muffler (so sound hood)
11 tool cabinet
12 weapon jack
13 fuel tank
14 UB-32 pod
15 SPPU-22
16 fuel connection point
17 electricity connection point
18 table and cupboard
19 telephone switchboard
20 books and paper shelf
21 fuse box
22 fire extinguisher

As you can see, Russian shelters all (at least I assume that this classification is universal) have armament next to the aircraft, so that in case of emergency, without any help from outside, the aircraft can be loaded for a combat mission.
Templin had forty AU-13 (also: '2A/13') shelters, with AU short for А́рочное укры́тие, Arocnye Ukrytija, arched shelter. Although the shelter layout drawing is more of a sketch, I wanted to check whether it resembles an AU-13. It has a floor area of 12.8 by 28 meters, and when I scaled the drawing to that size, a similarly scaled Su-17 drawing agreed with the span of the misshapen aircraft in the original drawing.

I remember the shelters at Allstedt, another Su-17 base, that had rails installed on the floor, to guide the main wheels and avoid wing tip contact. The book 'Rote Plätze' reports that Allstedt had forty AU-11 (also: '2/11') shelters, that have a floor area of 10.8 by 20 meters, designed to house a MiG-21 and Su-7. Just maybe, a Su-17 with 10.04 meters span could be shoe-horned in? I drew that in green, and theoretically it seems possible.

The Su-17s were gone when we 'inspected' the base, so I do not know whether they really parked them in the AU-11 shelters. But I do remember it looked like they had been used until recently. I also remember a winch cable, completely rolled out. I wonder now whether a winch was standard equipment in a Soviet shelter? It's not shown in the Templin sketch.



Templin/Gross Dolln and Allstedt video links



http://mashke.org/Conv/ https://www.heimatgalerie.de/index.php/unterwegs/3d-modelle/186-baureihe-8-typ-au.html

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