User talk:B.Velikov

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Again, welcome! JarrahTree 12:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Brazilian Army Orbat

Updated all of the Brazilian Army OrBat articles and graphics. noclador (talk) 04:22, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Bulgarian military 1989

Hi, I just found your excellent information about the Bulgarian military in 1989 again. I had no time to write the articles and post it when you brought me all this excellent info, then forgot about it as work took my time. I just found it again and please forgive me to not have put your work into an article earlier. I will fix that in the coming weeks. One question though: do you happen to know what units were under the five tank brigades? We don't need to know each units name, but at least something like: x tank battalions, x motorized infantry, x artillery groups, etc. Thank you and sorry again for the delay! noclador (talk) 04:45, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

No, sorry. I do not have that information. I wanted to dig deeper into that and go to our Central Military Archive, but then I had a couple of surgeries and now I have much stuff to do, because I actually live in Norway and I am staying only for the winter here. So I will try to research that around the end of January - start of February 2018, but the info I posted is still fractual. There is still lots of stuff missing. For example there are at least two, possibly 3 Independent Mountain Motorised Rifle Brigades, but all I have right now is the info, that they existed - the 1st and the 3rd. So they were formed some time in the 1960s or the begining of the 1970s. So there are tons of questions - where were they based, what were their subordinated units, was there a 2nd IMMRBr, that was absorbed at a later point into the 1st and the 3rd? Which army were they subordinated to? The archive files for those brigades are dated up until 1987, so were they disbanded then? Probably. Is there any connection between them and the Mountain Motorised Rifle Regiment in Smolyan, which was later reformed into a cadre (20% peacetime strenght) mountain brigade and today is our 101st Mountain Infantry Battalion, set to become a Mountain Infantry Regiment in 2018 and our ground forces special operations capable unit, after the 68th Special Forces Brigade became independent from them and the battalion split from it, remaining an LF-unit? From the little I know during the Cold War the 3rd Motorised Rifle Division (headquartered in Blagoevgrad and facing Greece) had about half of its forces deployed close to the Greek border in a forward force (преден отряд) in the Struma river valley. So the independent mountain motorised rifle regiments were deployed in the mountains with the task to prevent an outflanking of the 3rd MRD and to funnel a possible invasion down in the valley towards the division. There is tons of stuff to be filled. For example, I did not know, that in wartime our Land Forces were to form their own army aviation, including:

• 1st Independent Helicopter Squadron
  • 111th, 112th and 113th Independent Helicopter Detachment with Mi-8, Mi-2 and Ka-26s from the Air Force's 44th Helicopter Air Regiment, mobilised aircraft and personnel from the Agricultural Aviation (a state company with 152 An-2s, 15 PZL M-18 Dromader, 8 Zlín Z 37, 5 Marsh Aviation Turbo Thrush, 17 Mi-2s and 33 Ka-26s, 100 administration employees, 400 aircrews with 600 aviators and 1 000 ground technical personnel employees with huge experience, operating half around the globe, mostly but not only in Socialist countries) and mobilised aircraft and personnel from the state owned Air Company for Special Aviation Services (tasked with VIP flights, aerial photomapping, aeromedical evacuation etc. and having 2 Tu-134s, 5 Yak-40s, 1 An-30, 3 L-410s, 5 Mi-8s and 1 Mi-2, 10 adminitration employees, 50 aviators in 20 aircrews and 100 ground technical support employees))
• 2nd Independent Helicopter Squadron
  • 121st, 122nd and 123rd Independent Helicopter Detachment with Mi-2 and Ka-26s from the Air Force's 44th Helicopter Air Regiment and mobilised aircraft and personnel from the Agricultural Aviation
• 3rd Independent Helicopter Squadron
  • 131st, 132nd and 133rd Independent Helicopter Detachment with Mi-2 and Ka-26s from the Air Force's 44th Helicopter Air Regiment and mobilised aircraft and personnel from the Agricultural Aviation and the Air Company for Special Aviation Services.

There was a huge reorganisation of Bulgarian People's Army in the 1980s. Around 1984-85 the firepower was significantly increased with new systems coming, like the Mi-24, Su-22, Su-25, S-400 ballistic missiles etc., but then the Communist government realised, that the country was heading into serious economic trouble and in 1987 it began to cut down units. Some divisions decreased their tank regiments to a battalion, many independent units were disbanded, obsolete ships were retired etc. So I recommend, that you put the BPA on the backburner for now. I am actually trying to fill the gaps about the European countries' armed forces on the German Wikipedia, but I realised my German has gotten terrible. I have studied it at a foreign languages high school, but I have graduated in 2003 and have used it very little since then. I speak it like a second-year Gastarbeiter now, which is really disappointing for me. I am almost done with the Spanish Army structure and I was hoping, that you check the spelling in a couple of days, when I put it in the article. Cheers!B.Velikov (talk) 10:46, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

No worries, I have begun to create the article at Structure of the Bulgarian People's Army 1989 and we can/will update it as you find more information (just go there directly and add/correct). Also if you have sources, please add them. I read your text above and will add a few thoughts here below:

• Mountain Motorised Rifle Brigades: I haven't seen them in any of the (very superficial) sources I have. If they existed, we will add them later.
• The 3x Helicopter Squadrons: if we can find out where they were based, we can add them. Is it one squadron per army?

As for the Spanish Army, give me a few days and I will check/read it. For now I will finish to transfer the info you posted on my talkpage to Structure of the Bulgarian People's Army 1989 as a basis to work from. Cheers, and I hope you have recovered from your surgeries. noclador (talk) 08:19, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

I have a bit more information for you. The 21st MRD headquartered in Pazardzhik is definitely in 1st Army, not in 2nd and 1st MRD headquartered in Slivnitza was definitely of high readiness. The Operational-Tactical Missile Brigades (this is their official unit designation Оперативно-тактически ракетни бригади (ОТРБр), their official naming was simply Rocket Brigades or Missile Brigades Ракетни бригади (РБр) in the Bulgarian Army a missile is called a rocket (ракета) and a rocket is called a rocket projectile (ракетен снаряд)) did not have 12, but 8 launcher vehicles (2 Missile Divisions (Ракетни Дивизиони (РДн)) of 2 Start Batteries each (Стартови батареи (СБатр)) of 2 launcher vehicles each). The 3 brigades with R-300 Aerofan missile complex were under the armies' subordination (46th Missile Brigade in Samokov under 1st Army, 56th Missile Brigade in Marino Pole near Karlovo under 2nd Army and the 66th Missile Brigade in Kabile near Yambol under the 3rd Army). Each army also had a separate Mobile Missile-Techical Base (Подвижна ракетно-техническа база (ПРТБ)), which supported the army's brigades and divisions (battalions - дивизион, not дивизия) - 128th MMTB (formed in 1961, 1st Army) in Samokov, 129th (formed in 1961, 2nd Army) in Karlovo, but shortly thereafter moved to Marino Pole and 130th MMTB (formed in 1962, 3rd Army) at Bezmer Air Base near Yambol. Marino Pole also used to be a fighter air base in the 1940s. The 76th Missile Regiment (formed in 1965 or 66, later upgraded to a Missile Brigade - RGC in June 1980) was a Reserve of the General Command formation (Резерв на Главното Командване (РГК)), it was armed with the R-400 Oka missile system and based in Telish near Pleven (also a former air force base in the 1940s and 1950s). There was a separate 135th Front Missile-Technical Base (Фронтова Подвижна Ракетно-Техническа База (ФПРТБ)) to support it, also based in Telish, formed in 1980, together with the upgrade of the regiment to a brigade. At last there a Central Missile-Technical Base (Централна Ракетно-Техническа База (ЦРТБ)) in Lovech under the Ministry of People's Defence.

The Independent Missile Divisions (Отделни Ракетни Дивизиони (ОРДн)) of the 8 motor-rifle divisions and the 5 tank brigades each had 2 Start Batteries (Стартови Батареи (СБатр)). The divisions' Independent Missile Divisions had 2 launcher vehicles in each Start Battery for a total of 4 launcher vehicles, the brigades' Independent Missile Divisions had 1 launcher vehicle in each Start Battery for a total of 2 launcher vehicles.

Once again I emphasize, that the 21st Motor-Rifle Division was part of the 1st Army and here is the proof - a list of fire exercises of the Missile Troops:

• 1st Army:
  • 1st Independent Missile Division (Samokov) (of the 1st MRD)
  • 3rd Independent Missile Division (Razlog) (of the 3rd MRD)
  • 21st Independent Missile Division (Pazardzhik) (of the 21st MRD)
  • 9th Independent Missile Division (Gorna Banya, Sofia suburb) (of the 9th Tank Brigade)
• 2nd Army:
  • 2nd Independent Missile Division (Stara Zagora) (of the 2nd MRD)
  • 17th Independent Missile Division (Dimitrovgrad) (of the 17th MRD)
  • 5th Independent Missile Division (Marino Pole) (of the 5th Tank Brigade)
  • 11th Independent Missile Division (Kazanlak) (of the 11th Tank Brigade)
• 3rd Army:
  • 7th Independent Missile Division (Boyanovo) (of the 7th MRD)
  • 16th Independent Missile Division (Grudovo, today Sredets, Burgas Oblast) (of the 16th MRD)
  • 18th Independent Missile Division (Shumen) (of the 18th MRD)
  • 13th Independent Missile Division (Sliven) (of the 13th Tank Brigade)
  • 24th Independent Missile Division (Karnobat) (of the 24th Tank Brigade)

This information is rock-solid. It is from the book "The Missile Troops of Bulgaria" by Gen. Dimitar Todorov and referenced by Col. Petar Tsvetanov and Col. Stoyan Stoyanov ("Ракетните Войски на България", автор: генерал Димитър Тодоров, 2007г., издателство: Еър Груп 2000, ISBN 978-954-752-106-3 ) https://www.helikon.bg/125966-Ракетните-войски-на-България.html

The information about the aviation above is rock-solid as well. It is from the book "The Bulgarian Aviation During the Cold War" by Dimitar Nedyalkov, printed by the Military Publishing, which is the official printing company of the Ministry of Defence ("Българската Авиация През Студената Война", автор: Димитър Недялков, 2011г., издателство: Военно Издателство, ISBN 978-954-509-448-4 ) https://www.helikon.bg/165741-Българската-авиация-през-Студената-война.html

As for the mountain rifle brigades, the information (well, the simple fact of their existence, at least until I go to the Archive to check it in person) is from a "List of the Funds of the State Military-Historical Archive Veliko Tarnovo" (СПИСЪК НА ФОНДОВЕТЕ НА ДЪРЖАВНИЯ ВОЕННОИСТОРИЧЕСКИ АРХИВ ВЕЛИКО ТЪРНОВО) - http://www.archives.government.bg/tda/docs/1-9-2.doc

• Fund Number 67 (or Folder 67): 3rd Independent Mountain Rifle Brigade, Military Detachment 40550 / 26400, Timespan 1949 - 1987, Files: 353 (67 3-та отделна планинска стрелкова бригада – под. /40550/ 26400 1949 - 1987 г. 353) The archive combines in a folder a military unit in its different forms, so 1949 is most probably not the year when the 3rd Independent Mountain Rifle Brigade was formed, but a date of its predecessor.
• Fund Number 536a: 21st Mountain Rifle Brigade, Military Detachment 60020, Timespan 1950 - 1992, Files: 316 (536а 21 планинска стрелкова бригада – под. 60020 1950-1992 г. 316)
• Fund Number 2254: 16th Independent Mountain Rifle Brigade, Military Detachment 70120, Timespan 1951 - 1987, Files: 274 (2254 16-та отделна планинска стрелкова бригада – под. 70120 1951-1987 г. 274)

So there were definitely mountain rifle brigades, just the info about them is obscure. Not to mention, that I have heard about them from a friend of mine (a retired captain and a company commander in the 1st Parachute Reconnaissance Battalion in Gorna Banya) long before I have stumbled upon that list of archive articles.

And I don't know what your sources are, but they are wrong. We have never had neither the Strela-1, nor the ZSU-57.

Greetings! B.Velikov (talk) 09:57, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Update

Update the article with the info you provided. In the future - just go there and edit it yourself. I can come later and smooth the grammar. As for the 9K31 Strela-1 - both the 9K31 Strela-1 article, as well as the Modern equipment of the Bulgarian land forces article say that Bulgaria got them. As for the mountain brigades, please let me know when you got more info. Also: please add the two above sources to the article with the Cite function. Cheers, noclador (talk) 09:25, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Sources

Dear Mr. Velikov, thank you for your hard work on obviously archive visits etc to clarify the Cold War organisation of the BLF. It appears to be ten times better that the microarmormayhem sources that form the baseline of what we've had to work with in the past. But could you clarify for the information of everybody where you're actually drawing the data from? Is it just the archives, or other sources? Could you please do a consolidated source listing? Kind regards and many thanks again, Buckshot06 (talk) 10:06, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, if you scroll a little up you would see the two sources, that I have used for the edit of or armed forces in 1989. I also have a considerable amount of magazines of the Air Group 2000 publishing house, which is specialised in military matters. It has three main monthly magazines, called "Club Wings" ("Клуб Криле"), "Club Ocean" ("Клуб Океан") and "Club Weapon" ("Клуб Оръжие"). I used to collect them, but I don't any more, because as of lately the content has deteriorated mostly to information, which is translated from the Internet, instead of original content and they also became too politisized. But the content until 2005 - 2006 is unbiased and significant, with articles, written by actual and retired officers. For example for a short period the head editor of Club Wings was Vladimir Pamporov (https://www.helikon.bg/42343-Аз-и-Миг---23.html), who is arguably the most experienced Bulgarian MiG-23 pilot. I have actually distanced myself from military topics lately, as our armed forces have deteriorated vastly and the news coming from the sector are bad and I have also moved abroad, so I no longer have access to my sources, but now that I am staying for some time at home I can help with what I have to clear some details on the subject. I haven't served in the armed forces, but I have some friends that have and was fascinated to be able to talk with them about those things. Amongst them is a fourth generation army officer, whose father has actually formed the 24th Tank Brigade in Aytos (the name of the town actually comes from aetos as the town was a Roman garrison and a legion's eagle insignia was kept there, so it is a traditional garrison town :) and whose uncle is actually Army General Mutafchiev, the last Bulgarian representative at the Warsaw Pact Organisation and a former Minister of People's Defence. Unfortunately I have lost contacts with them, as I moved abroad and besides at the time was much more interested in aviation, so my information on land forces and navy is really scarce, not that the info about aviation is vast anyways. For example the information about the Combat Training Air Regiment of the Higher Air Force School is from that book I mentioned earlier "The Bulgarian Aviation During The Cold War", but also from a small booklet of "Club Wings", called "Tactical Aviation Corps". After the end of the Cold War our Air Force was reformed. In 1993 the air regiments in Bezmer and Sadovo were experimentaly transformed into "air bases" with the merger of the air regiments with the aviation-technical and airfield service battalions, that were independent from them. Around 1995 - 1996 all the air regiments were transformed into air bases (brigade equivalents) and two main commands were formed - Air Defence Command (Командване за противовъздушна отбрана), merging the two air defence divisions and the Tactical Aviation Command (Командване Тактическа Авиация), transforming the 10th Mixed (or Combined) Air Corps and including into it the newly transformed into air bases training regiments in Shtraklevo and Kamenets. The regiment in Dolna Mitropoliya was disbanded.

And there is another factor in Bulgaria, that makes the gathering of detailed information on that subject painstaking. the people involved with the armed and security forces are paranoid about secrecy. Just to give you an example, I have studied political science at the university and one of the subjects was "Crisis Management", which included everything - from social and economic crisis, through natural disasters, to terrorism and armed conflict. The lecturer was actually a retired army officer. At one point he was talking about a hypothetical incursion into our airspace and said something like "Of course there are forces and action plans in place to deal with that kind of situations, but they are top secret." And I responded, that actually they are not and gave him the general disposition of the forces at the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s, told him that those formations are already disbanded and gave him the actual general force structure. That was around 2006. I told him about the 18th Fighter Air Regiment with its two fighter squadrons at Dobroslavtsi and Gabrovnitsa air bases, told him about the 17th Fighter Air Regiment with its two fighter squadrons at Ravnets and Balchik air bases, about the three missile air defence brigades, told him that they are all disbanded and that at the moment we have a single fighter air base at Graf Ignatievo with a MiG-29 and a MiG-21 squadron, the three missile air defence brigades are combined into a single one, covering the whole territory, as is the single radar regiment for aerial surveillance. For those short two to three minutes his face turned red at least three times, at the end he said, that he cannot discuss that and swiftly changed the subject. After the lecture he came to me and told me, asked me where do I know that from, told me that it is public information, he completely refused to believe that and told me, that it is best if I really do not talk about those things, not in an intimidating tone, but like he was actually stunned by what he has just witnessed. The retired military personnel really fail to realise, that the so called top secret military detachments are long completely demolished and there is absolutely no secrecy about their former existence and purpose. Another episode from about five or maybe six years ago - the Bulgarian government was actually planning to house detained illegal immigrants at the former Telish ballistic missile brigade. And of course the locals were completely against that, even tried to make roadblocks when government officials went there to take a look at the ABANDONED former army base and one of the arguments in front of the journalists by a person, who claimed to be a retired officer from that base (could have been, could have not been...) was "Do you have ANY IDEA about what you're doing?! DO YOU REALISE, that this is A TOP SECRET MILITARY DETACHMENT OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE???!!!" a decade and a half after the brigade has been disbanded, the R-400 ballistic missiles scrapped and probably a decade after the army base has been completely abandoned.

Another episode with friends of mine at the Sofia Central Railway Station, also from about five or six years ago. They are train spotters and railway modellists. They went there to make some photos (The ÖBB have just had started operating their Siemens Taurus fleet sporadically on our tracks and they wanted to shoot that magnificent beast), the reaction by the policeman on duty (closing retirement age) to which was borderline mental. He became hysterical how this is a LOCATION OF STRATEGIC NATIONAL IMPORTANCE and therefore shooting photos in the area is strictly forbidden, as it may compromise secret information. They asked him to quote the exact law that stipulates so, to which he tried to confiscate their cameras, broke one of them and called a police van from the nearby police precinct to take them in custody. When the van came and the three policemen contacted him for details they went straight for damage control. Two of them walked him to his room and the senior policeman went to cool down the spotters and to do his best to avoid the incident from becoming a law case and a media scandal "Yes, this is highly unfortunate, but you see, that this is an old guy, just before retirement. It would be such a shame if he gets disgracefully fired because of that. Yes, I see, that it is totally his fault. Just, please, show some understanding here". So to summarize, he was posted to literally the easiest post in the precinct's area of responsibility just to accumulate the service days required for retirement, with the job to literally do nothing, drink tea, walk his uniform in the main central railway station and in case of some incident to call for backup, but his Cold War paranoid flashbacks make him unsuitable even for that.

And one last example, somewhat related to that. Another friend of mine, also a retired army captain, the one I mentioned earlier with the parachute force recon background was almost kicked out of the army even before promoted to First Lieutenant. At his final State Exam at the Higher Combined Arms Military School in 1993 in our city - Veliko Tarnovo he was doing good and was given the task to explain in detail the structure of Bulgarian Land Forces BTR-motorised rifle platoon, which he did, the Colonel chairman of the exam commission put on his nasty smile and said "WRONG!", to which my pal replied "No, that is the actual structure.", which only infuriated the guy and he was about to send him packing without his officer commission. The deputy-chairman told him to leave the room for five minutes, which he did and he told me how he heard the yelling of half of the exam commission members and the other half trying to calm them down. They called him back in ten, gave him the same task, he gave exactly the same answer and the deputy-chairman told him, that he passed, after which the chairman, to save face mumbled halfmouthed "Well, it wasn't that way, during my time." No $h1t, m0r0n, it wasn't. The structure he knew was from the end of the 1960s, which he has memorized during his study at the school and failed to notice the changes implemented ever since. And if half of the commission members, which actually knew that, decided that they don't need to antagonize themselves with their colleagues over that and sit this one out, my friend was going to be baked.

The people, that were actually involved with our armed and police forces literally live in their own Cold War paranoid matrix - some of them, that are actually competent on the matter are convinced that things are still top secret or just don't want to bother, the majority still lives in 1989 and the little number of them, that are actually willing to shed some minimal light on that subject, just to boast their self-importance do not know $h1t! I have been witness to people, who do not know the differences between the different variants of the aircraft they were trained to service or the history of their development and their manufacturer nomenclature, of people, convinced, that our army ballistic brigades of R-300 and R-400 systems were tasked with attacking ships (!), in order to prevent American or Turkish marine landing on our coastline, people, convinced the 24th Frontal Missile Air Defence Brigade armed with Krug and based in Stara Zagora was actually tasked with air defence of the 13th Attack Helicopter Regiment there and people, that were convinced, that they were guarding Soviet nuclear warheads, when the Soviets have actually never based nuclear warheads on our territory. And once again, I do not have a military background, but the little I know about those things is good enough to know, that these statements are totally rubbish. In those situations comes the argument "What do you even know. I was in the military! Are you the one to tell me how things were?!" There are things I know, that aren't that big of a secret here anyways, and are really common knowledge, but if I post them, the reaction would be "Yeah? Well, where are your sources, then?!" For example the two battalions (divisions) of S-200 in Bulgarian service were based in Ponor to the north of Sofia and the sole S-300 battalion (division) is based in the Sofia suburb of Bankya.

So it is really enormously hard to gather reliable information about that and I am doing what I can on that (well, not that much lately anyway), but it is absolutely no surprise to me, that the info on the Internet is so little and so unreliable. I know that the best shot at that is to go directly to our central military archive, but I am recuperating after surgeries and I am trying to take things really slow. Greetings! B.Velikov (talk) 12:13, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Many many thanks Mr. Velikov. I very much appreciate your explanations, and am a little worried about the attitudes you convey on former military personnels' behalf. (I try to use the term "divizion" to convey the artillery-battalion Soviet organisation, but you're using the straight "division"; not sure that I am correct.)

Would you mind giving me some comments on this piece? https://www.stopfake.org/en/the-russian-subversion-of-the-defense-system-of-bulgaria-an-enabler-for-state-capture/ Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 19:56, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, of course our modern military follows the Russian traditions and the term "division" that I am using is exactly that - дивизион. It is written the same way both in Bulgarian and Russian and has exactly the same meanings:

1) an artillery "battalion", subdivided into batteries 2) a naval "flotilla" (we don't use that term), or a unit of ships. It could be roughly equaled to an regiment in case we are talking about a division of frigates (which equal to army battalions) or to an army battalion if we are talking about a division of corvettes or fast attack craft. This is why I am writing battalion, which is not the term we use in that case, and division in brackets, in order to emphasize, that it is a battalion equivalent. I just do not write the Bulgarian word phonetically, because we can write Bulgarian with Latin letters, but it is quite rightly considered a very, very dull thing to do and it shows ignorance and lack of respect for our own language, when a Bulgarian does that. We even have two exact expressions for that. We say that someone is writing in "monkey letters" ("маймуница"), when the person writes Bulgarian with Latin letters (as in - he is hardly distinguishable from a monkey) or that he is using "moonshine letters" ("шльокавица", which is a slang term for home distilled rakiya drink, as in - no person in his/ her right mind would do such a dumb thing and the only explanation could be if the person is drunk, therefore doing such nonsense).

Sorry, I got carried away. About that article. Well, first of all let me tell You something about me. As I mentioned I am a political science graduate. I am fascinated by politics and history, both Bulgarian as well as European and global politics and history in general. I am highly critical of the relationship my country has with Russia, to an extend where I am regularly called a Rusophobe, which I am not. I am actually a Kremlin-phobe. I am highly critical about the actions of the Russian Tsarist governments, later the Soviet governments and today the Chekist regime towards my country. Yes, they are highly destructive, yes an overwhelming majority of our politicians, officials, military and security personnel and our population in general is so pro-Russian, that they give that a priority over our own interests, to an extend where the politically correct things to say are to praise Russia and Russo-Bulgarian proximity and to criticise the EU and the US. This is the main reason why there is a tidal wave of fake pro-Kremlin anti-European fake news. That "political correctness" is much more the reason for that, than actual overseas financing for those troll-sites, although, to a lesser extend that too is a factor. This is why we are the most backward country in the EU.

Having said that, I need to tell You a bit more about Bulgaria Analityca, which in no way should be taken as a person slandering. The two main persons, who are behind that site, are actually Ilian Vassilev and Aleks Aleksiev. Ilian Vassilev used to be our ambassador to Moscow, but unusually for the people, who have been in our embassy there, he is critical towards the Putin regime. Amongst the greater majority of Bulgarians, as I have already said, criticism of Russia is a taboo. He is in a Kremlin list of people, who are denied entry to Russia. Aleks Aleksiev is the son of Rayko Aleksiev, who was a painter and a cartoon artist, brutally murdered by the Communists shortly after they came to power, because of his satirical cartoons in the newspapers. Aleks Aleksiev is a staunch anti-communist, who was an advisor to the White House and the Pentagon on matters regarding the People's Republic of Bulgaria and a fellow at the RAND institute. They both are trying to balance out the wave of pro-Kremlin disinformation in Bulgaria, but their articles should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ilian Vassilev is a consultant in the energy sector and he has some expertise there, and has fairly good understanding of the opposition forces in Russia, but goes fully freestyle when he makes comments on things outside of these fields. Just to give you an example, he is fully convinced in his own wild theory how the recent winning by Saab Gripen of our contest for a new multirole combat aircraft for our Air Force is an elaborate plot by our president Rumen Radev (retired Major-General and the previous commander of the Air Force) to tip things in favor of Saab in order to sabotage our national security by predeterming the acquisition of the most inferior contestant and at the same time the most favorable contestant for the Russians. He is basing this madness on some info from years ago, when Russian businessmen expressed their interest to acquire shares in Saab, so there you have it. Case closed. He is totally ignorant about the NATO-Swedish cooperation from the time of the Cold War as well as to the Swedish concerns, that the country feels directly threatened by the Russian military build-up in the Baltic region. The other proof in his "ingenious" theory is the fact that, as Commander of the Air Force Radev chaired the work group, which determined the parameters for evaluation of the contestants in our fighter competition and that about a year later, when he was already our President, the one who publicly announced the result of the competition - the win for Saab Gripen, was the interim defence minister in our Gerdzhikov Caretaker Government. Of course, when our parliament is dissolved the Republic of Bulgaria turns ex-officio into a "superpresidential" republic and the President is the one, who bares responsibiity for the actions of the government he has personally constituted, so this is the "solid proof" for foul play on his behalf. Utter nonsense.

Aleks Aleksiev on the other hand and due to his background is of course solidly pro-Washington. So those two are utterly convinced, that the sensible and necessary thing for us to do is to replace our 27-year old MiG-29s with 35-year old F-16A/Bs in order for us to achieve interoperability with the USAF and NATO forces, to express commitment and to strengthen our "strategic alliance" with Washington, as if an order for under a $1 billion makes much of a difference in that direction.

I am giving You this example to show You how they can be spot on in some cases and blatantly ridiculous in other cases, to an extend where their objectivity is highly questionable. Having said that I haven't read that exact article, but tomorrow, when I have the time I will look into it and give You my comment on it, if You would be so kind to give me Your e-mail address. As for Bulgaria being a Trojan Horse in the EU, it pains me to say this, but I am convinced, that we are. Not to mention deliberately kept by our so-called political "elite" in the desperate state it is, in order to be used the perfect negative propaganda example for the countries outside of the EU, which seek closer ties with it. Cheers! Borislav. B.Velikov (talk) 21:28, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

This would actually be a very short one. I fully concur with the content of the article. Actually the pan.bg mentioned in it is the Internet media of Air Group 2000, which I mentioned earlier, just to give You an example of how much it became a propaganda tool. Greetings! B.Velikov (talk) 12:22, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks again Mr. Velikov!! Thankyou!! Very helpful context, makes me thankful that Romania is north of Bulgaria rather than the other way around!! I do not put my e-mail address out on the open internet (spammers ahoy) but click the "e-mail this user' link when you go to my userpage and you can get to me that way. (a) so both Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria had a 10th Aviation Corps? - can you confirm? (b) can you improve my source ref for some of the data you've said above - https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Bulgarian_Air_Force&diff=810686369&oldid=810685502, date and publishing place of "Tactical Aviation Corps" booklet, and (c) Why does the majority of the elite remain pro-Russian? Buckshot06 (talk) 20:19, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, well, the only thing I could add to the source is, that it is from the year 2001. I see it here on their online catalogue: http://www.airgroup2000.com/index.php?page=izvanredni&action=add_kom&id=16 The year is not even written in the booklet, nor an ISBN. BTW, let's drop the polite "You" form. It makes me feel old and I am only 32. :) The 10th Mixed (or Combined or Composite) Air Corps (10ти Смесен Авиационен Корпус), as I am reading in that booklet right now (Page 6) "was formed in September 1961 and its first commander was Major-General Simeon Simeonov. The new corps command was mainly composed of officers from the command of 2nd Air Defence Corps (in Yambol) and from the command of the just disbanded 10th Fighter Air Division in Graf Ignatievo. (hence the number) The airport in Plovdiv was determined to be the headquarters of the new formation. Parallel to the formation of the corps commenced the formation of 44th Helicopter Air Regiment, also at the Plovdiv airport. In 1961 the air corps included:

• 2 fighter air regiments (15th FAR in Ravnets and 21st in Uzundzhovo), flying MiG-15s, 17s and 19s
• 2 fighter-bomber air regiments (22nd FBAR in Bezmer and 25th in Cheshnegirovo), flying MiG-15s and 17s
• 1 reconnaissance air regiment (26th RAR in Tolbukhin), flying MiG-15bis and Il-28s
• 1 transport air regiment (16th RAR in Vrazhdebna), flying Li-2s and Il-14s
• 1 helicopter air regiment (44th HAR in Plovdiv), flying 3 Mi-4s and 4 Mi-1s initially
• signals battalion
• 10th Radiotechnical Battalion
• 19th Fighter Air Regiment was included temporarily (although to me it seems it has always been part of the 10th MAC) in Graf Ignatievo, flying MiG-19S/PMs"

At that time Major-General was our lowest General rank, as in the USSR and Russia and Simeon Simeonov is the most beloved Air Force Commander of the Cold War. His nephew, also called Simeon Simeonov, was also an Air Force Commander and Chief of Defence after that several years ago.

As for the other question, I hate to politicize the discussion, but the reason why our political "elite" is so pro-Russian is complex one, not in the way, that it is hard to understand, but that it is due to a numer of factors:

1) the greater majority of Bulgarians is unconciously pro-Russian, mostly due to inertia. It is not objectified. In a way I explain this to myself with our inferiority complex. We have that inferiority complex of "being a small, backward nation on a small territory" and we constantly seek a tap on the shoulder from outside. As what we mostly get from the West is either criticism or utter lack of interest, we turn to Russia for the tap on the shoulder. It costs them nothing really.

2) for a significant majority of Bulgarians it makes them feel good, important and powerfull to convince themselves how Bulgarians and Russians are one whole. You know, the same language (which it isn't), the same religion (which isn't really, as the Russian chirch has been an ideological department of their state since the time of Peter the Great and the religion is bent to a degree to act as the propaganda ministry of the state. Unfortunately our own national church was domesticated by our communist regime and almost all of our archbishops and bishops were agents of the State Security oppressive apparatus, so they are more than happy and willing to and actually turning our church into a "branch" of the Russian Orthodox Church and yet another pro-Russian propaganda channel), the same alphabet (which is actually the Bulgarian alphabet, which we taught to them, the same way we actually converted them to Christianity. They adopted the religion from the Eastern Roman Empire, but it was our monks, who converted them, simply because of the language barrier - they spoke a Slavic language and the Greek monks did not).

3) the Western orientated successfull Bulgarians prefer to immigrate, than to stay in a country, which does not progress and the greater majority of the population is more than willing to blame others for its own passivity, so this pro-Russian majority is actually self-perpetuating.

4) this passivity of the Bulgarian population is further generated by the fact, that we do not have actual goals, other than the natural one, that we want to live better tomorrow, than the way we live today, which who doesn't, right? But there is no vision how to achieve that, there is no goal, no path to follow. The general attitude is to set some broad facade goal, without an actual correlation to improving things in our country. Goals like "Well, the Socialist regime is bankrupt. If we only reform our country in line with the Western democracies, everything will be OK." Which we don't, because a plurality of political parties is not all that is needed for the country to function like a western democracy, especially when the commies did not want to drop the bone and all the signifficant parties were infiltrated by the get-go by agents of the "former" regime. So, we now have multiple political parties, but our lives aren't improving. Oh, here's what we will do - we will take foreign loans to kickstart our economy. Not really, especially when the unreformed planned economy is in no way competitive on the world markets. So we're still broke, with millions of unpaid workers, with a hyperinflation. We've wasted too long to privatize our state-owned companies, so we're too late to the party for th eprivatization to have any signifficant effect, but this is what we'll do - we will enter NATO! Then we will become really part of the Western world and things will finally start to improve. Well, we're in NATO now, but there is no signifficant improvement in our lives whatsoever. OK, we will enter the EU and this will do the trick. So now we're in the EU and the next mirage we're chasing is the Schengen area. As soon as we enter it, things will finally start improving. It is undoubtedly madness and with every new artificial goal and disappointment also grows the resentment. But the trick is, that by setting such facade goals the average Bulgarian runs away from his own responsibility to improve the country we live in. Because such goals are for the government to follow, so he doesn't need to do a damn thing. So he is still looking for ways to skip paying taxes, not to self-improve and further his skills and quallifications, take care of the area around his home, because it is someone else's job, not to volunteer for social causes, because no one is paying for such nonsense etc. etc. etc. And with every new disappointment and resentment comes an urge to look for a change in another direction. Just to look for some new broad facade goal, that will finally do the magic trick.

5) which is exactly what some circles in the country and abroad exploit, because it does not cost them anything to ride on the wave of those feelings. What is even more ironic is that all the politicians, that are calling for a divorce with Europe and reorientation to the East are more than happy to travel on their EU-passports and to send their sons and daughters to Western universities. 6) the political "elite" and especially those, who are pro-Russian, benefit immensely from our ties to Russia, especially because the deals in the energy and defence sector run through intermediate appendix companies. The natural gas we buy is bought from Gazprom by intermediate companies and then bought by Bulgargaz from those companies. This is the reason why our government declares, that is looking for diversification and goes to Azerbaidjan, which sells its gas to Gazprom. The nuclear fuel for our only NPP comes from Rosatom via intermediate companies. Bulgarian political factors move heaven and earth to restart the project for a second NPP in Belene, because there are tens of "consultant" companies on the project. So far we have spent about $2 billion with no positive results whatsoever, but this is the way for our parties to receive overseas funding. The law forbids this to be done directly, but hey, if "consulting" companies overprise for "consulting services", then it is all in order.

7) not to mention that in the Western world the law and transparency reign supreme and this just does not suit our politicians. Their pipedream is the eastern type of hypercentralised state, where the head of government has total control over the state apparatus and can kill corruption investigations and can fix government orders just by picking up the phone. I am convinced, that we are the most centralised country in the EU. We have one national parliament and one central government. We have 28 territorial divisions, which do exactly nothing. This way the prime minister has almost the same control as the chairman of the Party in our previous regime, minus the option whoever he wants to to labor camp. B.Velikov (talk) 22:12, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Many many thanks!! Very helpful!! OK, I think as soon as I can decide Combined vs Composite vs Mixed, we will create an article for the 10th Composite Aviation Corps and that will be a small step forward (for the VVS in Russia, different wiki-editors have been using either Mixed or Composite, which screws things up as much as Detached/Independent/Separate - translation is difficult sometimes!!) Thanks so much for your political explanations -- very helpful indeed!! Vaguely similar to France - "the government will take care of it" and no-one in the "population" feels responsible, though much worse. (Forgive my refactoring - makes it easier to read!!) Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 03:25, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's a question of semantics. We have all three word equivalents in Bulgarian:

• the official naming is 10ти Смесен Авиационен Корпус. In Bulgarian the verb "смесвам" means to bring together, to homogenise, to mix things for one purpose. Like when you are mixing ingredients to make doe for a cake, or when you are mixing concrete to build a wall.
• the verb "комбинирам" has a slightly different meaning. It also means to mix different ingredients, but in order to achieve several goals. Like we call a medicine "антибиотик с комбинирано действие" - a combined action antibiotic.
• the verb "композирам" has two very narrow meanings. Either a composer composes a music piece, or railway workers bring together a train in a marshalling yard. The adjective "композитен" has an even narrower meaning. It is only being used for technical term "композитен материал" - composite material.

The solutions for translations from Russian could be applied universally to our terms as well, because of the proximity of the languages and because our military basically follows the Russian tradition.

I use "detachment" to translate "отряд", which could mean many different things, anything from an infantry section to a flotilla of smaller class of ships, a task force or a brigade equivalent (our Border Troops were organised in formations, called "Пограничен отряд" ("border detachment"), equal to an army brigade, divided into border sectors (not entirely sure about the "sector" naming), equal to battalions, zastavas for company equivalents (застава has totally different meanings in Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian. In Serbian the word means a flag, we have borrowed the Russian meaning, which is exactly that of a remote hut built to house a company of border troops and the company of border troops as a military unit itself) and (observation) posts for platoon equivalents, also not sure if this is the correct naming).

Then I use "independent" to translate "отделен", but sometimes I slap unintentionally "separate" instead and I look closely to avoid that.

So it is really a question of what is the most appropriate word to be used in English and to bring it in line with the translation in English of the names of other similar military formations. I am not certain, as my English is unfortunately not that advanced. By the way, I have more data, but the tediousness to bring the content to Wikipedia standards is really going on my nerves. If you want I can put bits in my sandbox with the source and you could help with the editing, like this one: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:B.Velikov/sandbox/Structure_of_the_Bulgarian_Air_Forces_during_the_Cold_War Also I can help with translations from German, Norwegian or Russian. Swedish and Danish not that well, but I understand them basically. By the way, on a political or actually on a national peculiarities side note, I have spent the last three years in Oslo and stunningly I have found some similarities, the same inferiority complex of "oh, we're such a small and obscure and unimportant nation in the edge of the continent", but combined with totally different coping mechanism to cope that. We long for a tap on the shoulder from anyone. They long for a tap on the shoulder from international organisations. We set broad nation goals with the hope that our lives turn for the better. They set as a goal international recognition to make them feel better. You know, I was there, when the UN ranked them second in the rank-list of in which country does a person has the best quality of live, and they have turned that into a MICRO FREAKING NATIONAL TRAGEDY! Talked about it for a whole year, as if their existence has suddenly lost any meaning. Like "How did it come to this catastrophe?!", as if being put first or second on a piece of paper is somehow directly connected to your quality of life. :))))) Greetings! B.Velikov (talk) 08:54, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Happy to. Have made some edits at your sandbox - are you happy so far? Can keep going if you are. Do you have anything to add at First Army (Bulgaria) and the Second and Third Armies? Buckshot06 (talk) 04:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. I don't have anything, that could be use to write articles about the Cold War 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies. I only have small bits of information here and there. For example I have found a book, scanned and uploaded online about our EW troops, I have another book about our Radiotechnical troops, I think I would also be able to find something about the Army anti-tank battalions. On the other hand I have two booklets with patches of the armed forces between 1974 and 2000 and of the Border Troops. They are not thorough, but there are the patches of 7th and 21st MRD for example. The problem is, that we cannot scan and upload them because of a) copyrights and b) most patches are scanned fabrics and the quality is not very good, but if someone has experience with making electronic insignia graphics I can shoot them with my phone and send them over to be used as templates. Greetings! B.Velikov (talk) 06:53, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

21st Motor Rifle Division

One question about the 21st Motor Rifle Division: in your first listing you listed it's main units as follows:

• 30th Motor Rifle Regiment, in Pazardzhik
• 101st Motor Rifle Regiment, in Smolyan
• 102nd Motor Rifle Regiment, in Devin
• 30th Motor Rifle Regiment, in Ardino

Two motor rifle regiments numbered 30th? For now I put the one in Ardino as 30th Tank Regiment... however I think that this division actually had four motor rifle regiments and either the one in Pazardzhik or the one in Ardino is numbered wrong. Could you please check? Thank you, noclador (talk) 08:10, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Medieval battles of the Bulgarian Army for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Medieval battles of the Bulgarian Army is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medieval battles of the Bulgarian Army until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Constantine ✍ 15:44, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

68th Special Forces Brigade (Bulgaria)

You may wish to amend this article with your more accurate information if you have the time. Many thanks for all your contributions!! Buckshot06 (talk) 18:56, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Bulgarian Front

All of the European combatants' forces changed over time, with reorganisations involving less and more direct Soviet control of forces. Can you specify for the Bulgarian Front, with the three armies and the Soviet 10th Army, in which decade this began to apply? Cheers and thanks, Buckshot06 (talk) 20:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

No, sorry. I don't have specific sources on that. And it is not the Bulgarian, but the Balkan front. The Russians did not use country names on that matter. The only exception is East Germany for political reasons. One is as a spoil of war of sorts, as a reassurance of the own might "You see, the Germans invaded us and today we have troops in Germany, not the other way around." The other is as a statement "We have troops not in Eastern Germany, but in Germany PERIOD!" as in "This is the real one!" But other than that you have Northern Troops Group, not Group of Soviet Troops in Poland, you have Central Troops Group, not Group of Soviet Troops in Czechoslovakia, you have Southern Troops Group, not Group of Soviet Troops in Hungary. Therefore the wartime headquarters was called Balkan Front, not Bulgarian Front. And besides from what I was told they were actually TWO - the Ministry of People's Defence formed the headquarters of the 1st Balkan Front in wartime. The Land Forces Command formed the 2nd Balkan Front in wartime. Our Navy went under the command of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet in wartime. I haven't edited the article correspondingly, but I know it from an absolutely reliable source. The friend I told you about, that he almost got kicked out at his states exam, remember? He graduated in 1993 with Infantry/ Reconnaissance specialisation, spent some time as a motor rifle platoon leader (MT-LB), went for a specialisation course at the Russian VDV Higher School in Ryazan, came back to Bulgaria, got posted as a mechanised infantry platoon (with BMP-1) commander in the 9th Tank Brigade in Gorna Banya until a vacancy in the 1st Parachute Reconnaissance Battalion opened up, at which point he became a company commander at the battalion. He retired from the army as a captain around 1998, after which attended courses at the Ministry of the Interior Higher School in Simeonovo (Sofia suburb) and switched to our civilian counter-intelligence - the National Security Service (НСС). I met him when he has already went to the the private sector, but you do realise that this is not the type of guy to make up fairy tales and while I am very skeptical about the things told by former servicemen I do not have reasons to doubt his words. Just deep regrets, as I haven't seen him for at least five years now. I am not certain when exactly did the plan for the formation of the Balkan Front(s) came into play, but it should be around the time when the Southwestern Strategic Direction Headquarters in Tiraspol or Kishinev was formed, as it was its (theirs) oversight. I am only guessing here, but it could be in 1973, because this is the year when the Land Forces Command (Командване на Сухопътните Войски (КСВ)) was formed as: "All of that, as well as the volume of tasks [bestowed upon the Bulgarian armed forces] made necessary the formation in 1973 of the Command of the Land Forces as a permanent organ of the Ministry of People's Defence for the oversight of the troops during peacetime and its transformation into a frontal headquarters during wartime." ("Всичко това както и обемът на поставените им задачи налага през 1973г. да бъде формирано Командването на Сухопътните войски като постоянен орган на Министерството на отбраната за ръководене на войските в мирно време и развърнато фронтово управление по време на война.", http://landforce.mod.bg/Istoriya/2:535.html). In the same 1973 the OSNAZ-Brigade of the General Staff Intelligence Department was formed, and you know how spooks say that two coincidences are not a coincidence any more (at least this is what Eastern Block spooks say :). When were the three armies formed. I can't tell you that exactly either. What I can tell you is this. Until 1891~93 (not sure about the exact year) we had brigades as the biggest tactical formations. In that year the first 6 divisions were formed. During the wars in the 1910s we had initially 3 armies, later a fourth one was formed. During the interwar period our army was dramatically limited by the Neuilly Peace Treaty. Before the Second World War the limitations on our army were dropped and we reestablished nine infantry divisions under four armies. We entered the actual war in 1944 with five armies. After the war we demobilized. For the first time around 1950 we fielded army corpses. (Actually I forgot that during WWII we had one occupational corps in Yugoslavia and one in Greece. I did not put them into account, because these were ad-hoc temporary task forces. Not according to the war plans.) Until then we had armies, which were of corps size (3 ~ 4 divisions), we just called them traditionally "armies". Because, as you see for example in the late 1930s 9 infantry divisions between 4 "armies" is pretty slim. Of course things change in wartime. We had lots and lots of infantry. Like insane numbers. For the Balkan Wars and the First World War we had something like an army of 850 000+ out of a population of less than 5 million. The three army corpses existed in the 1950 and some time around 1956 - 58 they became 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies, because the Soviet Army itself went from armies made of corpses, made of 8 - 12 divisions in total to leaner and meaner armies of 5 divisions. In 1960, when the BPA formed its ground forces missile troops, the three armies were already established. These 3 armies existed until 1992 -1993, when the reduction in our armed forces reduced the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Army Corpses. I am giving you the basic force structure here, because I don't have the concrete data for the moment, like in what year exactly did that happen etc. B.Velikov (talk) 22:03, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Ok thankyou so much Mr. Velikov. I really appreciate it. Clearly if at all possible we need exact dates and good sources we can use, though this may not be possible immediately. However, Cold War International History Project may have some corroborating data. Many thanks again!! Nb. in English the plural of corps is corps, like the plural of sheep is sheep. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 08:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R002800330006-3.pdf

Suggest you go to the CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room and search "Bulgarian Army": lots of late 1940s and early 1950s reports you may be interested in. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1983_06_28_MILITARY_RELIABILITY_OF_THE_SOVIET_UNIONS_WARSAW_PACT_ALLIES.PDF Buckshot06 (talk) 08:45, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I've seen it, but I am more interested in the period from 1973 to 1990. I actually started a short explanatory note on the territorial posture of the Bulgarian Army before and after 1944, but it has become much longer than I initially anticipated. At this moment I have barely made it to 1918, so I have put it on my sandbox and I will continue it today and tomorrow. The expansion of the 68th SF Brigade article will have to wait. I ordered a book on the history of our missile air defence troops of the territory yesterday, so now I am going to the parcel service to pick it up. Hopefully there will be a force structure as well, becausewhat I have now is incomplete. I have about 20 ~ 25 divisions and in 1989 we had about 45 I think. Some time around 1994 we started disbanding them, first with the retirement of the baseline version SA-75 and so on, to reach the five divisions we have today.B.Velikov (talk) 09:24, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

So are we all interested in as up to date as possible. But the CIA decides what to release. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:58, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, the most trustworthy means to establish the details about the force structure is for me to go to the Central Military Archive, but this is not happening anytime soon for lack of free time on my behalf. Until then what I can do I go through my own books and look for info here and there, but this results mostly in snapshots. I have reliable sources (Central Military Archive catalogues from the 1970s, so yeah, absolutely reliable) on the structure until 1944, but unfortunately almost blank space for the time period 1944-89. So you wonder when exactly did the three armies from the Socialist period emerged, and this, like I said, leads unfortunately to that snapshots effect I mentioned. So at the time around 1950 we had several army corps. I thought they were 3, but at that point this is pure speculation. Then in 1960 we have certainly had 3 armies. I refer back to that book about the Land Forces ballistic missile troops I referenced earlier. The orders by the Minister of People's Defence are put in the book and they clearly mention the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies. Here is a source for 1955 - a presentation by a former Land Forces Commander - Lt.-Gen. (Ret.) Kiril Tsvetkov. It is called 135 Years of Serving the Motherland (135 години в служба на Родината) and it was made on July 19, 2013 at the celebration commemorating 135 years from the creation of the Bulgarian Army:

"...At the end of 1955 the Bulgarian Land Forces have a peacetime structure of 2 armies and 2 independent rifle corps, composed in total of 9 rifle divisions and 14 other formations. In addition to that in a case of war five additional rifle divisions and 9 formations of the different arms would mobilize. With the signing of the Warsaw Treaty For Mutual Defence Cooperation on May 14, 1955 a new stage in the build-up and development of the Bulgarian Army commenced... In 1963 the stable force structure of the Bulgarian Army and their Land Forces was put into place. The Bulgarian People's Army peacetime strength was set at no less than 100 000 men (in the LF - 4 motor rifle divisions and 5 tank brigades at full strength and additional 3 motor rifle divisions at reduced strength). During wartime the BPA was to reach over 400 000 men with 18 tactical formations in the LF... ... A boost in the development of the BPA and the LF and in their modernization and rearmament came in 1972 with the Government's Decision B No.6 / from May 9, 1972 (Решение Б №6 / 09.05.1972 г.), which fixed the structure of the BPA as follows: Land Forces with 3 armies; Air Forces and Air Defence and Naval Fleet. Overall 108 000 men (23 500 officers, 20 500 NCOs and 64 000 lower ranks), split between the services as follows: Land Forces - 66 000 men, Air Forces and Air Defence - 19 000 men, Naval Fleet - 5 400 men, Education establishments and forces directly subordinated to the Ministry of People's Defence and the General Staff – 17 600 men... Practical realization of that decision is also the formation of the Land Forces Command in 1973..." http://www.otbrana.com/новини_4362 B.Velikov (talk) 14:15, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Translation

Hello, could you please translate this request commons:File talk:Armed Forces Bulgaria.png and also check if this request is true/correct. Thank you, noclador (talk)

Yes. It sais "Please include the 10th Mechanized Battalion in Vratsa. It falls together with 3rd Mechanized Battalion in Blagoevgrad under the Brigade Command - Blagoevgrad. Thank You!" I concur this information. So the 10th Mechanized Battalion in Vratsa is a fact. It was formed in the end of 2014. This is a report of the military tv channel on the changing of the commander of the Brigade Command: http://armymedia.bg/archives/88468. It mentions "the two battalions of the brigade command". This report is about the formation of the 10th Mechanized Battalion in Vratsa on December 1, 2014: http://armymedia.bg/archives/15695. To me this is actually surprising. There were talks about re-eastablishing a brigade command in Western Bulgaria for the last two years, but the expectations (including mine) were that this would be the 9th Brigade Command in Gorna Banya. The 9th Tank Brigade in that suburb of Sofia was finally transformed into a brigade command with a mechanized battalion in Gorna Banya and the 3rd Mechanized Battalion in Blagoevgrad (the remnant of the 3rd MRD), shortly before it was disbanded altogether. This actually made more sense for a brigade command bringing together a battalion in Blagoevgrad and a battalion in Vratsa. By the way the 3rd Mechanized Battalion on your chart is wrong. It does not include a tank company. All the T-72s are concentrated at the Specialists Training Center in Sliven. And you should also include the Specialists Training Center in Sliven as an armored regiment on the chart as well. It is a training center, commanded by a Colonel for the mechanized and armored troops, but unlike the JITC in Pleven, which recently assumed command over combat battalions, the purpose of the Sliven center is to generate tank battalions for the mechanized brigades in the mobilization for war. Its tank battalions even had the designation 2nd and 61st Tank Battalions for that purpose. Today I am not sure if they are still active. I think they exist on paper during wartime and the internal peacetime organization of the center is that of a training establishment, but I am guesstimating here. Just use the APP symbol of an armored regiment with organic tanks (with the infantry cross limited within the oval, the one you are currently using for the 3rd MechBn).

This is from the official website of the Land Forces, reporting that on December 1, 2017 the 101st Mountain Battalion became a regiment: http://landforce.mod.bg/Tie-v-smolyanskiya-region-/11:2551.html

This is an interview with the Land Forces Commander - Major-General Mihail Popov from the military tv channel: http://armymedia.bg/archives/88468 (at the moment he was still a Brigade General and a temporary LFC. His previous assignment was as commander of 68th SF Brigade). In the interview he states that reorganization of the Land Forces will be carried out in July 2017 including:

• the formation of Brigade Command - Blagoevgrad
• reorganization of the units within the two mechanized brigades
• reorganization of the Specialists Training Center - Sliven (Център за подготовка на специалисти – Сливен, the former 13th Tank Brigade)
• reorganization of the Armament and Equipment Storage Base - Shumen (База за съхранение на въоръжение и техника – Шумен)
• reorganization of the CIMIC, Geographical Support and PsyOps Battalion (Батальон за гражданско-военно сътрудничество, географско осигуряване и психологични операции, which is in Sofia)
• And here is something surprising for me. The 5th Shipka Mechanized Brigade was disbanded in Pleven in 2012. It was transformed into a mechanized battalion under the 61st MechBde and a Recruits Training Center (literally Joint Center for Initial Training - Единен Център за Начална Подготовка). This report of Darik Radio (very reliable source) from July 5, 2017 has a headline "Two Battalions Have Been Reassigned to the JCIT in Pleven" It states that the ceremony was held in Pleven and attended by civilian officials and by the Deputy Commander of the LF, the Commander 2nd MechBde and the Commander 61st MechBde. The same content has been uploaded on the official website of the Pleven Municipality. I am just giving it as another reliable source. The JCIT received command of:
  • Military Formation 42800 (Войсково Формирование вф 42800, the mechanized battalion in Pleven, left from the disbanded 5th MechBde and assigned to 61st MechBde since 2012)
  • Military Formation 54060 (Войсково Формирование вф 54060, the mechanized battalion in Shumen, assigned to 2nd MechBde)

The JCIT retains its naming and its main mission (and also the mission to train servicemen for the voluntary reserve, here are the first volunteers: http://landforce.mod.bg/Polagane-na-voenna-kletva-ot-rezervisti-ot-dobrovolniya-rezerv-na-republika-balgariya-v-gr-pleven/11:2550.html), but with these reassignments it also becomes a brigade command for Central Northern and Northeastern Bulgaria. So according to that new structure we have the 2nd and 61st MechBdes in Stara Zagora and Karlovo with 3x MechBns, CS and CSS units and commanded by Brigade Generals and the Brigade Command Blagoevgrad and the Joint Center for Initial Training in Pleven with 2x MechBns, commanded by Colonels (but you should represent them with one star on the chart, because they have brigade headquarters). I hope this helps.B.Velikov (talk) 09:37, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

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December 2017

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Many thanks

Many thanks for your various contributions. Anytime you wish to contribute your undoubted expertise expanding or clarifying our coverage of Eastern European armed forces, it would be much appreciated ;) Buckshot06 (talk) 20:20, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

NATO Integrated Air Defense System

Hello and thank you for adding the Bulgarian Air Force's Air Sovereignty Operations Center to the article NATO Integrated Air Defense System. I still cannot find information about the location of the Bulgarian radars... and also find no information if Bulgaria ever bought modern Western radars (because only those can be connected directly to the allied CAOCs). If you happen to have information about Bulgaria buying radars (usually either Selex RAT-31DL, Lockheed Martin AN/TPS-77 or AN/FPS-117, or Groundmaster 403 or 406F) then please add this information to the article. I am working to create a map with all the radars of Allied Air Command: User:Noclador/sandbox/NATO Integrated Air Defense System. Cheers, noclador (talk) 09:37, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately this is a very obscure matter (top secret and all that stuff, the usual). The 1st Radiotechnical Regiment's radar locations used to be 18. Then it was reformed into the Base for Command, Control and Surveillance (БАЗА ЗА КОМАНДВАНЕ, УПРАВЛЕНИЕ И НАБЛЮДЕНИЕ, for short База КУН) it absorbed the radiotechnical units, the communication, information and navigation units, the command and control centers, the military ATC network, the meteorological center of the air force and the 6th Aviation Technical Base in Balchik (a reserve airfield, activated in the summer months for flight training over the sea). At that point the dedicated radar locations are between 9 and 12, no concrete information. At the ceremony celebrating 63 years since the establishment of the Bulgarian radiotechnical troops on March 18, 2015 in the speech of our current President Rumen Radev (back then a Major-General and Commander of the Air Force) he says "...the 6 units for radiotechnical surveillance are certified by the NATO Supreme Command with an excellent grade..." (...6-те подразделения за радиотехническо наблюдение са сертифицирани от Върховното командване на НАТО с оценка „отличен”...) For the moment the Air Force's priorities are the acquisition of between 4 and 6 3D-digital radars and 4 light prop aircraft for initial flying training and a secondary liaison role (Zlin being a safe bet, but the procedure has also been stopped due to irregularities). The huge problem is not the lack of money. We are the poorest country in the EU per capita, but our economy is stable and growing. The problem is that despite posing as a center-right politician our prime minister is a total populist and his party is a centralised top-down party under his complete control. Whatever stability have we had for the last years, predominantly under his governance is not due to his political vision. He is corrupt, you just need to google "Jürgen Roth", who unfortunately passed away in 2017. Borisov was a mobster. He then founded a private security company, which as you know in Eastern Europe mostly means to give a legal facade to a criminal outfit. But anyway, this company provided the security for our late Communist dictator and for our monarch-in-exile-to-become-prime minister Simeon. So his closeness to Todor Zhivkov gave him the idea how to flirt with the masses and his closeness to Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was his ticket to politics. He became a member of parliament on Simeon's party's ticket, which he turned down shortly afterwards. What I mean to say with all that is the following - he emulates the policies of Todor Zhivkov from the time when the country was lacking finances - he concentrates on a handful of projects with foreign money (in his case EU funds) and maximum media exposure. He has put most of the medium to long term investments on hold (road infrastructure, emergency services, schools etc.), because A. he does not know how to kick the economy in high gear, B. he neither has the capacity, nor the contacts to bring massive foreign investments to the country and C. he is mistrustful of his subordinates - should someone in his close circle (actually maybe only Tomislav Donchev is able to pull this off) be able to achieve that, Borisov's shortcommings would become painfully visible. He would absolutely limit his government's armament policy to token spending when pressured from abroad and not start a major rearmament program, which is desperately needed, because he knows what will come from the socialists. who are in opposition. Basically he is familiar with the "Billions of Levs spent on weapons at a time when there are so many poor people in the country! Outrageous!!!", because he this has come from his own mouth on numerous occasions. Basically our socialists are token leftists, as his party is token center-right. They are all populists, use the same rhetoric, depending on who is in power and who is in opposition. There is not a single arm of the armed forces, which is not in a dire need of resuscitation and that is being bumped on in time again and again. Believe it or not, but right now the debate about our armed forces's most pressing procurement need is for 8 fighter jets (which falls hilariously short of the quantity we need) for less than a billion USD (which is ridiculous to even think, that you could start anything with that kind of money) and the unspoken concensus between the government and the opposition is that "No, that is way too much!" Our armed forces are a hollow shell not because a lack of money, but because of a lack of statesmen.

Back to the topic, this means that for the moment we have 6 radiotechnical companies in the AF. The competition procedure has been a stop-and-go thus far. At the moment the workhorse of the system are Soviet 1РЛ139МВ/МВ1 (upgraded between 2001 and 2003 at the TEREM Bozhurischte plant, retrofitted with NATO IFF interrogators and with a 25-year lifespan extension), П-18МВ, П-37МВ and СТ-68УЭ radars. According to the current armed forces plan, known as Programme 2020 by that year the Air Force should include:

• Combat aircraft - 29
• Transport aircraft - 8
• Training aircraft - 17
• Combat helicopters - 6
• Transport helicopters - 18
• Training helicopters - 6
• Surface-to-Air missile systems - 17 (batteries)
• Radiotechnical systems - 20 (most probably includes the radars at the airfields, supporting air operations)
• UAV systems - 1 (including 4 aircraft)

I am afraid the existence of 6 radiotechnical companies are the best that I can do for the moment without any details for their location and equipment. And I write radiotechnical companies, but that is not their official designation in the Bulgarian Army. The radiotechnical battalions are officially Automatised Unified (or Combined) Radiolocating Knot (автоматизиран обединен радиолокационен възел - АОРЛВ), the companies are Radiolocating Knot (радиолокационен възел - РЛВ) and the geographically separated platoons are Radiolocating Post (радиолокационен пост - РЛП). I am just speculating, but I think that the 1st Control and Surveillance Zone in Sofia, the 2nd Control and Surveillance Zone in Plovdiv and the 3rd Control and Surveillance Zone in Bratovo (Burgas oblast) are battalion equivalents and each of them has two radar units of company equivalents in subordination. For example at the celebration in 2015 that I mentioned earlier a warrant officer (старшина) who is senior technician at "First Radiolocating Station Shtraklevo" (..."Първа РЛС Щръклево"..., in our military a radiolocating station is one radar) has been awarded with a plaquette for his exemplary service, so this fracture of information is insufficient to determine if that radar crew is a geographically detached radar platoon or part of a bigger company equivalent is based in Shtraklevo, one of the 6 in question, nor what is its relation to the radar at the reserve airfield in Balchik.B.Velikov (talk) 11:30, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the in-depth explanation. Bulgarian politics sound as corrupt as Ukrainian ones... Bulgaria is a frontline state on the Black Sea coast, if there is no spending soon then Borissov will get into trouble at this year's NATO summit. Trump's administration is corrupt too... but buying US weapons and hitting 2% of military spending can do wonders for access to Trump and his gang. Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, etc. have understood that lesson. Even Albania just ordered two Lockheed Martin TPS-77 radars...

Ok, now to the Bulgarian radar sites: as there are no modern digital radars in Bulgaria yet, I will add a text very similar to the text you can find at NATO Integrated Air Defense System#Slovakia. It doesn't make much sense to add obsolete radars to this article as NATO Air defense will soon evolve with the introduction of a new type of Combined Air Operations Centre. If you can, please go to NATO Integrated Air Defense System#Bulgaria and check if you are ok with the text I put there. And if you hear any news about Bulgaria deciding to build modern radar posts, please quickly update the article. Thank you, noclador (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

There aren't huge differences in the political circles in our region, be it Ukraine, Bulgaria etc. You can clearly see what has happened in Slovakia recently - a country, which is generally perceived as much closer to the West than Bulgaria. Romania with its silly stunts around who to be prime minister, how to reverse the anti-corruption legislation, controversially moving embassies to appease Washington etc. Comparisons between the different countries in our region, which one is more civilized etc. are pretty much futile and superfluous, based mostly on these countries' PR-efforts, than actual facts. You come under the impression that Slovenia is a mainstream European country and then, boom, a corruption scandal around the order for Patria AMVs. You come under the impression that Slovakia is a mainstream European country and then, boom, a scandal linking high ranking politicians to the Italian mob. You come under the impression that Hungary is a mainstream European country and then someone like Orban comes along, deliberately starving municipalities governed by the opposition of finances for infrastructure projects etc., while at the same time throwing tons of money for a top notch football stadium in his hometown. You come under the impression that the Czech Republic is a mainstream European country and then military police storms media studios for intimidation. You know, the electricity provider in Western Bulgaria is ČEZ Electro Bulgaria. For years they have postponed the launch of necessary and massive refurbishment of the electricity network. Now they have decided that they would rather sell off their Bulgarian businesses, than spend that much money. But the whole situation around the candidate buyers got very suspicious - some unidentified Indian players, some Georgian players, suspected to be a façade for Russian interests, an up and coming Bulgarian renewable energy company, which is only worth about 10% of the finances for the whole deal and could not possibly provide the money it needs on its own. So things heated up very fast, left-wing opposition got very vocal, right-wing opposition too... Our parliament formed a commission to investigate the matter. Our government launched an investigation into this case on its own. So the office of our Prime Minister has sent a letter to the office of the Czech Prime Minister for details on the matter, as ČEZ Electro is mostly state-owned. You could not possibly imagine the answer, that came from Prague. It sounded more like a Monty Python sketch, roughly: "We are sorry. We couldn't help you as we do not have any information about this. We have given up any attempts to reason with the directors of ČEZ, as it is basically a state within the state.", of course not in these exact words. I am convinced, that at least in regards to the political culture of the people and the politicians, of all the former Eastern Block counties in Europe Estonia is basically the only one, which is genuinely European. The difference between my country and the rest of them is that our politicians are so lazy, that they do not even bother to form a vision in the West that Bulgaria is moving closer to the Western European political culture with accountability, rule of law, etc., merely for appearances' sake. You know how our main current political goal is to be admitted to the Schengen agreement and our politicians, left and right, blabber all the time how it is not fair, we cover all the technical requirements and the member states only keep us out because of their internal political issues and the rhetoric that surrounds them, when any sane person with some basic understanding of the subject is painfully aware that it does not matter how many IR cameras do we have on the border and how many helicopters and fast boats does our ministry of the interior operate to patrol it, but it comes to the level of trust our partners have in the moral integrity of our politicians, of our justice courts and of our law enforcement agencies. As of lately, that trust gravitates between 'zero' and 'token'. I hate to be so pessimistic, but that's just the way things are. Investments in our armed forces, which are desperately needed, are halted. There is not a single arm in our ground, air, naval and support forces, that is not in an acute state of disrepair. NOT... A... SINGLE... ONE!!! And outside pressure will not force our government to finally start doing its job. Our politicians do not follow long-term strategies. They follow opinion polls. Spending money on defence? "The general population does not eat jet fighters, naval ships and tanks!" (a round of applause follows)B.Velikov (talk) 19:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Michael Holm's site

Michael Holm has just started expanding his USSR pages (http://www.ww2.dk/new/newindex.htm) to the WP, at http://www.ww2.dk/new/wp/wp.htm. I'm sure he would appreciate hearing from you re Bulgaria and others; he's at mike35nj [at] yahoo.dk. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

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Bulgarian tank brigades

Hi Mr Velikov, thanks as always for your edits, most recently this very helpful clarifier!! Vladimir Rezun/"Viktor Suvorov" in Inside the Soviet Army goes on at length about the somewhat unusual Bulgarian Cold War tank formations, the five tank brigades, but we have nothing on them. Neither does Micheal Holm's usually excellent listings at http://www.ww2.dk/new/newindex.htm (please write to him; he'd probably appreciate hearing from you). Would you kindly be able to add at least a sketch order of battle at Bulgarian Land Forces which includes the five brigades?, and much more importantly if possible, why five brigades instead of tank divisions? What was the thinking behind their potential war use? Kind regards and many thanks as always, Buckshot06 (talk) 07:33, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I try to contribute here and there, when I have a little bit of spare time. As for the tank divisions, well, it's not like we never had any. As far as I know we've had two tank divisions and they were predecessors to two of the tank brigades. The 1st Tank Division was formed on October 7, 1947 in Kazanlak in the barracks which used to house the Air Force School and the barracks of the former 23rd Infantry Shipka Regiment and 2nd AAA Regiment. (An interesting side note about it is that after WWI we were forbidden to form military aviation, so we did it covertly, establishing an aviation school there. Kazanlak is located in the center of the country in the "Rose Valley", between two mountain ranges, away from the main road in South Bulgaria linking Sofia and Burgas through Plovdiv. After WWII and the country's political shift to the Soviet Block the air force schools were moved from Kazanlak to Sofia, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Telish and then finally consolidated in Dolna Mitropoliya, so the barracks in Kazanlak became vacant.) In 1950 the division was reformed. Two of its tank regiments, the mechanised infantry regiment and the artillery regiment were relocated to the outskirts of Sofia and became the foundation of the 9th Tank Division. What remained in the Kazanlak area was renumbered 5th Tank Division and new units were formed to replace the ones transfered to the 9th Tank Division. On April 1st, 1955 the 5th Tank Division was reformed into the 5th Tank Brigade. On November 19, 1998 the brigade added the honorary Shipka (Шипченска) designation to commemorate the 23rd Infantry Shipka Regiment from the time of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom. On October 1, 2000 the brigade was reformed from a tank into the 5th Shipka Mechanised Brigade. In 2007 a new reform of the Land Forces was put in action, according to which the 5th Brigade was supposed to relocate to the north of the Stara Planina mountain range, taking charge of the defence of Northern Bulgaria, with its units moving to Vratsa and Shumen, the bulk of them including its HQ to Pleven in the barracks of the disbanded Land Forces' "Hristo Botev" Reserve Officers School (Школа за Запасни Офицери "Христо Ботев" (ШЗО)), however about two years later the brigade was disbanded altogether.

As for the 9th Tank Division, it was reformed into the 9th Tank Brigade in 1955 aswell. It was considered the "household" combined arms formation of the Bulgarian People's Army due to its proximity to Sofia (Gorna Banya is a borough of Sofia). One of the great mystifications, which contributed to the Communist Party losing power to the Union of Democratic Forces in 1990 concerns the brigade. There was a protest on December 14, 1989 at which citizens were demanding for Article 1 of the socialist constitution from 1971 (colloqually known as the Zhivkov's Constitution) to be abolished. Paragraph 2 of Article 1 reads: "The driving force in the society and state is the Bulgarian Communist Party." and established the amalgamation between the Party and the State. Peter Mladenov was the President, but unelected, by extension of him being the Chairman of the Party, so the protesters were demanding for elections to form a Constitutional Assembly (Велико Народно Събрание, which means Great People's Assembly, as our parliament is called the People's Assembly). Mladenov was trying to reason with them and calm them down, but was unsuccessfull at that, so he was caught on tape saying to one of his aides "[The] Best [option is that] the tanks come." or "Call in the tanks." In Bulgarian it is "Най-добре танковете да дойдат." The tanks in question are the 9th Tank Brigade. When the tape came out it infuriated the majority of public. He insisted to his death, that his words were actually "[The] Best [option is] that Stanko comes." or "Call Stanko to come.", in Bulgarian "Най-добре Станко да дойде". The Stanko in question was Stanko Todorov, the chairman of the parliament. Anyway, the die hard supporters of the Communist Party and its successor the present-day Socialist Party insist to this very day that their political opponents in post 1989 Bulgaria held a grudge and were genuinely frightened of the 9th Tank Brigade because of this and were hell-bent on destroying the formation. More to the point that capitalising on the so-called "Tank Episode" of December 14, 1989, when there was a new protest wave in the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997 against the Socialist government of Jean Videnov, there were deliberate rumours circulating, that "The tanks are heading downtown!" to further exacerbate the tention. In 1998 the honorary title Gorna Banya (Горнобанска) was added to the brigade's official designation, but unlike the Stryama, the Tundzha and the Shipka honorary titles of the other brigades, which resurected the memory of infantry regiments from the time of the monarchy, this is a purely geographical title. The garrison regiments in Sofia from the time of the Kingdom were the 1st Infantry Sofia Regiment and the 6th Infantry Tarnovo Regiment. The latter carried that title, because the heir apparent carried the title Knyaz [Prince] of Tarnovo (the medieval capital Veliko Tarnovo). For that reason the regiment, which was actually based IN Tarnovo carried the designation 18th Infantry ETAR Regiment from the upper section of the Yantra River. Back to the 9th Tank Brigade, around the year 2000 (1998 ~ 2002, not sure) the designation changed from Tank Brigade (Танкова бригада) to Armored Brigade (Бронетанкова бригада). In 2007 the government decided to transform the brigade into a "mechanised brigade command" with a mechanised battalion in Gorna Banya and another one in Bansko, but around 2010 a new decision was taken to disband it altogether and all that is left from it today is the mechanised battalion in Bansko. The obscure Brigade Command Blagoevgrad, which was formed in 2017 and took command of the mechanised battalion in Bansko and the mechanised battalion in Vratsa is not a descendant of the 9th Tank Brigade, but in a way it fulfills a similar role - control over the combined arms units in Western Bulgaria.

Wow, I totally went off track without any intention for it. Your question was why did the Bulgarian People's Army field tank brigades and not tank divisions and one brief look at the topographic map of the country gives the answer to that. About 65% of our territory is mountains and high hills. There is no suitable terrain for the field deployment of a whole tank division. In the context of the Cold War the combat formations of the Bulgarian Land Forces were located in Southern Bulgaria. The territory to the north of the Stara Planina mountain range was rear area of the three armies and the front command(s). This is why our military schools were located in Northern Bulgaria, as during wartime they turned into reserve divisions. This is why most storage complexes for weapons, equipment, fuel, medicines etc. were located in Northern Bulgaria. Even if Bulgaria was a neutral country, which needed to defend from all directions, Northern Bulgaria still isn't suitable for the deployment of a tank division. It may look flat on a map, but it is actually split in 12 ~ 14 deverse topographic regions, from lowlands, through plateaus, to actual mountains and of course the rivers flowing from Stara Planina to the Danube. Then we have Yugoslavia, which in the context of the Cold War was neutral, so the treat of a Yugoslav invasion into Bulgaria was purely hypothetical, but even if they did, our border is mountaineous, so again, not the right place for tank heavy formations. The Greek direction is the thin stretch of the Struma River valley. The terrain poses problems even today, as we are building a highway to the Greek border. There simply aren't alternative routes in that part of the country. The General Staff of the BPA determined that in a case of a war with NATO the 3rd Motor Rifle Division in the Struma valley and two mountain infantry brigades in the Rila and Pirin mountains, supported by aviation and ballistic missiles and MLRS were sufficient to stop a potential Greek incursion dead in its tracks for weeks without reinforcements. The main source of concern was Turkey and even if you look at the terrain, you have the Rhodopes mountains to the right, the Maritsa river, the Sakar mountain, Tundzha river and the Strandzha mountain with no spaces to squeeze a full tank division between them. It simply does not make sense for the Bulgarian army to field tank divisions. The five tank brigades were:

• 1st Army (HQ in Sofia)
  • 9th Tank Brigade (Gorna Banya suburb of Sofia)
• 2nd Army (HQ in Plovdiv)
  • 5th Tank Brigade (Kazanlak)
  • 11th Tank Brigade (Karlovo) (the predecessor of today's 61st Stryama Mechanised Brigade)
• 3rd Army (HQ in Sliven)
  • 13th Tank Brigade (Sliven) (the 9th in Gorna Banya and the 13th in Sliven were the elite tank formations of the army. They received T-72, BMP-1 and BMP-23. The other three were armed with T-55 and (some BMP-1s I think, but mostly) MT-LB transporters). We also bought 220 T-62 from the USSR, but by 1989 they were mostly mothballed. I don't know where they were deployed, but I suspect the 5th and 11th Tank Brigades. the 9th and the 24th never had them.
  • 24th Tank Brigade (Aytos) (today the barracks of the former brigade are a joint Bulgarian-US logistics base)

Hope that helps. There were also some separate tank regiments, but I have nothing about them and especially if there were any left in 1989. Greetings!B.Velikov (talk) 10:07, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

So many thanks for your prompt and full responses!! Please do consider reaching out to Micheal Holm in Denmark. Do the First, Second and Third Armies of the Communist period have any lineage connection to the armies numbered 1, 2, and 3 during the First and Second World Wars? Buckshot06 (talk) 11:15, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

None. The Communist Party broke any lineage with the Kingdom of Bulgaria. During the monarchy period we did not have army corps. After 1945 and the end of WWII the army was reformed from army to corps groupings. Some time in the second half of the 1950s the army was once again reformed, the rifle corps disbanded and the divisions and brigades reorganised into the three armies, but they were new establishments. During the Third Bulgarian Kingdom from the beginning of the XX century until the Communists took over the country had initially three, then four (i the Interbellum period) armies in peacetime. If you take a look at the topographic map things get pretty much self-explainatory.

• 1st Military Inspection Area (военноинспекционна област) was formed in 1906 and headquartered in Sofia. It covered the Sofia Plain, Northwestern and Southwestern Bulgaria. This one was 1st MIA during peacetime and 1st Army in wartime. It included the 1st Division Inspection Area (Sofia), the 6th DIA (Vratsa) and 7th DIA (Dupnitsa). The MIAs became armies upon mobilization and the DIAs became divisions.
• 2nd MIA was formed in 1907 with HQ in Stara Zagora. In 1909 HQ moved to Plovdiv. This MIA included the 2nd DIA (Plovdiv), 3rd DIA (Sliven) and 8th DIA (Stara Zagora).
• 3rd MIA was formed in 1906 with HQ in Ruse. It included the 4th MIA (Shumen), 5th DIA (Ruse) and the 9th DIA (Pleven)

These nine infantry divisions are colloqually known as "the original divisions" among the Bulgarian military historians. During the Balkan Wars and WWI additional formations were organised. After the end of WWI and with the Peace Treaty of Neully very harsh restrictions were imposed on the Bulgarian military, including the prohibition of formations larger than divisions (and even the minimum and maximum manpower levels for an infantry division, a cavalry division, a mixed brigade etc. were given in the treaty). The Bulgarian government circumvened the treaty in total secrecy on December 20, 1927 and set a covert skeleton force structure, which was officially enacted once the treaty restrictions were waived in the mid-1930s. The new peacetime structure included:

• 1st Military Inspection Area / 1st Army (Sofia)
  • 1st Division Inspection Area / 1st Infantry Division (Sofia)
    • 1st Military Circuit / 1st Infantry Regt (Sofia); 6th MC / 6th Inf Regt (rural area surrounding Sofia); 16th MC / 16th Inf Regt (Botevgrad)
  • 7th Division Inspection Area / 7th Infantry Division (Dupnitsa)
    • 13th MC / 13th Inf Regt (Kyustendil); 14th MC / 14th Inf Regt (present day Blagoevgrad); 22nd MC / 22nd Inf Regt (Samokov); 39th MC / 39th Inf Regt (present day Gotse Delchev)
• 2nd Military Inspection Area / 2nd Army (Plovdiv)
  • 2nd Division Inspection Area / 2nd Infantry Division (Plovdiv)
    • 9th MC / 9th Infantry Regt (rural area surrounding Plovdiv); 21st MC / 21st Inf Regt (Plovdiv); 27th MC / 27th Inf Regt (Pazardzhik)
  • 8th Division Inspection Area / 8th Infantry Division (Stara Zagora)
    • 10th MC / 10th Inf Regt (Haskovo); 12th MC / 12th Infantry Regt (Stara Zagora); 38th MC / 38th Inf Regt (Kardzhali)
• 3rd Military Inspection Area / 3rd Army (Varna)
  • 3rd Division Inspection Area / 3rd Infantry Division (Sliven)
    • 11th MC / 11th Infantry Regt (Sliven); 24th MC / 24th Inf Regt (Burgas); 29th MC / 29th Inf Regt (Yambol)
  • 4th Division Inspection Area / 4th Infantry Division (Shumen)
    • 7th MC / 7th Infantry Regt (Shumen); 8th MC / 8th Inf Regt (Varna); 19th MC / 19th Inf Regt (Razgrad)
• 4th Military Inspection Area / 4th Army (Pleven)
  • 5th Division Inspection Area / 5th Infantry Division (Ruse)
    • 5th MC / 5th Infantry Regt (Ruse); 18th MC / 18th Inf Regt (Tarnovo); 33rd MC / 33rd Inf Regt (Svishtov)
  • 6th Division Inspection Area / 6th Infantry Division (Vratsa)
    • 3rd MC / 3rd Infantry Regt (Vidin); 15th MC / 15th Inf Regt (Belogradchik); 35th MC / 35th Inf Regt (Vratsa)
  • 9th Division Inspection Area / 9th Infantry Division (Pleven)
    • 4th MC / 4th Infantry Regt (Pleven); 34th MC / 34th Inf Regt (Lovech); 36th MC / 36th Inf Regt (Oryahovo)

I am only listing the infantry structure, as it gives a clear perspective about the army and division districts. As you can see the designation numbers are totally at odds with those post-1950. A clear difference between pre-WWI and pre-WWII peacetime force structure is that in the pre-WWI we have 3 armies of 3 divisions each - 1st Army in Sofia, covering Western Bulgaria, 2nd Army in Plovdiv, covering Southeastern Bulgaria and 3rd Army in Ruse, covering Northeastern Bulgaria. In the pre-WWII force structure we already have 4 armies. The peacetime division districts are the same - 9, but here the Southeastern army district also includes the coastal area to the north of Stara Planina and even its HQ is there in Varna. Another difference is that the Northwestern Bulgaria no longer falls under the 1st MIA in Sofia, but is under the Northern army district, which has its HQ in Plovdiv, unlike pre-WWI, when HQ was in Ruse. So 1st - 3rd army districts have two division districts each and the 4th due to the larger territory has 3. А 5th Army was formed in 1941, initially as a defensive screen along the Turkish border, but as it became clear that Turkey also retained a defensive stance and in line with the German-Bulgarian alliance the 5th Army HQ was transferred to Skopje and the army relieved German units in Southern Serbia, Macedonia and Northern Greece. I wanted to update the article about the Bulgarian Army with the organisational history, but gave up the idea due to lack of free time.

Back to the question about continuity between the armed forces of the Kingdom and those of the Communist regime, the monuments in the cities, dedicated to military units and distinguished commanders were demolished post-1944. The monuments in the towns and villages, dedicated to the local men killed in battle were left, but so-called "combatants against fascism" were added to them and at a later moment they were demolished, to be replaced by bigger monuments with the star and the hammer and sickle insignias. Infrastructure projects were deliberately planned on the grounds of military infrastructure and monuments of the Kingdom as an excuse for their demolition, so the memories about them could be erased. And even so the demolitions were done hastily, attracting as little attention as possible. One such example was the monument to the 1st and 6th Infantry Regiments in Sofia. It was torn down overnight without any note and at the same spot was erected a hideous gigantic sculpture commemorating the 1 300th anniversary of the Bulgarian state. To this day the demolition of the old and the erecting of the new monument are a controversial topic and the long campaign to restore the old memorial sturs controversy between the political left and right. The Communists' policy to keep any positive memory of the period before they came to power, was slightly relaxed in the 1980s, simply because our historic adversaries were once again "in the other camp" (Greece and Turkey in NATO, Yugoslavia and Romania drifting away from Moscow) and to control the narrative at the time of the Revival Process. You know how nationalism is the last resort of every totalitarian regime, even the left ones.B.Velikov (talk) 11:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

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1989 Italian Air Force OOB

Dear Mr.Velikov, I've seen your request of information about the 1989 OOB of the Italian Air Force on [[1]]. If you are still interested I can provide a reliable list. Please let me know. All the best --Arturolorioli (talk) 18:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Mr. Lorioli, that would be great! I would appreciate it.

P.S. I am so sad to see what is happening in Italy. I love the country as most Bulgarians do and hope to see an end of this terrible situation as soon as possible.B.Velikov (talk) 05:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Also see the top of Noclador's main talk page; User talk:Noclador#Structure of the Italian Air Force in 1989. But more importantly (a), I share your sentiments in regard to this terrible tragedy unfolding in Italy; and (b) thankyou for your comments at the main talk page (whether or not we disagree). Your expertise is appreciated. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:37, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

282nd Armoured Brigade (Romania)

Not your land, I know, but you're the nearest expert user and there are no articles on the Romanian Wiki on these Romanian brigades. Where would you point me for authoritative sources to improve the references for current Romanian brigades. Why in heaven has it got the number '282'? Buckshot06 (talk) 17:37, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I am not particularly well versed in Romanian military history either, but basically the 282nd Mech. Brigade carries the traditions of two regiments. The infantry Regimentul 6 Focşani was formed in 1872. In 1876 it was re-designated to Regimentul 10 Dorobanţi "Putna" of the 3rd Territorial Division. It is actually very confusing, because the regiment was designated Dorobanţi, which is a neighbourhood in Bucharest, but it had the name Putna, which I believe is a river on the border between present-day Romania and Ukraine and it was actually based in Focşani (regimental HQ and first battalion) and Tecuci (second battalion). The regimental companies carried the names of municipalities, so these were possibly their mobilisation areas:

- Batalionul 1 Putna: Compania 1 Focşani, Compania 2 Vrancea, Compania 3 Soveja, Compania 4 Adjud. - Batalionul 2 Tecuci: Compania 5 Tecuci, Compania 6 Bârlad, Compania 7 Berheci, Compania 8 Zeletin. The regiment was ultimately disbanded in 1949. In 1968 in relation to the increased friction in the socialist camp and the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia, the Romanians did not participate, but felt threatened and mobilised their military. This is when (24 September 1968) the Regimentul 282 Mecanizat was formed in the barracks previously occupied by the Regimentul 10 Dorobanţi "Putna". In 1994 in line with the transformation of the Romanian Army the regiment was transformed into a brigade and the historic name "United Principalities" (as in the unification of Wallachia and Moldova) was given. After the communists came to power in Bulgaria in 1944 they were particularly adamant to disband all the traditional Bulgarian regiments and divisions in order to erase the memory the people had of them and this was done by 1951~52. They were very commited to drop any honorific names, campaign citations and numbering from the old units. I am pretty certain the same thing happened in Romania too, hence the disbandment of the 10th. This is not a very informative article, but it includes the facts, that I have just given and it is on the official Romanian Land Forces website, so you can use it as a reference source: https://forter.ro/ministerul-apararii-nationale/brigada-282-infanterie-mecanizat%C4%83-primit-emblema-de-onoare-for%C5%A3elor-terestre/18218 Best regards!B.Velikov (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

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NPA Warning

This: [2] is a personal attack on me and User:Fram. This is a warning, if you continue to make personal attacks I will move to have you blocked. Mztourist (talk) 07:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• When you do not have anything substantial to say as a counter-argument, you take it as a personal assault. I am stating the facts. Do your worst. Honestly I am done with this kindergarten.B.Velikov (talk) 07:44, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Nice work on militaries. BlueD954 (talk) 14:12, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

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Thanks re Sailors of the Imperial Guard

Anytime you wish to contribute, I will be greatly thanking you. Buckshot06 (talk) 07:20, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

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Thank you for all your recent edits

I regret that I had to call you out about the standard English designation for the Naval Infantry; it hinges on a translation decision for the word "Morskaia." Buckshot06 (talk) 02:47, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for this edit - very helpful. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:26, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Regarding our on-off discussion about the way the Russian Armed Forces are being directed in Ukraine, you may find this interesting: https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/supplement-reorganisation-of-the-rfa-command-in-ukraine-d1bb674718fc Buckshot06 (talk) 02:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I know some of the stuff Tom Cooper is saying. Mark Solonin (the aviation engineer turned historian I told you about) has made two interviews with him on his Youtube channel, this is the more recent one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsKdpQPg5pE It is in Russian, of course. To me it all seems built on speculations, which could not be verified, sprinkled with parallels from the past, which relevance also could not be proven. Additionally, Tom Cooper makes some sloppy mistakes, which (at least for me) put his whole credibility in doubt. It is one thing, when you and me are talking in the local Starbucks about what we have seen in the news about the War in Ukraine, while waiting for our orders, it is completely another thing, when someone is insisting "Listen to me now, I am going to explain to all of you what is actually going on and no one else has figured it out, but me!" Then he goes on and makes a mistake about the Russian MoD's spokesperson's last name. His name is Major-General KonashenkoV. It might look negligible, but it isn't. Family names ending with an O are traditionally Ukrainian: Rudenko, Dzibenko, Kovalenko, Matvienko, Stepanenko etc. After that he uses RFA as an abbreviation, which I am not even certain how he came up with. I assume it should stand for Russian Federation Army??? which is also wrong. In Eastern Europe the word army (armiya or wojska) in the various languages is used as an umbrella term for the armed forces as a whole. The land warfighting components of those armed forces are not called army, but normally land troops. These are not mistakes someone knowledgeable in matters about the Russian military would do. Then he goes on and presents his wild assumption how the Russian f*-up in the war is due to Putin's direct issuing of orders to the various army commanders. To me this is nothing, but a direct allusion to Hitler, which I am not buying. Hitler did issue orders to his army commanders directly and this did result in numerous operational failures on the battlefields, but he did it 1. because he was a war veteran and thought he "knows military stuff" he has insisted on the retaking of the Ruhr area and the Wehrmacht maneuver through the Low Countries and the occupation of Denmark and Norway against the judgement of his generals, so he always brought up how "remember all those times, when you were wrong and I was right?!" Putin does not have that kind of experience. He is very incompetent on military matters and avoids to give direct and concrete orders in this field exactly not to shatter his image of a genius statesman. I can totally imagine him giving heat on the phone to the army commanders "What are you doing there? What is taking you so long? I was informed by the FSB that it shouldn't have taken you more than three days to achieve your objectives and you haven't made any progress in two weeks!" This I can totally imagine. I cannot imagine him telling them exactly what they should do to achieve their objectives.

The statement that the Russian ground forces are "indoctrinated, organised, equipped and trained so to be commanded by HQ of local military districts; so far, it wasn’t operating that way; henceforth, it is going to do so." is purely Tom Cooper's speculation. "As an Army General, Dvornikov is rank higher than all the commanders of field armies (they’re Colonel-Generals). This means there will be no discussions about his orders, none of usual competition between generals, and no ‘everybody for himself’ — like there was so far." is also his own speculation. In the Soviet and the post-Soviet Russian military the rank subordination is not set in stone the way it is in the Western militaries. The assigned position is what counts first and foremost. It was not the norm, but was not exactly uncommon either for a division to have a Major as commander, a Lt.-Col. as chief of staff and colonels as regimental commanders. So this is another example for Russian ambiguity. What counts here is the actual order for the appointment of Dvornikov as the overall commander of operations in Ukraine, which is not something, that will get circulated in the media. As far as I know the initial information about that came from the BBC and everyone else started quoting them. "Most importantly, having Dvornikov in their back, officers are not going to de-facto ‘abandon their troops in advance’ after receiving Putin’s idiotic directives. Now there is a clear chain of command and thus clear chain of responsibility: they’ll have to ‘be there’, to command and coordinate." is another speculation. I think most people can agree about the idiotic actions of the Russian military in Ukraine, but there is no concrete evidence, that they were caused by idiotic orders from the political high authority. In fact I have heard from at least three different sources poor morale on the Russian side as a major problem. One is Alexey Arestovich, who is an advisor to the director of the office of the President of Ukraine (or at least he was until a couple of days ago. I think he resigned), another is Oleh Zhdanov and the third one is Yuriy Fyodorov. Arestovich is Reserve Lt.-Col., retired from Ukrainian military intelligence. Zhdanov is a retired Colonel from the artillery and the Operations Department of the Ukrainian General Staff, Fyodorov is a Russian political and military analyst in exile. All three of them have pointed out independently how russian forces advance, contact the Ukrainians, get into heavy fighting and flee the battlefield. So this is why the Russians are deploying their army command posts so close to the FEBA, in order to keep their forces on a tighter leash and as a result they come under Ukrainian artillery barrages, hence the big number of high-ranking casualties. So idiotic orders as the reason for the poor performance is a speculation, but there are strong hints towards poor quality of the manpower (especially regarding combat morale) as the real reason.¬¬¬¬

ANI notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.FOX 52 ^talk! 05:04, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

May 2022

Please stop your disruptive editing. Wikipedia aims to provide a safe environment for its collaborators, and harassing other users potentially compromises that safe environment. If you continue to harass other editors, you may be blocked from editing. Oz\^InterAct 09:18, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

So making a ton of meaningless edits - a coma here, a dash there, while deleting actual info and making an infinite amount of reverts based on ridiculous claims, just to simulate activity without actually adding any meaningful information is the norm, but when someone tries to aleviate that, this is harassment? I did not apply for Alice's tea party and somehow I landed in it. Is there a moment, when Wikipedia's main purpose of being an tool for information is eventually also taken into account?¬¬¬¬ B.Velikov (talk) 09:52, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

What you describe is not what the issue is. Please see the ANI thread above and comment there please. Oz\^InterAct 10:43, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Firstly, where is your proof that this is the sole reason for the reverts, and secondly, even if they are justified, you cannot combat alleged misbehaviour with violations of our conduct policy. Edit summaries such as Stop f###ing up articles, just to make yourself feel important. are not acceptable here. Simple as that. No amount of reasoning can get you out it it. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 12:39, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

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Warsaw Pact advance into Thrace

Dear Boris, what are the best recently available sources on the WarPac plans to invade Greece and Turkey? Buckshot06 (talk) 03:57, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

https://www.decommunization.org/Communism/Bulgaria/Warsawpact.htm Not very detailed, but at least it corresponds broadly with what retired army officers have told me years ago. I have never seen detailed warplans against Turkey. All I know is that the BPA was supposed to wage delaying defensive actions both against Turkey and Greece until Soviet and Romanian reinforcements came in bulk. The agricultural irrigation canals around Sliven (BPA's 3rd Army HQ were prepared to swamp the area around the city, because this was the extension of the expected Turkish advance. Other than that it was planned that nuclear strikes would opean a breach in Turkish defences and the WP reach the Bosphorus, while the Soviet forces from the Caucasus sweep Anatolia and defeat the Turkish military. I know our Construction Troops had extensive plans for work in Syria during WWIII. BTW, you better edit the article about our Construction Troops. They were part of the BPA under the Ministry of People's Defence. They were never under a Ministry of Constructions, as never did such a ministry exist.B.Velikov (talk) 05:46, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Super many thanks!! I will attend to the Construction Troops. How was the BPA expecting to be reinforced if the Romanians did not want Warsaw Pact troops crossing their territory? Buckshot06 (talk) 08:32, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

What were the Construction Troops going to be doing in Syria? Building defences against Israel? Buckshot06 (talk) 08:34, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

What about a Ministry of Construction, Architecture, and Public Services? Buckshot06 (talk) 08:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry that I am unable to reply faster, but I am extremely busy lately with no time to spare. I will give you a short answer to your questions later today.B.Velikov (talk) 09:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

It does not matter how bad the relations between Bucharest and Moscow were. If WWIII broke out, Romania could have chosen to play along or to get steamrolled. The same thing happened to Bulgaria in WWII. My country was mostly in favour of neutrality, but when the Wehrmacht amassed troops along our borders for the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, we had to choose to jump on board or get invaded and occupied alongside them.

Our Construction Troops were almost exclusively involved in civil constructions - roads, dam walls, public buildings, housing projects etc. Fortification works were the task of engineer regiments, which were either part of the Ground Forces or directly under the General Staff. The Construction Troops were under the Ministry of People's Defence. I know this only from conversations with retired officers, but I was told, that the CT were expected to do the same work there - mostly transport and energy infrastructure.

The Warsaw Pact planners expected to crush NATO and overrun Western Europe in a matter of weeks. After Turkey was overrun, Soviet military strategists expected to reach Egypt also in a matter of weeks to reach the mostly leftist-oriented African countries. No one counted for a stalemate along the borders of Israel if the SOviet Army and the Arab countries joined forces.

I am not saying there was no Bulgarian ministry, called Ministry of Construction. There were several, but no reiteration was even remotely connected to the Construction Troops or with the actual operational oversight of construction projects. These ministries were tasked with supervision of the implementation of construction standards, supply of the country with adequate supply of building materials and representation of the People's Republic of Bulgaria at COMECON.¬¬¬¬

French Air and Space Force

Hello,

Please do not add material to French Air and Space Force article unless it is accompanied by a reliable reference per Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

Gavbadger (talk) 14:24, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I just translated the information about the CFAS from the French Wikipedia articles. As for my previous edit it is sourced mostly from official announcements, so you outright reverting my edits without even checking the sources only convinces me how little you actually care about Wiki content.¬¬¬¬ B.Velikov (talk) 14:28, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I have reincluded your edits. There is no requirement I have ever seen for instant sourcing of such things. However, they do need to be sourced, or whether Gavbadger's reverts are correct or not, they will eventually disappear. Buckshot06 (talk) 11:04, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

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