Posted June 10, Posted May 16, Air Force The air force became a separate service in The air force adapted Soviet and Chinese tactics and doctrine to reflect North Korea's situation, requirements, and available resources. Its primary mission is air defense of the homeland.
Secondary missions include tactical air support to the army and the navy, transportation and logistic support, and insertion of special operations forces. A large force, the air force also can provide limited support to ground forces. North Korea's pre-war airfields were destroyed and not repaired during the war. Some ten airfields were constructed for the NKAF at that time. The KPA received airborne and artillery chemical ordnance and began training for combat under chemical and radiation contamination conditions.
The Soviet and Chinese-made equipment the NKAF is armed with comprises mostly obsolete types that are not suitable for the modern combat environment. In the air force comprised about 1, aircraft and 70, personnel.
At that time there were three air combat commands under the direct control of the Air Command at Chunghwa, one air division the Eighth Air Division, probably headquartered at Rang in the northeast, and the Civil Aviation Bureau under the State Administration Council. The three wings under the Air Force headquarters of the KPA each hade one fighter regiment, one bomber regiment, one An-2 aircraft regiment, one helicopter regiment, and one anti-aircraft rocket regiment.
Each wing was capable of waging independent operations. The air combat commands, consisting of different mixes of fighters, bombers, transports, helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, and surface-to- air missile SAM regiments, were created by integrating and reorganizing existing air divisions during the mid- to late s.
