ABSTRACT
The nascent amphibious capability was among the many things buried in the rubble of the Revolution. By 1939 the Soviet Navy was without amphibious forces of any type, though in July of that year a brigade of naval infantry was formed in the Baltic. In the two-week war against Japan in August 1945 Soviet amphibious forces landed troops onto beaches near ports on Korea’s east coast, into ports on southern Sakhalin before the retreating Japanese could get there, and onto the Kurile islands. In the meantime the Soviet Navy has forged ahead of other navies in designing and building air cushion vehicles for service as landing craft. Combat experience, notably Soviet combat experience, shows that there are uses for amphibious ships in addition to that of the assault. With Soviet troops at the Skaw, Denmark’s northernmost point, Copenhagen, even if it were still holding out, would know itself cut off from help.
