Military Sports, Technical

the collective name for sports that combine the overall physical and technical training of sportsmen and have a definite military application. These technical military sports include model airplanes, motoring, model automobiles, helicoptering, motor boating, motorcycling, parachuting, gliding, skin diving, radio operation, flying, shooting, model boats, military-applied and naval combined events, and motor ball (motorcycle soccer).

Technical military sports were developed rapidly in the USSR in the 1950’s, and since 1958 all-Union games for these events have been held (over 20 million people participated in the fifth games, of 1970). In the late 1950’s and early 1%0’s, all-Union federations on technical military sports were formed; since 1963 these have been united under the Bureau of Sports Federations of the All-Union Voluntary Society for Aid to the Army, Air Force, and Navy (DOSAAF) of the USSR. The all-Union federations for aviation, motoring, motorcycling, skin diving, motor boating, model boats, and radio operation are members of the corresponding international sports organizations. In 1970 more than 13 million per-sons participated in the sports sections and collectives of DOSAAF.