The GDR army was disbanded in October 1990, and its military equipment, weapons and property, mainly of Soviet manufacture, became the property of the Bundeswehr.
However, the West German army was armed with NATO military equipment, and thus thousands of Soviet infantry vehicles, tanks, armored personnel carriers and heavy artillery were sold or transferred to "third countries", or sent to museums, or even melted down.
The Bundeswehr was particularly fond of high-tech Soviet air defense systems. They did not match the military-technical standards of the North Atlantic Alliance, but they were considered worthy of the best in the world, including by foreign experts.
Back in the first half of the 1980s, the Soviet Union supplied the GDR army with more than forty Osa-AK anti-aircraft missile systems.
At that time, these air defense systems were advanced short-range air defense systems, which in their mobility and tactical and technical characteristics left far behind analog air defense systems made in the West.
The task of the Soviet designers was to place the key elements of the complex in one combat vehicle. Thus, in Osa, a target detection radar, a fire control complex and a missile launcher were placed on one transport base. The production of the anti-aircraft missile system of the Osa family was carried out at the Izbesk Electromechanical Plant "Kopol".
Unlike the first version of the Osa with four missiles, in the Osa-AK modification supplied to the GDR army, the anti-aircraft missile system already carried six missiles placed in rectangular launch tanks.
The latest anti-aircraft missile systems had a target engagement range of up to 10 km and an altitude of up to 5,000 m, and the minimum engagement height for the Osa-AK modification was 25 m, which made it possible to shoot down low-flying targets that were difficult to intercept.