The Third World War: August 1985

Ideally all armies should have had the same type of tank or truck or gun. Such a solution was rare. Instead the Alliance put its immediate efforts into what it called inter-operability — the ability to operate with each other; to have common radio frequencies, for example, if it were not possible to have the same sets; to have the same calibre guns and rifles, using the same ammunition, if not the same weapons. Much was achieved in this direction, notably with artillery and tank guns, in fuel and in other supplies. Operational procedures were not as difficult to harmonize as policies in the procurement of hardware, and NATO had gone far, in spite of language difficulties, in developing a common practice. But they were still, in this very important respect, some way behind their enemies.

CHAPTER 13: The Warsaw Pact Forces

In the Soviet Union at the end of the year 1984 there were rather more than 4 1/2 million men and women under arms. The ground forces furnished 170 divisions, of which half were now always in the category 1 state of readiness, that is to say, not less than 90 per cent complete in personnel, fully armed and equipped up to field service scales, and with a complete provision of all supplies (including fuel and ammunition) for four days’ sustained action. Forty-five divisions (twice as many as in the sixties, though not all in category 1) were deployed close to the Sino-Soviet border and some thirty more in the southern regions of the USSR.

Of more immediate concern to NATO were the thirty-two Soviet divisions — sixteen tank and fifteen motorized, with at least one (and perhaps more) airborne, all in category 1 — stationed in European countries of the Warsaw Pact. These formed four groups of forces — army commands, in effect — one each in the German Democratic Republic (Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, or GSFG), Poland (the Northern Group), Czechoslovakia (the Central Group) and Hungary (the Southern Group), containing in total over half a million men and 11,000 tanks, with some 8,000 artillery pieces and over 1,000 integral aircraft. The Sixteenth Air Army, also deployed in the GDR, represented no more than the spearhead of the available tactical air resources. In the western USSR were seventy more divisions (a third of them tank divisions), of which only a few were kept constantly in category 1, but from which further reinforcement was readily available.

In addition to the Soviet forces in Central Europe, the Warsaw Pact countries in the Northern Tier (the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Poland) deployed a dozen tank and a score of motorized divisions of their own, all organized, armed and trained on the Soviet model, while in the Southern Tier (Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania) the one tank and five motorized divisions of the Hungarian Army were also available. The military importance of Hungary in the Pact, it may be said in passing, had recently lain mostly in its exclusion from the Central Front in any discussions with the West on theatre force reductions. Forces to be withdrawn from the Central Front could therefore be conveniently retained intact by simply moving them into Hungary. It was in large part this (among other reasons, which suggested that there was little point in continuing so unprofitable a dialogue) which had caused discussions on reductions eventually to be allowed to lapse.

Although the armed forces of the Pact satellites were organized on Soviet lines and similarly armed and equipped, with an identical operational doctrine, there existed in the Pact something less than the 100 per cent standardization and inter-operability which was sometimes, not entirely correctly, envied in the West. There were language difficulties for a start, but perhaps more important were divergences in equipment. These became more marked as newer types were introduced into Soviet divisions but by no means always into those of other Pact countries. There was also no universal mobilization system in the Warsaw Pact, any more than there was in the Atlantic Alliance. It must also be emphasized that the Warsaw Pact, as such, embodied no war-fighting structure comparable to that of NATO, and thus lacked both some of NATO’s strengths and some of its weaknesses. The forces of component countries of the Warsaw Pact were regarded — and used — as integral parts of the forces of the Soviet Union.

Up to the outbreak of hostilities the question of the political reliability of the forces of the satellites was much debated in the West. It was to become clear from the outset, however, that there could be no doubt at all as to the loyalty to Moscow to be found in Warsaw Pact forces at the higher and medium levels of command. The attitude of the non-military masses in these countries and the response to higher military command at lower levels of responsibility, not least among the rank and file, was to prove a different matter.