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OSR Contribution to NIE 11-14-68, Soviet and East European General Purpose Forces, CIA/DI/OSR, October 1968.

Central Intelligence Agency · 115 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is an October 1968 contribution by the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Strategic Research to National Intelligence Estimate 11-14-68 on Soviet and East European general purpose forces. It covers Warsaw Pact war plans for Central Europe, the effects of the Czechoslovak crisis, and the doubling of Soviet forces on the Chinese border since 1965. It also assesses ground, tactical air, naval and coastal defense forces. The text does not mention UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena.

TOPE ET
Under the present plan, a Polish Front is
to make a thrust along the seaward flank, a force
composed of both Soviet (GSFG) and East German forces
in East Germany is assigned the Front role in the
central sector, and forces from Czechoslovakia would
c-on stitut_e a Front on the southern flank.
the seconaz ech-- intne
Czech sector is a Soviet ront from the Carpathian
region of the Ukraine. The Soviet forces in Belo-
russia and perhaps the 11th Guards Army in the Baltic
Military District appear to be designed to perform as
a second-echelon Front behind the GSFG or Polish Fronts.
The Front from Czechoslovakia has the mission
of advancing as far as the west bank of the Rhine
in the area roughly between Mannheim and the Swiss
border. this Front, as designed
for the mission, is composed of three combined-arms
armies, one tactical air army, and assorted Front
combat and service support units.
The Polish Front, of the same general com-
position but larger in size, probably has an offen-
sive zone of responsibility about one hundred miles
wide extending as far west as the English Channel
at Ostende.
The Soviet and East German Front--comprising
as many as four combined arms and two tank armies,
a massive air army, and other combat and service
support units--has the responsibility of destroying
the main body of NATO forces in the center.
The two Fronts from the western USSR are
apparently intended for commitment after the NATO
forces have been significantly weakened by the
attacks of the- first-echelon Fronts. Evidence,
suggests that with
these fresh torces restne responsibility for the
final offensive to the channel coast. The most
critical aspect of this plan to the Soviets is the
need to isolate the European theater in an extremely
short period of time--perhaps less than three weeks.
-6 -
TO 3SECRET

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 115 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.