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

In the circa-1961 war plans, the first echelon of
the Front was formed mainly by the Soviet forces
stationed in Germany, while the second echelon was
providea. by tne reliuirlug cuILml fromL Lhe~ wese
USSR. The third echelon was to come mainly from
units newly formed after mobilization began, and
may have been intended as reserves and replacements.
It does not seem likely that any divisions with the
western MD armies were a part of the so-called third
echelon, since this would have destroyed the integrity
of these armies by stretching out their deployment
over a month or more of time and would have resulted
in-their simultaneously having some divisions in com-
bat in Central Europe while others were still mobi-
lizing inside the USSR.
The only mention in the Soviet
classified articles of cadre divisions in field
armies was a statement by Lt. Gen. S. Andryushchenko
in an article entitled "The Deployment and Forward
Movement of a Combined-Arms Army of a Border Mili-
tary District in the Initial Period of a War." He
said:
In addition, we studied the combined-
arms army made up of four or five divi-
sions (two or three of them up to strength
and the rest in cadre form or at reduced
strength) .... "
This somewhat ambiguous statement may indicate that
the author was uncertain of the exact status of the
divisions not up to strength, or that he considered
the terms "reduced strength" and "cadre form" to be.
virtually synonomous. It is worth noting that, at
the time of writing, Andryushchenko was the deputy
commander of a separate army corps in the North
Caucasus MD which may well have contained cadre
divisions.
Other authors discussed only two
categories of readiness in the context of early
Front operations. The clearest statement is by
Maj. Gen. A. Klyukanov in "The Most Urgent Problems
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