Documents / FOIA release
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.
“The Advance”9 pages
TOP EC-REZ[ The divisions in the first group consistently display other indicators, such as facilities, which suggest high strength levels. The second group is more heterogeneous, with considerable variations in other indicators. There are, however, no indications of any dividing. point in this group, either in equipment levels, activity levels, or gen- eral appearance of facilities. One of the smallest and least active of these divisions, with about 1,200 equipment items, was mobilized.during the Czech crisis. When observed in photography about two weeks after the earliest date on which its buildup is likely to have begun, it had about 2,300 equipment items, including all of its tanks and artillery, but apparently had no APC's. Many of its general-purpose trucks appeared to be civilian types. The third group is characterized by very low activity levels and lack of indications of troop training. We have no recent direct evidence of the actual person e1_str-enaths of-anvdivisions n__the w_este rn U SSR These divisions, including one in an army in the Odessa MD, appear to have been at very low manning levels. One motorized rifle divi- sion, for example, reportedly had only 2,000 officers and men, or 20 percent of wartime strength. Their equipment levels are at about 1,200 items, the lower limit of the second equipment group, and their troop training facilities show light activity. These divi- sions are generally similar, in their observable characteristics, to the smallest, least active divi- sions in the western USSR armies. Also, we have assessed the barracks capacity of three tank divisions in a tank army in the Kiev MD, all of which have relatively active troop training facilities and equipment levels of 1,200 to 1,400, and find that they probably have capacities for housing no more than 4,000 to 5,000 men each. We believe that these divisions are similar to those typical of the second equipment group in western USSR armies. - 29 - TOPE RET
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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.