Documents / FOIA release

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.

  • p. 26 …East European field army headquarters do not exist as separate entities in peacetime but are formed…
  • p. 41 …The Front headquarters is formed by cadres from the Polish Ministry of National Defense, supplemented with…
  • p. 45 …but is subordinate to the Airborne Forces Headquarters at Moscow. There are fewer combat support units…
  • p. 59 …No separate headquarters for tactical air forces (TAF) exists on a national level. Instead, the forces…
  • p. 99 …easy since-Vladivostok headquarters and Soviet naval bases are within one day's steaming distance of…
The GSFG's relative lightness in
infantry capability, coupled with its small provision
of artillery--all of which is towed and therefore
qwi te - l-ine b~ae-~t ar'-- }tackmihtra i.. t~
seriously in a combat situation which did not favor
tanks.
GSFG divisions are capable of only
about three days of intensive combat with their
organic mobile supplies and depend on the early
institution of full-scale logistical support from
the rear to maintain offensive momentum. This
support must be provided mainly by the Front, since
the armies probably have no more than a small mobile
reserve of one or two additional days of supply. We
believe that the GSFG Front-level organization exists
in peacetime. Analysis of GSFG indicates that its
Front-level rear services organization is probably
maintained at full strength in peacetime,
b. Czechoslovakian Front
Prior to the Soviet intervention,
the Czechs were responsible for organizing a Front
to cover the Warsaw Pact southern flank in the
central region. This Front was charged with the
mission of securing crossings over the Rhine in its
zone of operations but, in reality, the Soviets
probably expected it to do no more than wear down
NATO forces and defend Czechoslovakia long enough
for Soviet reinforcements to get there.
We expect that Czechoslovakia will
continue to maintain armed forces of about the
current size and that these forces will be available
to the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets probably will judge
their reliability as low in the foreseeable future
and take measures to offset this as much as possible.
These measures might include retention of Soviet
units inside Czechoslovakia, strengthening of Soviet
forces in Poland and the western USSR, or both. In
addition, they may also assign Soviet officers to
positions where they could more directly influence
the Czech high command.
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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.