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Warsaw Pact Forces opposite NATO, NIE 11-14-79, Volume II, the Estimate, CIA/NFAC, 31 January 1979

Central Intelligence Agency · 201 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is Volume II of National Intelligence Estimate 11-14-79, Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO, issued by the Director of Central Intelligence and dated January 1979. The National Foreign Intelligence Board concurred with it. It was the first comprehensive estimate of Pact forces facing NATO since 1971. It covers Pact doctrine, the ground, air, naval, nuclear and chemical forces, command and control, and campaign plans for war in Europe. It judges that Central Europe would be the decisive arena, and it lists Pact weaknesses in pilot training and antisubmarine warfare. The document contains no UFO material.

  • p. 114 …recently halted Soviet air operations from Conakry. These developments will obviously force the 257. Many officers…
  • p. 115 …order to keep other in establishing effective air cover over supporting lines units operational. of communication…
  • p. 185 …The Soviets could elect to provide combat forces scale commitment of manpower and materiel which to…
  • p. 187 …This force is occasionally aug- forces could not be safely transported by sea or air to…
  • p. 188 …a war, but they couldsome naval and air force weapons (including a few recently introduced Flogger…
would probably sustain a force of this size. for a period Cargo and POL Lift Capacities Figure 11-32
up to three months. of Soviet Divisions,
218. Transportationand Movement. In a war of 1969 and 1979
short duration and high intensity the ability to sustain
the momentum of an advance is determined not only
by the availability of stocks but equally by the capabil- Cargo Capacity
ity to move supplies, materiel, and personnel forward. Tons
The Soviets estimate that in the course of a front 10,000
operation, as much as 350,000 tons of supplies would
be delivered to the front, or an average of about 8,000
30,000 tons daily. Deliveries from front to committed Motorized
armies would amount to about 20,000 tons daily- Rifle
wo6,ot Divisions Tank
219. Soviet plans call for 16,000 of the 20,000 Divisions
metric tons to be moved by front motor transport. The 4 000
numbers of trucks available in the Group of Soviet Tr6k.;
Forces in Germany (GSFG) has been substantially
increased in recent years (see figure II-32) and we 2,000
estimate that, by itself, the GSFG motor transport
brigade could lift about 18,000 tons simultaneously. 0 1969 1979
This estimate, however, does not take into account
daily losses due to combat attrition, mechanical and POL Capacity
human failures, and accidents that would occur in a Thousand Liters
combat situation. Presumably, the GSFG could ac- 2,000
quire additional trucks in an emergency, either by
commandeering East German civilian trucks or by
bringing mobilized civilian trucks from the USSR. 1,500 -
220. NSWP forces and Soviet forces in the USSR M
Motorized
would require large-scale augmentation with civilian 1,000 Rifle Tank
trucks in wartime. Category II and III divisions and Divisions Divisions
army- and front-level motor transport units would get
most of their trucks this way. All Warsaw Pact 5ra0 er_
countries have plans to call up civilian trucks and Tu-
drivers on a large scale to reach war footing. Consider-
able preparations for this are made in peacetime, 0
including prior designation of trucks to be mobilized 1969 1979
and military inspections for serviceability. The Soviets
evidently have the most elaborate system and have
established paramilitar-y truck units in civilian motor 577621 1.79 CIA
transport establishments to meet their highest priority
truck requirements in wartime. Partial tests of the We judge, however,
Warsaw Pact truck callup system are conducted in that despite weaknesses in the transport system, the
peacetime. Pact would be able to assemble sufficient motor
transport to meet its wartime requirements.
221. According to an alternate view,29 paragraph
220 implies erroneously that there are serious weak-
nesses in the Pact's wartime motor transport system
which are due primarily to the system's reliance on
29The holders of this view are the Director, Defense Intelli-
gence Agency, and the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence,
Department of the Army.
11-65
-Top-Sel

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 201 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.