Documents / FOIA release
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.
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barrage would then be engaged and overrun by 37. During initial and subsequent operations, Pact assaulting infantry and tanks. commanders would implement their doctrine for ra- 34. Work to reduce the vulnerability of tanks to dioelectronic combat to locate and either jam or antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) has been under way destroy NATO communication and radar links. (See in the Soviet Union since at least the early 1960s, most section F, beginning at paragraph 197, in chapter II.) of it directed at defeating the high-explosive antitank Ground force jamming units, located on the flanks (HEAT) warheads which virtually all infantry anti- during the breakthrough operation and with the ad- tank weapons in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact vance echelons during the subsequent exploitation employ. To provide better protection, particularly phase, would attempt to jam NATO's command and against HEAT ammunition, the Soviets have incorpo- control and combat support communication links. rated composite or laminated armor arrays in their These links would also be targeted for destruction by new T-64 and T-72 tanks. The additional tanks which Pact artillery and tactical aircraft. the Soviets have assigned to their divisions in the past 38. Replacement Concepts. The Pact structures decade (see paragraph 12 in chapter II) may be and employs its ground forces in ways significantly intended to compensate for the heavier losses that different from the US approach. In large measure, Soviet planners expect to sustain from improved anti- these differences account for the different means tank defenses and to enable assaulting units to over- adopted by the Pact and the United States for replac- whelm these defenses by sheer numbers. The addition ing personnel and equipment expended in combat. of an independent tank battalion to a motorized rifle Generally speaking, the Pact designs its combat units division provides the division commander with an with leaner man-to-equipment ratios and with more additional maneuver force to commit at a critical modest levels of service support. Pact combat-ready point in the battle. divisions have roughly the same number of tanks and 35. Subsequent Operations. If a major break- artillery as comparable US divisions, but only about through were accomplished by the forces of the half as many men. For example, a Soviet tank division Soviet-East German front, the three tank armies of at combat strength has about 9,500 men, 322 medium this front probably would launch rapid thrusts- tanks, 60 howitzers, and 18 multiple-round rocket perhaps aided by airborne assaults-in an attempt to launchers; a US armored division at full strength has secure crossings over the Rhine near Essen, Frankfurt, around 17,000 men, 324 medium tanks, and 66 and similar points, and continue the advance to at least howitzers. the French border. The Polish front, upon breaking 39. In Pact doctrine, divisions and, to some extent through initial defenses in its area, would be responsi- armies would be committed to intensive first-echelon ble for advancing both into Denmark and across combat missions for relatively short periods of time, northern Germany into the Netherlands. The Soviet- after which they would be rotated into second echelon Czechoslovak front would move into southern West or reserve. Respites from combat would be used to Germany, and advance toward crossings over the restore the units' effectiveness by replacing personnel Rhine south of Mannheim. losses and repairing or replacing unserviceable or 36. The roles of the reinforcing fronts from the missing equipment.. This contrasts with US practice of western USSR would depend on the progress of the designing combat units with the idea of sustaining initial offensive them in combat for long periods and keeping them major elements-two or three armies-from one or more or less continuously replenished with personnel two Soviet fronts from the western USSR transiting and equipment. Central Europe in time to enter combat by the end of 40. Thus, Pact and US replacement concepts are the first week of fighting. The origins of the initial consistent with their respective force structures and reinforcements and their exact areas of responsibility employment practices and confer no particular advan- when committed to battle are variously depicted tage. The Soviets stress unit rather than individual forces in the Belorussian and Car- replacements for combat units under engagement in pathian Military Districts are used most frequently. both conventional and nuclear war and probably When the front from the Baltic Military District is would confine individual replacements mainly to com- committed, it usually enters the battle between the bat units in second echelon or reserve. The United Soviet-East German and Polish fronts States plans for unit replacement in nuclear war but would generally stress individual replacements in con- ventional war. IV--10
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 201 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.