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.
“Headquarters”14 pages
Trends in Warsaw Pact Ground Forces Figure lI-1 in Central Europe, 1969 and 1979 Manpower - 1969 1979 0 250,000 500,000 750,000 1,000,000 Equipment 20,000 Tanks 15,000 10,000 , - Light Tanks, APCs, Other Major Antitank Weapons Armored Fighting Vehicles Artillery s 5,000 1969 1979 1969 1979 1969 1979 1969 1979 Includes all ATGMs, and all Includes the PT-76 and the Includes all artillery pieces and Includes medium and heavy antitank guns and recoilless BMP. . multiple rocket launchers tanks rifles with maximum effective greater than 100 mm. ranges greater than 500 meters. Does not include BMP-mounted weapons. 577620 1-79 CIA combat vehicles, support equipment, and weapons of Soviet production and design, the share produced designed to increase mobility and provide greater, by the NSWP countries is increasing. more accurate firepower. Despite impressive modern- 6. Tanks. Armor has dominated Pact ground forces ization programs, however, Pact ground forces retain a 'for the past several decades. During the decade before mixture of old and new equipment. Although Pact the mid-1960s, when Soviet military planners believed forces are considerably more standardized than that war in Europe could be nuclear from the outset, NATO's, items such as T-34 and T-54/55 tanks, the the survivability of armored forces underscored their BTR-152 and earlier models of BTR-60 armored value relative to other ground forces. In the late 1960s, personnel carriers, and various older models of field when these planners were forced to contend with the artillery and antiaircraft guns, are still operational and possibility of both a conventional and a nuclear con- contribute to a growing diversity within the Pact flict, armored forces were still believed to offer maxi- weapons inventory. Although most Pact equipment is mum flexibility. 11-2
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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.