An artillery division and all the remaining units which ordinarily constitute a Front.
As compensation for the divisions it lacks, the Front has one most unusual component-a Polish marine infantry division. In addition, the Soviet 107th Guards Airborne Division will operate in support of the Front, although it will not be subordinated to it.
To the North another Front will operate, independently of any Strategic Direction, subordinated directly to the Supreme Commander. This Front will be established on the base provided by the Leningrad Military District. It will be made up of one Air Army, two All-Arms Armies and an independent tank division. An airborne division based in the Leningrad Military District, but not subordinated to it, will provide operational support. This Front will operate against Norway and, possibly, Sweden.
The Organisation of the South-Western Strategic Direction
1
The South-Western Strategic Direction stands shoulder to shoulder with the Western and is organised in exactly the same way: three Fronts in the first echelon, one Front in the second echelon, a Group of Tank Armies in the third echelon, and a seaward flank protected by the Black Sea Fleet, which would be joined in wartime by all the ships of the Bulgarian and Romanian navies.
Unlike its Western equivalent, the South-Western Strategic Direction covers terrain which is unsuitable for the deployment of a large quantity of tanks. In addition, of course, the enemy is not as strong here as he is in the West. The Fronts of the South-Western Strategic Direction therefore have no Tank Armies. Each Front consists of an Air Army and two All-Arms Armies.
The staffs for all the Armies are brought from military districts in the USSR. In order to examine the structure of this Strategic Direction, we will do two things: we will assume five Bulgarian tank brigades to equal two tank divisions-an equation which any military specialist will confirm is reasonable. We will also move one Soviet motor-rifle division forward just 200 metres from the town of Uzhgorod on to Hungarian territory. We will then have the following picture:
In Hungary there are 3 tank and 8 motor-rifle divisions. The Front there will consist of two Armies each of 1 tank and 4 motor-rifle divisions, with 1 tank division in reserve.
In Romania there are 2 tank and 8 motor-rifle divisions-these will also form a Front of two standard Armies together with an Air Army.
In Bulgaria there are 2 tank and 8 motor-rifle divisions.
In the second echelon is the Carpathian Military District, consisting of the 58th Air Army and the 13th and 38th Armies. We already know that the staff of the 8th Guards Tank Army has no one under its command and is to move to Czechoslovakia in the event of war. Having made this assumption and after moving one motor-rifle division forward 200 metres, the Front will have 3 tank and 8 motor-rifle divisions-2 Armies with one division in reserve.
Finally, in the third echelon, there is the Kiev Military District, in which are located the staff of the C-in-C of the Strategic Direction and the Group of Tank Armies (the 3rd and 6th Guards Tank Armies, with a total complement of 8 tank divisions).
In reserve the C-in-C has two tank divisions (in Hungary and Czechoslovakia) four motor-rifle divisions and the 102nd Guards Airborne division. In addition he has a diversionary regiment and the variety of supporting formations and units which the C-in-C of the Western Strategic Direction also has.
Of course, it is no accident that the Group of Tank Armies is located in the Kiev Military District. From here the Group can move quickly forward to the Front by which it is most needed. But it could also be quickly brought under the command of the Western Strategic Direction and, by violating the neutrality of Austria from Hungary, could attack the undefended Austro-German frontier.
2
The proportions laid down for the South-Western Direction are observed as precisely as those of its Western counterpart.
In each Army there are 4 motor-rifle divisions and 1 tank division. In the Strategic Direction there are 4 All-Arms Fronts and 1 Group of Tank Armies.
In each Front there are 2 tank and 8 motor-rifle divisions. In all there are 2 Tank Armies and 8 All-Arms Armies made up of 16 tank and 32 motor-rifle divisions. You will recall that in the Western Direction there are 32 tank and 32 motor-rifle divisions.
The South-Western Strategic Direction can be strengthened with forces from the Odessa and North Caucasus Military Districts.
PART FOUR
MOBILISATION
Types of Division
1
The Soviet Army is armed with dozens of types of artillery weapons: guns, howitzers, gun-howitzers, and howitzer-guns, ordinary and automatic mortars, multi-barrelled, salvo-firing rocket launchers, anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. In each of these classes of weapons there is a whole array of models-from very small to very large-and most of these exist in many variants-self-propelled, auxiliary-propelled, towed, assault, mountain and static.
But despite the wide variety of artillery systems, all of these have one feature in common; no matter how many men there are in the crew of a gun-three or thirty-only two qualified specialists-the commander and the gunlayer-are needed. All the rest of the crew can perform their duties without any kind of specialised training. Any № 2 loader, rammer number, fuse-setter, ammunition handler or other member of a gun's crew, can have his duties explained in three minutes and the crew can be working like automata within a few hours. The same applies to the driver of a self-propelled gun or of a gun tractor. If he was previously a tractor driver he too will quickly master his new functions.
Soviet generals know that it is possible to teach a bear to ride a bicycle-and very quickly. Why, they reason, do we need to maintain a peacetime army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers whose wartime tasks would be so simple? Surely it is easier to replace the thirty men in a two-gun howitzer platoon with five-the platoon commander, two gun-commanders and two loaders and to moth-ball both guns and their tractors? If war comes, the others-the bears-can be trained very quickly. For the present let them occupy themselves with peaceful work-casting steel (armoured, of course) or building electrical power-stations (for the production of aluminium, which is used only for military purposes in the USSR).
2
In peacetime the great majority of Soviet artillery regiments, brigades and divisions therefore have only 5 % of the soldiers they would need in wartime. Only those units (an insignificant minority) stationed in the countries of Eastern Europe or on the Chinese frontier are up to full strength.
This principle applies not only to the artillery but to most of the land forces and indeed to the bulk of the whole Soviet Armed Forces. It is almost impossible to apply it to certain categories-to tank forces or to submarines say. But it does apply in many cases, particularly to the infantry, to the marine infantry, to repair, transport and engineer sub-units and to units manning Fortified Areas.
Because of this, the enormous Soviet land forces, with their peacetime strength of 183 divisions as well as a very large number of independent brigades, regiments and battalions, have a laughably small numerical strength-little more than one and a half million men.
This astonishingly small figure is deceptive. Simply bringing the existing divisions and the independent brigades, regiments and battalions up to strength on the first day of mobilisation will raise the strength of the land forces to 4,100,000. But this is just the first stage of mobilisation.
3
Soviet divisions are divided into three categories, depending on the number of `bears' absent in peacetime:
Category A-divisions which have 80 % or more of their full strength
Category B-those with between 30 % and 50%
Category C-those with between 5 % and 10%
Some Western observers use categories 1, 2 and 3 in referring to Soviet divisions. This does not affect the crux of the matter, but is not quite accurate. Categories 1 to 3 are used in the USSR only when referring to military districts. Divisions are always referred to by letters of the alphabet. This is because it is s
impler to use letters in secret abbreviations. For instance, `213 C MRD' refers to the 213th motor-rifle division, which falls in category C. The use of a numerical category in such a message could lead to confusion. In referring to military districts, which have titles but no numbers, it is more convenient to use figures to indicate categories.
Some Western observers overestimate the number of soldiers on the strength of category B and C divisions. In fact there are considerably fewer soldiers than it would appear to an outside observer. These overestimates presumably result from the fact that in many military camps, in addition to the personnel of divisions which are below strength, there are other sub-units and units, also below strength but not included in the complement of the division. The Soviet land forces have some 300 independent brigades, more than 500 independent regiments and some thousands of independent battalions and companies, which do not belong to divisions. In most cases their personnel are quartered in the barracks of divisions which are below strength, which gives a misleading impression of the strength of the division itself. In many cases, too, for camouflage purposes, these sub-units wear the insignia of the divisions with which they are quartered. This applies primarily to rocket, diversionary and reconnaissance/intelligence personnel but is also the case with units concerned with the delivery, storage and transport of nuclear and chemical weapons.
About a third of the divisions in the Soviet Army fall into category A. They include all divisions stationed abroad and a number of divisions on the Chinese frontier.
Categories B and C, too, account for approximately a third of all Soviet divisions. In recent years there has been a constant shift of divisions from category B to category C, because of the introduction of such new arms of forces as airborne assault troops and fortified area troops. The new sub-units and units need entirely new troops, which are always taken from category B divisions. They cannot be taken from category A divisions, because these represent the minimum number of troops who must be kept at readiness, or from category C divisions because these have no one to spare.
It must also be noted that in category B divisions the three most important battalions-rocket, reconnaissance and communications are kept at category A strength. In category C divisions these battalions are maintained at category B strength.
The same applies to similar sub-units serving with Armies and Fronts. All rocket, reconnaissance, diversionary and communications sub-units of Armies and Fronts are maintained at a strength one category higher than that of all the other elements of the particular Army or Front.
4
It must be emphasised that the category allocated to a division has no effect whatsoever upon the extent to which it is supplied with new weapons. Divisions stationed abroad, which are all, without exception, in category A, take second place when new combat equipment is being issued.
The newest equipment is issued first of all to the frontier Military Districts-Baltic, Byelorussian, Carpathian, Far Eastern and Trans-Baykal.
Only five or seven, sometimes even ten years after a particular piece of equipment has first been issued, is it supplied to divisions stationed abroad. Third to be supplied, after them, are the Soviet Union's allies. Once the requirements of all these three elements have been fully satisfied, the production of the particular model is discontinued. Once production of a new version has begun, the re-equipment of the frontier military districts begins once again, and the material withdrawn from them is used to bring units located in the rear areas up to the required scale. Once the Soviet frontier military districts have been re-equipped, the process of supplying their used equipment to Category C divisions follows. Then the whole process begins again-to the second echelon, then to the first, then from the second via the first to the third.
Such a system of supplying combat equipment has undeniable advantages.
Firstly, secrecy is greatly increased. Both friends and enemies assume that the equipment issued to the Group of Forces in Germany is the very latest available. Enemies therefore greatly underestimate the fighting potential and capabilities of the Soviet Army. Friends, too, are misled and it therefore becomes possible to sell them a piece of equipment which is being issued in East Germany as if it were the most up-to-date model.
Secondly, it becomes far more difficult for a Soviet soldier to defect to the enemy with details of the newest equipment-or even, perhaps, to drive across the border in the latest tank or fighting vehicle. It is practically impossible to do this from the Baltic or Byelorussian Military Districts. The Soviet command does not worry at all about the Trans-Baykal or Far Eastern Military Districts. It knows very well that every Soviet soldier hates socialism and that he would therefore defect only to one of the capitalist countries. No one would ever think of defecting to socialist China.
Thirdly, in the event of war, it is the first echelon forces which would suffer the greatest losses in the first few hours-good equipment must be lost, of course, but it should not be the very latest. But then, after this, the Carpathian, Byelorussian and Baltic divisions go into battle equipped with the new weapons, whose existence is unsuspected by the enemy.
This system of re-equipment has been in existence for several decades. It is significant that the T-34 tank, which went into mass production as early as 1940, was issued only to military districts in the rear areas. Although the USSR was unprepared for Germany's surprise attack, these security measures were taken automatically, simple as they were to enforce. The surprise onslaught made by the Germans destroyed thousands of Soviet tanks, but there was not a single T-34 among them. Nor, despite the fact that the Soviet Army had some 2,000 of these tanks, did they appear in battle during the first weeks of the war. It was only after the first echelon of the Soviet forces had been completely destroyed, that the German forces first met the excellent T-34. It is also significant that German Intelligence did not suspect even the existence of that tank, let alone the fact that it was in mass production.
The Invisible Divisions
1
On 31 December, 1940, the German General Staff finished work on a directive on the strategic deployment of the Wehrmacht for the surprise attack on the USSR. A top-secret appendix to the directive was prepared from data provided by German Intelligence, containing an appreciation of the fighting strength of the Red Army. The German generals believed that the Soviet land forces possessed 182 divisions, of which only 141 could be brought into a War against Germany. Because of the tense situation on the Asian frontiers of the USSR, a minimum of 41 divisions must at all costs be left guarding these frontiers. The whole plan for the war against the USSR was therefore based on an estimate of the speed with which 141 Soviet divisions could be destroyed.
On 22 June Germany attacked, taking everyone in the USSR, Stalin included, by surprise. The way the war developed could not have been better for Germany. In the first few hours, thousands of aircraft were blazing on Soviet airfields while thousands of Soviet tanks and guns did not even succeed in leaving their depots. In the first days of the war, dozens of Soviet divisions, finding themselves encircled and without ammunition, fuel or provisions, surrendered ingloriously. German armoured spearheads carried out brilliant encirclement operations surrounding not just Soviet divisions or corps but entire Armies. On the third day of the war the 3rd and the 10th Soviet Armies were surrounded near Bialystok. Immediately after this an equally large encirclement operation was carried out near Minsk, Vitebsk and Orsha, near Smolensk. Two Soviet armies were destroyed after being surrounded near Uman' and five Armies in a huge pocket near Kiev.
However, already, even while the bells were ringing for their victories, the sober-minded German generals were biting their fingernails, as they bent over maps; the number of Soviet divisions was not diminishing-on the contrary, it was rising fast. Already in mid-August General Halder was writing in his diary: `We underestimated them. We have now discovered and identified 360 of their divisions! But Halder was only talking about the Soviet divisions which were directly involved at th
at moment in fighting in the forward areas-that is, first echelon divisions. But how many were there in the second echelon? And in the third? And in the reserves of the Armies and the Fronts? And in the internal military districts? And in the Stavka's reserve? And how many divisions had the NKVD? How many were there in all?
The miscalculation proved fatal. 153 German and 37 allied divisions proved insufficient to destroy the Red Army, even given the most favourable conditions.
The German generals' miscalculation was twofold. Firstly, the Red Army consisted, not of 182 but of 303 divisions, without counting the divisions of the NKVD, the airborne forces, the marine infantry, the frontier troops, the Fortified Area troops and others.
Secondly, and this was most important, the German generals knew absolutely nothing about the `second formation' system-the system which splits Soviet divisions into two in the course of one night. This is a system which enables the Soviet General Staff to increase the number of its divisions by precisely one hundred per cent, within a remarkably short time.
2
The system of `invisible' divisions was adopted by the Red Army at the beginning of the 1930s. It saved the Soviet Union from defeat in the Second World War. It is still in use today.
The process, which enables the Soviet leadership to expand the fighting strength of its Armed Forces with great speed, is simple and reliable and uses almost no material resources.
In peacetime every divisional commander has not one but two deputies. One of these carries out his duties continuously, the other does so only from time to time, since he has an additional series of responsibilities. He also has a secret designation-`Divisional Commander-Second Formation'.
The chief of staff of a division, a Colonel, also has two deputies, Lieutenant-Colonels, one of whom also has a secret designation-`Divisional Chief of Staff-Second Formation'.
Inside The Soviet Army Page 16
