They are allowing Western observers to visit Warsaw Pact exercises, and to inspect new weapons to a degree that would have been unheard-of five years ago. But at the same time,
Soviet censorship of their military press has not changed at all in regard to issues of military strength, unit organization, and military technology. The Soviets still do not publish an accurate military budget, and have admitted as much. They have never made any serious effort to publicly describe the size or composition of their armed forces. Military censorship is still so extreme that the designation of old weapons is secret and unprintable, even thought they are known in the West. A recent Soviet book on tank technology skipped all mention of the T-64 tank, first in service in the mid 1960s, to say nothing of more recent tanks such as the T-80. The Soviet military remains one of the most secret organizations in the world today. Military subjects that are considered routine and openly published in the West are forbidden subjects in the USSR. Soviet military secrecy breeds mistrust and is a major complicating factor in arms control agreements.
This is not to totally discount the effects of perestroika on the Soviet armed forces. For the Gorbachev economic reforms to succeed, it will be necessary to trim back extravagant Soviet military spending. The Soviet Union currently spends in excess of 15 percent, and perhaps as much as 21 percent, of its gross national product on defense. In contrast, the U.S. spends about 7 percent, and most European countries spend around 3 to 4 percent. Gorbachev undoubtedly seeks to channel some of this funding back into the ailing civilian economy.
The cuts announced by Gorbachev in December 1988 are the first steps to accomplish this task. Plans were to remove 10,000 tanks from the force structure (about 20 percent), and about 500,000 troops (about 10 percent of the current force). Furthermore, Gorbachev promised the reduction of six divisions from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. The reduction in tanks will probably involve thirty-year-old T-54s and T-55s, not new tanks. Nevertheless, reducing the Soviet inventory of tanks by 20 percent implies reducing the number of Soviet tank and motor rifle divisions by comparable amounts. Even with these changes, the Soviet Army will remain a massive force with substantial numerical advantages over NATO. An operation such as the fictional Buran would still be possible even after the 1988 cuts come into effect.
Further cuts, which would be sufficient to dampen Soviet offensive capabilities, will probably await a NATO/Warsaw Pact conventional arms control agreement. The Soviet military does not appear happy about the cuts promised by Gorbachev in 1988. Dissension with the Gorbachev plan probably accounts for the dismissal of the head of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Akhromeyev, in December 1988, although the Soviet press claimed that Akhromeyev retired due to his health.
There is reason to suspect that perestroika will eventually lead to even greater changes in the Soviet military, the sheer size of which, even after the promised cuts, demands an exhausting share of the Soviet national effort. Soviet officials, in private, have suggested to Western officials that the USSR may be reconsidering the traditional notion that the armed forces must be configured to resist all possible combinations of enemies.
This could foreshadow an eventual reduction in the number of divisions, and in the amount of equipment acquired for the Soviet Army.
Such changes will probably take a decade. Nikita Khrushchev attempted to make sweeping changes in the Soviet military in the early 1960s, alienating the military leadership. This was a contributory factor in his eventual ouster. Gorbachev has most likely learned a lesson from this, and reform will come more slowly. For the more perceptive military leaders in the Soviet Union, reform is welcome. There is concern that the Soviet Army is falling behind NATO in
technology. Some military leaders appreciate that a sound economy is the basis for a sound defense. For these leaders, perestroika is seen not as an attempt to diminish the military, but to strengthen its vital economic and technological roots.
It is unlikely that the Soviet Army of the mid-1990s will be so radically different that an operation such as Plan Buran will be impossible. Even with force reductions, the Soviets are likely to maintain a substantial conventional force in Central Europe. What will prevent Plan Buran from ever happening is the Soviet conviction that it will not succeed. As is suggested in the following chapters, the Soviet armed forces, for all their power, cannot be certain that their elegant operational plans will function properly in the turmoil of a real war.
CHAPTER 2
Motor Rifle Attack:
The Skirmish in the Hofzell Woods
Nineteen years old, eighteen months in the army, and off to war. Sergeant Stanislav Demchenko sat, crunched up and uncomfortable, inside his squad's BMP-2 Yozh infantry fighting vehicle.[9]
Well, it wasn't exactly "his" squad. It was the squad of Lt. Ivan Bobrov, the platoon commander. But when it came time to dismount and fight on foot, he would be in charge of the squad in the field.
Demchenko, better known to his buddies in the squad as Stashu, was the assistant squad leader. He was the son of farmers from a small kolkhoz (state-owned collective farm) east of the Lvov. Like many western Ukrainians, his family was Ukrainian Catholic, even though this church was suppressed by the state. Stashu was not particularly religious, but his family's background did little to help his career in Soviet society. One of his uncles had been an anti-Soviet Ukrainian insurgent in the late 1940s, a fact duly noted in his dossier. On the positive side, he had proved to be an able student at his polytechnic school, and was active in a local DOSAAF motorbike club.[10]
His enthusiasm for cross-country motorbikes had attracted the attention of the local DOSAAF military representative. He was impressed with Stashu's enthusiasm and skill, and when draft time came, he recommended that Demchenko be sent to an NCO (non-commissioned officer) academy after basic training. Demchenko's family background ruled out a posting to an officers' school or to any of the prestige services such as the Strategic Missile Force or Air Force. But he wasn't so suspect as to be dumped into a construction battalion. Demchenko's skill with motorbikes and other mechanical equipment led the ground forces selection board to post him to a BMP-2 motor rifle unit. The BMP-2 requires a good deal more care to operate than other infantry vehicles, and the ground forces were chronically short of technically skilled recruits.
The NCO academy in Sverdlovsk had not been particularly challenging for Demchenko. He was a very bright student and had no problems learning the elementary combat skills taught to new NCO candidates. Life in the academy was better than that in a regular unit. All of the candidates in his class were new recruits, so there wasn't the usual abuse and hazing from senior soldiers in the unit. There was enough abuse from the officers! After six months of training, Demchenko was posted to a motor rifle battalion of the 18th Guards Motor Rifle Division in Czechoslovakia. As a new junior sergeant, he was assigned to the BMP-2 of a platoon commander, Lt. Ivan Bobrov.
A Soviet motor rifle platoon consists of three BMP-2 armored infantry vehicles. One BMP is commanded by the platoon leader, a young lieutenant; the other two are commanded by sergeants. The BMP armored infantry vehicles had a squat, menacing look. Demchenko's company had started the war with a full complement of the newer BMP-2 Yozh. The Yozh had a 30mm autocannon, which spit out half-pound, armor-piercing shells at a rate of about two hundred fifty a minute. The troops called it the "woodpecker" due to its staccato sound. The woodpecker could penetrate light armored vehicles such as troop carriers. And, if you were lucky, it might penetrate the thin rear armor of a main battle tank. But it could not penetrate the thick frontal armor. To defeat tanks, it had a Konkurs antitank missile launcher mounted on the roof.[11]
9
The BMP-2 Yozh is a lightly armored infantry transporter, comparable to the American M2 Bradley IFV.
10
DOSAAF is the Russian acronym for the Voluntary Society for Cooperation with the Army, Air Force and Fleet. It sponsors many athletic and sports clubs; its role is further explained later in the chapter.
11