In a confrontation with NATO, a substantial portion of the Soviet armed forces would remain in Asia, opposite the Chinese frontier, to deter any Chinese attack. To Americans or Europeans this may seem a bit imprudent. Why maintain a large force opposite the quiet Chinese frontier, when they could be used in an actual war? Yet the Soviets did precisely that in World War II. A surprisingly large portion of the Soviet Army remained stationed in the Far East, to counter any actions by the Japanese. Even in the grim days of 1941-42, the Soviets left 2,000 to 3,000 precious tanks in the Far East. Soviet perceptions of the threat against their country are very different from U.S. or European assessments.
From a Western point of view, the very large size of the Soviet Ground Forces, more than two hundred divisions, seems excessive for legitimate needs. The Soviet Union alone has about 53,000 tanks. This compares to about 15,000 for the U.S. The disparity in forces between the
USSR and NATO leads many to conclude that the Soviet Union plans to use these forces in an offensive fashion against NATO.
Yet in the forty-some years since World War II, there have been very few threats of the use of Soviet conventional forces against Europe. Through all the years of cold war, NATO forces have been badly outnumbered and badly outgunned. Although NATO may feel that Soviet advantages in the total number of most conventional weapons lead to the temptation to use them, Soviet perceptions on the issue differ. For staff planners like the fictional Colonel Kucherenko, these perceptions reside in the back of his mind, shaping the way he plans for the confrontation with NATO.
NATO forces in Central Europe have about 13,000 tanks, and about thirty tank and mechanized divisions. With reinforcements, that could be brought up to more than 15,000 tanks in a month. The Soviet Union and the Northern Tier Warsaw Pact states have about 17,000 tanks in place, and fifty-five tank and mechanized divisions. This is not substantially more than NATO at full mobilization. However, the Soviets also have well over 23,000 more tanks in European Russia and in nearby areas that could be brought to bear in a confrontation with NATO. This works out to a 1:2.6 ratio in favor of the USSR.
There is little debate that the Soviets have more tanks than NATO, more artillery, more troops, and a general numerical superiority. The so-called "bean count" favors the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. But do these disparities really matter? A historical example might help explain Soviet perceptions of this situation. In 1941, when the Germans invaded the USSR, they used about 3,000 tanks. The Soviets had more than 25,000 tanks and armored vehicles. Many of the Soviet tanks were old, but then too, so were many of the German tanks. Although grossly outnumbered, the German panzer divisions smashed their far larger opponent. By the end of 1941, the Soviets had fewer than 3,000 tanks facing the Germans in European Russia, and the Germans had more than 2,000. The Soviets saw an enormous inventory of modern weapons swept away at very modest losses for the Nazi invader.
This historical example is not given to suggest that numbers do not matter, or that 1991 is the same as 1941. Numbers can matter, but they should not be seen as a clear, reliable indicator of combat power. In the victorious years of 1944–1945, the Red Army had more tanks than the Germans, but the disparity was nowhere as great as in 1941. They then had about a three-to-one advantage rather than the eight-to-one advantage of 1941. But the Soviets marched to victory in 1945 as they had failed to do in 1941. The crucial difference between 1941 and 1945 was that the Soviets had learned how to employ their tanks. Still, it took a significant numerical advantage to overcome the highly skilled Germans.
A similar picture could be portrayed in regard to other key types of weapons: aircraft, artillery, and antitank weapons. These historical patterns of Soviet inferiority in the tactical use of modern weapons are a contributory factor in the bloated size of the Soviet armed forces. What to a NATO observer seems an unnecessarily large number of weapons, to a Soviet military planner seems like a prudent total to balance a traditional Western advantage in the employment of high-technology weapons. Do these Western advantages still exist? Is the disparity as great as in 1941, or is it more similar to 1945? Has the modern Soviet Army managed to narrow the gap? Or indeed, is there no qualitative gap at all? The following chapters will examine how the Soviet armed forces are likely to perform against NATO at a tactical level with these quantity-versus-quality issues in mind.
In spite of poor tactical performance against Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union eventually prevailed. Why was this so? German apologists have long suggested that it was simply a matter of mass: The Russians had more troops, more tanks, more airplanes. The Germans claim to have been outnumbered but not outfought. There is a measure of truth to this. The Soviets certainly did enjoy significant numerical advantages. But there are some subtle issues that are important to understanding the way the Soviets fight wars.
To begin with, the argument that the Soviets won because of superiority in the numbers of weapons seems a bit disingenuous to anyone familiar with the USSR during World War n. It is usually assumed that the Soviet Union was an economic powerhouse like the U.S. or Germany.
It was not. It had to import most of its advanced machine tools from the West. Its military trucks were little more than old license-produced Ford Model AAs with a coat of green paint. Not only was the Soviet military economy heavily dependent on the West for technology, but the Germans managed to gut most of the major industrial facilities. Soviet military industries were located mainly in areas of European Russia that the Germans managed to capture in 1941. The Soviet Union evacuated much of the factory equipment, but they were forced to reassemble the machinery in the Ural Mountains, often without adequate buildings.
In spite of these horrendous problems, the Soviets were able to out-produce the Germans in many key weapons categories, such as tanks and artillery. They carefully shepherded what modest industrial resources they had. They stopped or greatly curtailed production of locomotives, warships, automobiles, tractors, and many other types of equipment in favor of the raw essentials of war: tanks, artillery, small arms, aircraft, and ammunition. There is an old military adage that tactics are the realm of the armchair general and logistics the realm of the professional soldier.
The Russians demonstrated a greater appreciation of the industrial underpinnings of modern war than the Germans, and this contributed greatly to their eventual victory. In contrast, German war industries were poorly directed, and suffered the additional disadvantage of a concentrated Anglo-American bombing campaign.
But piles of weapons do little good if poorly used, as the 1941 debacle revealed. It took the Soviets three years of bloody fighting to learn the tactics of modern mechanized warfare. The fighting in 1944-45 showed that the Soviets had learned these lessons well. It has long been assumed that the victories of 1944-45 were attributable to sheer brute force, of masses of men and machines overcoming the small, emaciated skeleton of the German Army. But over the past decade, military historians in the West have finally begun to pay closer attention to how and why the Soviets managed to develop an effective fighting machine from the wreckage of 1941. The German-inspired myths of the 1950s have gradually given way to a more sophisticated understanding of the roots of the Soviet victory. The conclusion of this new generation of historians is that the Soviets, although less skilled than the Germans at the tactical level, became proficient masters of the operational arts. It was this skill, as much as advantages in equipment, that gave the Soviets victory in 1945.