The Third World War - The Untold Story (22 page)

Andrei Nekrassov naturally did what was expected of a Soviet officer. He nodded his head, as was proper, and recited all the propagandist statements required of him in front of his men. But some of what was disseminated he, as a professional soldier, simply could not believe. Soviet propaganda claimed, for instance, that American soldiers were pampered. It was said that each American company had its own cook and that each American soldier had his own sleeping bag, just like a tourist. However, Nekrassov was perfectly well aware (and probably all other Soviet army officers were too) that this could not possibly be true. A company is a military sub-unit meant solely for fighting battles. A company cannot have a cook, for everyone in a company must fight. A regiment needs to have a cook, but only one for 2,000 men. Every night a few infantry soldiers are detailed as fatigues to help him. At least, that is what happens in peacetime; during war, there is absolutely no need for a cook at all.

He did not believe the propaganda and tried to sort out the position for himself. But it seemed, when he compared figures, that the Soviet propaganda might be right after all. A Soviet tank company had thirteen tanks and forty-three men - thirty-nine in the tank crews and four maintenance men, who were responsible for technical upkeep, supplies, discipline, provisions, morale, medical treatment, uniforms, ammunition, and so on. In an American tank company there were seventeen tanks but ninety-two men. What work, Nekrassov wondered, could all these people do? Perhaps they were penal infantry, expendable troops deployed to defend the tanks from light anti-tank weapons. But why keep penal soldiers in tank companies during peacetime? They should be made to do hard labour in prisons during peacetime, and only when war broke out should they be sent out to penal battalions, as wholly expendable manpower.

The figures just did not seem to work out at battalion level. A Soviet tank battalion had forty tanks and 193 men. An American tank battalion had fifty-four tanks but more than 500 men. The staff of a Soviet battalion numbered a total of three, two officers and a sergeant, with a signals platoon of thirteen men. For twenty-four hours a day over a period of many months the battalion’s staff had to cope with directing combat operations and seeing to all the necessary documentation. However, within an American battalion, for some reason or other, they had devised a staff company, which had the same number of men as a whole Soviet battalion. It was completely impossible to understand what all these people could be doing. Moreover, hundreds of vehicles would be needed to transport them all, whereas only thirteen assorted vehicles were used to support a Soviet battalion with forty tanks.

In the Soviet infantry, problems of maintenance were resolved even more simply than in tank sub-units. In a Soviet motor rifle company everyone takes part directly in battle. Its officers are armed with the same weapons as their soldiers. The company sergeant major is responsible for discipline, order and the cleanliness of weapons, and also for supplying the company with everything it needs including fuel, provisions, ammunition, spare parts, uniforms and weapons. But even he, the only man involved in administration, has to take part in the fighting. As soon as the company goes in to fight on foot, the sergeant major either controls the movement of the BTR or directs BMP fire or both. In a Soviet motor rifle battalion there are only thirty men to deal with communications, repairs, medical and technical support, and the supply of stores, provisions and virtually everything else. They also have to deal with all the administration, while the remaining 413 men participate directly in the action. One result of this sensible use of manpower is that a Soviet battalion has a mortar battery, whilst an American battalion twice its size does not. Instead it seemed to have an incredibly long tail of unprotected vehicles full of administrators.

A Soviet motor rifle division of 13,800 men has 272 tanks and 108 self-propelled howitzers. A similar American division has 18,500 men but only 216 tanks and seventy-two self-propelled howitzers. A Soviet division is completely independent, with its own reconnaissance battalion and a company of anti-aircraft missiles (besides the anti-aircraft weapons of the regiments, battalions and companies), whilst an American division has to rely on outside support, in particular on the battalions of hawk air defence missiles.

Andrei Nekrassov simply could not fathom, as he explained to his patient friend, why they did not transfer all their clerks, cooks and supply people to make up new tank battalions, or mortar batteries, or air defence regiments.

In Europe there were altogether 200,000 American soldiers. That would have been sufficient to form fifteen full-bodied Soviet tank or motor rifle divisions and all the auxiliary units and services needed to support and maintain them. If one had to use this manpower to form weaker divisions without, for example, reconnaissance battalions or heavy anti-aircraft missiles, but with 216 tanks per division, this number of men would be sufficient for twenty-five such divisions.

The US Army in Europe, with all that manpower, had only five incomplete divisions. However hard he tried, Nekrassov simply could not understand what work all these other people could be doing. Surely they were not
all
in penal battalions? His friend Dimitri was equally puzzled.

There were other things that neither Senior Lieutenant could understand. Within the US Army there were sub-units of military police. Why? Could it be that a battalion or regimental commander was unable to establish strict order without outside help? Surely a commander has enough authority to keep his own sub-unit under control?

As far as women were concerned the whole thing was quite incomprehensible. Where can a woman be used in an army? In a hospital or in a signals sub-unit, perhaps, but even then only in places where these were stationary: in rear communications centres and rear hospitals. Where else? In administrative posts? Only two typists were needed in a field army or tank army headquarters. There were five Soviet armies in the German Democratic Republic. That made ten typists in all. No more were needed. Why were there tens of thousands of women in the US Army? What did they do? Was it possible to find some kind of army job which involved only light physical work? What if these women worked in divisions, where, if they were not fighting, divisional personnel had to do extremely heavy work for a minimum of ten hours a day? Could the US Army really have different standards? In a twenty-four-hour period a Soviet soldier had twenty-five minutes of free time. Could this be sufficient for a woman? A soldier must be ready to sleep in the snow with only his greatcoat to cover himself, he may have to wash himself with snow and go for months without hot food. These American women are poor wretches, thought Nekrassov, driven by accursed unemployment into the monstrous hardships of a soldier’s life. This procedure would really have to be changed! But perhaps in the US Army even the men each had a whole
hour
of free time per day? Perhaps it was true that they all, male and female, had sleeping bags, just like tourists? Perhaps they really did have one cook for every 200 soldiers, and that they took cooks along with them on exercises, and perhaps even to war as well? Perhaps even all the men in the army were allowed a standard of comfort appropriate to their female colleagues?

Naturally, as both young officers well knew, when there were not enough men the Soviet Union used women as well as men in the armed forces. A large part of the fixed air defence sub-units were staffed by women, but these were completely female. Women were also used for other light work. For example, 46 Guards Air Regiment had an entirely female staff. There was a woman commander of the fighter aircraft regiment, a female chief of staff, women pilots, engineers and technicians. But flying and air battles, from a physical point of view, are only light work. No one ever dreamed of sending women to join the Soviet land forces, for the work load there was exceptionally heavy and it was simply impossible to devise some sort of light work. In the Red Army’s land forces there was no work that could be called ‘light’, thought Nekrassov, none at all.

Soviet experts also took a very critical view of the level of combat training of the American forces. The volunteer system had had, it was true, its darker sides. In the days of the draft everyone was called up for military service, but in a zero-draft army many of the volunteer recruits had been society’s failures, unable to make a success of anything else. The system of voluntary service inevitably led to a weakening and a loss of efficiency within the forces. Of course, most Soviet forces were also poorly trained or even sometimes completely untrained, but they had an unquestionable advantage: the barrage battalions of the KGB, which would not allow a Soviet soldier to retreat or to surrender to the enemy. A Soviet soldier had no choice. He must kill his enemies with determination - and quickly - to save his own life. This is an incentive which counter-balances many deficiencies in combat training.

Both Andrei and Dimitri knew, of course, that voluntary service had been abandoned in the United States and had heard that this was for two main reasons. The pay had long been too low to attract any but poor quality volunteers, including men who could not read or write - like so many in the Red Army of course - and many others so dull as to be virtually untrainable. With the highly complex equipment used in the West - far more difficult to handle than the simpler, more rugged things Nekrassov was used to - this mattered much more than it did, for example, in No. 3 Company. The second and more compelling reason for going back to conscript service in the United States had been, it seemed (for reasons they had never fully had explained to them), that under the voluntary system essential reserves of military manpower had simply melted away. If a volunteer system could not produce the very large number of reservists needed in wartime it had to be replaced by conscription. It was as simple as that.

They had been taught that the American soldier was a poor fighter, physically and mentally soft and very apt either to surrender or to run away. Much of this would without any doubt be due to extraordinary weaknesses in American notions of organization and tactical method.

According to Soviet ideas, as both young officers well knew, American tactical method was a compound of criminal negligence, ignorance and incomprehension of the art of war. The US Army, they had been taught, dispersed whatever resources it had more or less evenly along the entire front, with approximately the same proportion of support weapons at each commander’s disposal. However, victory had always been won by concentration, at the right moment, of all resources at a critical point.

All Soviet commanders, from battalions upwards, had a powerful striking tool in their hands. A battalion commander had under command a mortar battery; a regimental commander had a tank battalion, a battalion of self-propelled artillery, an anti-tank company and a battery of multi-barrelled mortars; a divisional commander had a missile battalion, a tank regiment, a self-propelled artillery regiment, a battalion of multi-barrelled rockets and an anti-tank battalion. The higher the level of command the more extensive the resources under the commander’s own hand. The Supreme Commander had enormous powers at his disposal in the units or formations called ‘Reserve of the Supreme High Command’. These were linked to the air corps, breakthrough artillery divisions, special-capacity artillery brigades, anti-tank brigades and sometimes to the tank armies. No commander from the rank of battalion commander upwards dispersed his reserves or distributed his men in equal groups. No subordinate commander had the right to ask for, let alone insist upon, reinforcement or further support.

Every superior commander used his offensive capability as a whole and then only in the critical sector of the battle. A battalion’s mortar battery is not split up among rifle companies, but is used at full strength to support only one company: the most successful one. The anti-tank weapons at the disposal of the commander of a battalion, regiment, division, army or front were never split into groups but always held concentrated. Only at the most crucial moment were they put in, at full strength, at the enemy’s weakest point. The same applied to tanks, artillery and aircraft.