„Annähernde Parität" der Streitkräfte in Europa? Eine kritische Analyse des östlichen Streitkräftevergleiches

Description

In Maschinenschrift. On 30 January 1989, the Warsaw Pact for the first time presented its own comprehensive force comparison for Europe. The following report will examine this presentation in light of. the force comparison published by NATO in November 1988. Taking into account the respective criteria employed in counting, the data used by the Warsaw Pact will be checked critically for comprehensibility and plausibility, to clarify as far as possible the divergences from the data used for the West's comparison. The inclusion of the naval forces in "Europe and adjacent water areas" in the East's comparison and the various treatments of stockpiled weapons are taken into consideration. The results may be summarized as follows: 1. After an adjustment for the naval forces, an evaluation of the data, in absolute figures, of the East's comparison of the personnel strengths of the land and air forces in Europe indicates a slight Warsaw Pact superiority: 3.2 million to 3.0 million. Furthermore, the East's comparison establishes subcategories based on the organizational structure of the Soviet armed forces. The data on the personnel strength of NATO forces are not comprehensible and can therefore be manipulated. The West's comparison only considers land forces, arriving at a ratio of 3.1 million to 2.2 million in favour of the Warsaw Pact. 2. As regards the number of tanks, the East's comparison sees the Warsaw Pact enjoying an advantage of 1.9 to 1; the West's comparison, however, finds a far greater Eastern superiority, namely 3.1 to 1. This considerable difference is explained - although only in part - by the extension of the "tank" category in the East's comparison to include, for example, lighter tanks and amphibious tanks, systems with a far lower combat potential. 3. "Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Armoured Personnel Carriers" in the East's comparison are put together in a collective category that is not further specified, whereas the West's comparison considers mechanized infantry combat vehicles - 38 - an "other armoured vehicles" separately. The East's comparison results in a ratio of 1.5 to 1 in favour of the Warsaw Pact, whereas adding the two separate data groups of the West's comparison results in a quantitative advantage of 2.4 to 1. If, on the other hand, one only considers the potential combat performance of comparable, original mechanized infantry combat vehicles, the West's comparison arrives at a relative strength of as much as 5.4 to 1 in favour of the eastern alliance. 4. In terms of artillery systems, the East's comparison calculates a Warsaw Pact superiority of 1.3 to 1; the West's comparison, however, figures 3 to 1. Here the difference in the estimated extent of the East's superiority results primarily from the lower thresholds for caliber size considered in the East's comparison, which attributes lighter artillery undue importance . 5. Helicopters are placed in a rather broad category in both force comparisons, whereby powerful combat and anti-tank helicopters are not clearly differentiated from helicopters with support and transport tasks. Furthermore, the East's comparison also includes naval helicopters in this category. While the East's comparison appears to document a superficial NATO superiority, a correction of this category reveals a slight advantage of the Warsaw Pact here as well. In the West's comparison, the Warsaw Pact's superiority in helicopters is 1.9 to 1. Categorized according to currently armed helicopters belonging to land forces, the Warsaw Pact is seen to have an advantage of 1.4 to 1. 6. In terms of anti-tank weapons, the East's comparison only counts anti-tank missile (ATM) systems, calculating a NATO superiority of 1.6 to 1. The West's comparison also accounts for anti-tank guns and secondary anti-tank systems, giving the Eastern alliance an advantage of 2.4 to 1. 7. In terms of combat aircraft, the East's comparison - after an adjustment taking sea-based aircraft into account - arrives at an Eastern superiority of 1.3 to 1. Here the West's comparison calculates the Eastern advantage to be 2.1 to 1. The remaining discrepancy results primarily from the fact that the East's comparison leaves out the aircraft of the Soviet air armies, adding otherwise unspecified "combat support aircraft" to the NATO side alone. By using subcategories, the East's comparison creates a dubious subdivision into offensive and defensive combat aircraft. 8. In terms of "tactical missile launch systems", modern versions of which can be mounted as "dual capable systems" with either conventional or chemical - alongside nuclear - war heads, the Eastern alliance has a superiority of 11.8 to 1 or, in absolute figures, of 1,608 to 136 systems, according to its own calcuations. - 39 - 9. "Large surface ships" and submarines are listed in separate categories in the East's comparison. Whereas a marginal superiority is found for the East's submarines, NATO is seen to have a 5 to 1 advantage in ships in "Europe and adjacent water areas". Here, the exclusion of the Eastern alliance's superior naval potential in the peripheral seas is problematical. 10. The East's comparison, unlike the West's, fails to consider land-based air defence systems and armoured vehicle launched bridges. In both cases, the Warsaw Pact maintains a sizeable advantage. To determine the number of divisions and independent brigades of combat and artillery troops, the West's comparison calculates an Eastern superiority of 2.2 to 1 overall, taking account of all divisions with an active personnel corps of over 5 percent. 11. The general approach of the East's force comparison seems to involve differentiating between individual categories whenever the Warsaw Pact appears disadvantaged, mostly in the case of the more powerful and offensive systems. Eastern superiority in such weapon areas, on the other hand, remains concealed behind expanded categories. 12. From the perspective of the West, the most remarkable aspect of the East's force comparison lies in the mere fact of its publication. From the perspective of the East, the publication would appear important as corroboration of the thesis of allegedly existent overall "rough parity" in the correlation of military power in Europe. In this context, the force comparison is intended to serve as indirect basic argumentational support for the East's positions on arms control, even outside negotiations. Kurzfassung 1 1. Einleitung 5 1.1. Der Streitkräftevergleich des Warschauer Paktes . . 5 1.2. Zur Vorgehensweise 7 2. Analyse der Einzelkategorien 9 2.1. Personalstärke der Streitkräfte 9 2.2. Kampf panzer 11 2.3. Schützenpanzer und andere gepanzerte Gefechtsfahrzeuge 13 2.4. Artilleriesysteme 15 2.5. Hubschrauber 17 2.6. Panzerabwehrwaffen/Panzerabwehrlenkraketen (PALR) 20 2.7. Kampfflugzeuge 22 2.8. Startrampen für taktische Raketen 25 2.9. Große Überwasserschiffe und U-Boote 26 2.10. Zusätzliche Kategorien im Vergleich West 28 3. Fazit 29 Anmerkungen 34 Summary 37