TNAG-0537-FCO40-632-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 38

CONFIDENTIAL

2ND DRAFT

two to one in divisions, about two to one in field guns and aircraft.

and overall about 20 per cent more soldiers, including some 30 per

cent to 40 per cent more in fighting units.

4.

These disparities do not take account of forces stationed in

the Soviet Union itself. In a time of tension and reinforcement, the

present imbalance of forces would increase. The 27 Soviet divisions

stationed in Poland, Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic

Republic would be rapidly reinforced by the substantial forces held

in the western USSR.

55.

In the Northern Region, for which we shall retain some specialist

reinforcement capability after the Defence Review, apart from the

ACE Mobile Force, the disparities are Head of DIS(CS) to provide 7

Nor can numerical comparisons alone give a wholly adequate

6.

picture. While NATO has more anti-tank weapons (though this

advantage is disappearing) and, in some cases, aircraft of better

quality, the Warsaw Pact has greater geographical advantages and has

substantially standardised its equipment. The basic numbers do not

reveal the great strides made by the Warsaw Pact in modernising and

re-equipping its forces, and reducing such advantages in quality

that NATO possesses. Over the last five years, the Soviet Union has

improved and increased its armies to a much greater extent than in

any previous five-year period in peacetime, and these improvements

have also been reflected in some cases in the forces of other Warsaw

Pact countries. Soviet tank divisions in East Germany have increased

in strength by some ten per cent, and in motor rifle divisions by

some twenty per cent.

3

CONFIDENTIAL