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Warsaw Pact OOB 1960
Topic Started: Feb 2 2014, 03:19 AM (899 Views)
Vonar Roberts
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Anyone have good sources on the 1960 Soviet Union / Warsaw Pact Order of Battle for 1960?
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Simon Darkshade
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This was the era when the Soviet Army was caught up in Khruschev's reforms and a shift away from conventional warfighting.

The Soviet Navy was still very small and built around the Sverdlovs on the surface.

I'll see if I have anything about, but I'm not sure about 1960 era material.
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Simon Darkshade
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STATISTICAL SUMMARY
(1960)

Manpower
USA: 2,476,000
USSR: 3,623,000

Long Range Bombers: 540 USA 160-190 USSR
Medium Bombers: 1775 USA 1000 USSR
ICBMs: 12 USA <50 USSR
SLBMs: 48 USA 48 USSR

Interceptors: 2700 USA 5000 USSR
SAMs: 4400 USA 4800 USSR

IRBM/MRBM: 51 USA 200 USSR

Army: 873,600 USA, 2,250,000 USSR
Marines: 170,600 USA 'Few' USSR
Divisions: 14 USA, 136 USSR (+3 US Marine Divisions)
Tanks: 12,975 USA, 35,000 USSR

Land Based Tactical Fighters: 1800 USA 4000 USSR (+ 1000 USSR Medium Bombers)
Carrier Based Tactical Fighters: 1300 USA

USN:
23 Carriers, 13 Cruisers, 41 Frigates, 226 Destroyers, 111 Attack Submarines, 113 Amphibious Ships
Soviet Navy:
23 Cruisers, 13 Frigates, 124 Destroyers, 404 Attack Submarines, 500 Land Based Bombers

Airlift: USA 1725, USSR 1065

http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs8606/m1/1/high_res_d/IB78029_1982Jan04.pdf

Page 18 of 32
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Basil Fawlty
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Post Tenebras Lux
"Cruisers" is a bit of a misnomer from what I remember of my mid Cold War history. Some of the USN frigates in the 1970's were comparable to Soviet cruisers, despite being classified differently.
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Simon Darkshade
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At this stage, all of the cruisers listed were 'true cruisers' for both sides. The Soviets hadn't yet put any of the smaller guided missile ships in service, Khruschev hadn't tried to get rid of all of the Sverdlovs and Chapayevs and the USN ships were a mixture of two CAGs and the rest heavy gun cruisers.

The USN definitional differences regarding frigates/DLGs and ocean escorts/DEs is one that frequently catches people out. I like to think of the DLG as the successor to the light cruiser, with the very limited amount of true Cold War cruisers (Long Beach, the Chicago full conversions, CGN-42, Kirov) as heavy cruisers or simply cruisers.

The USN of 1960 also had a lot of ships still in reserve - well over 200 destroyers and escorts, several dozen brand new cruisers, 10 fast battleships and more.

The force disparity in some categories does raise the interesting question of what a US military that went for a dual conventional/nuclear build up in the 1950s would look like.
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Vonar Roberts
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My understanding is the Kirov-class (Project 26) which are the Cruisers in the Soviet navy are relatively old ships, originally designed before WW2 and were intended as a precursor to the Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship which to put it modestly was a overly ambitious design. Soviet shipyards and associated industry had difficulties with building the Cruisers, and those difficulties were only amplified when the Soviet shipyards started to produce the battleships.

The Red navy has a decent submarine force, and there is also the shit ton of Tanks. A clash between the two sides would have been very interesting for this era given the fact that we are not at the point where mutually assured destruction would have occurred in the event of a nuclear exchange.

If memory serves a lot of Merica's Cruisers are also wearing down the engines relatively rapidly and adding up the miles (ironically wearing down of the cruisers was part of the reason why the Iowas, being rather low mileage ships were brought back on several occasions)
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Simon Darkshade
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The Kirovs being referred to as real cruisers were the 1970s nuclear powered vessels. The 180mm armed Kirovs were neither flesh nor fowl and severely outgunned by Western vessels. My favourite Soviet cruisers would have to be neverbuilt Pr.22 superheavy cruiser.

The Soviet submarines were present in numbers, but weren't as capable as that force level suggests. Their capacity to interdict the North Atlantic only really started to come into play once nuclear boats started to come online in useful numbers; the Whiskeys were not the best ocean going boats.

The USN cruisers that were around in 1960 were the 2 Boston class CAGs, 2 Des Moines class automatic 8" ships (Des Moines and Newport News) 6 CLGs (Galveston, Providence, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Springfield and Topeka) and 7 Baltimore class CAs (USS Rochester, USS Saint Paul, USS Helena, USS Bremerton, USS Macon, USS Toledo, USS Los Angeles), with 1 CLGN and 2 CG building/converting.

Engine wear only became a factor in the late 1960s/early 1970s with some ships; the reason that USS New Jersey was bought back for Vietnam service is to fill a specific gunfire support requirement of 1 battleship or 2 automatic cruisers, with the 1980s service having several different drivers, including getting SLCMs to sea in an expedited fashion.

In 1960, it would be a cakewalk for the USA given its massive nuclear superiority and policy of massive retaliation. The war would go nuclear from the start.
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Simon Darkshade
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Nefarious Swashbuckler
Active Duty Military Personnel, 1940–20111

Year US Army USAF USN USMC Total
1940 269,023 160,997 28,345 458,365
1945 8,266,373 3,319,586 469,925 12,055,884
1950 593,167 411,277 380,739 74,279 1,459,462
1955 1,109,296 959,946 660,695 205,170 2,935,107
1960 873,078 814,752 616,987 170,621 2,475,438
1965 969,066 824,662 669,985 190,213 2,653,926
1970 1,322,548 791,349 691,126 259,737 3,064,760
1975 784,333 612,751 535,085 195,951 2,128,120
1980 777,036 557,969 527,153 188,469 2,050,627
1985 780,787 601,515 570,705 198,025 2,151,032
1990 732,403 535,233 579,417 196,652 2,043,705
1991 710,821 510,432 570,262 194,040 1,985,555
1992 610,450 470,315 541,886 184,529 1,807,177
1993 572,423 444,351 509,950 178,379 1,705,103
1994 541,343 426,327 468,662 174,158 1,610,490
1995 508,559 400,409 434,617 174,639 1,518,224
1996 491,103 389,001 416,735 174,883 1,471,722
1997 491,707 377,385 395,564 173,906 1,438,562
1998 483,880 367,470 382,338 173,142 1,406,830
1999 479,426 360,590 373,046 172,641 1,385,703
2000 482,170 355,654 373,193 173,321 1,384,338
2001 480,801 353,571 377,810 172,934 1,385,116
2002 486,542 368,251 385,051 173,733 1,413,577
2003 490,174 376,402 379,742 177,030 1,423,348
2004 494,112 369,523 370,445 177,207 1,411,287
2005 488,944 351,666 358,700 178,704 1,378,014
2006 496,362 352,620 353,496 178,923 1,381,401
2007 519,471 337,312 338,671 184,574 1,380,082
2011 565,463 333,370 325,123 201,157 1,468,364


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