RUSSIAN ARMY’S STRENGTH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 135, 19 March 1948, Page 3

RUSSIAN ARMY’S STRENGTH

“FAR LARGER THAN THAT OF U.S” WASHINGTON, March 17. A United States Army spokesman said to-day that the Soviet Army would continue to be “far Larger” than that of the United States even if Russia carried out her announced plan to discharge all hut 1f)26-27 class soldiers. The latest estirnale available for the Soviet Army and security troops is 3.000.000 men, wilh 450,000 in the Air Force and 000,000 in the Navy. General Carl Spaalz, Chief of Staff to the United States Army Air Force, estimated Russian air power at 14,000 first-line combat aeroplanes:—about three limes the size of the United States’ first-line air fleet.

ROUTINE ANNOUNCEMENT DEMOBILISATION IN RUSSIA (Rec. 12.45) WASHINGTON, Mar. 18. The State Department spokesman, Michael McDermott, said to-day that there was no significance in the Soviet announcement that it was demobilising all but two age groups of the aripy. “Reports from the American Embassy in Moscow show that one class has been demobilised as another comes in, but there has been no 'change whatever in the number of troops entering the Soviet army. The Soviet Government’s announcement was routine.”