Soviet ‘super-sub? ready—U.S. report

Press, 12 April 1984, Page 10

Soviet ‘super-sub? ready—U.S. report

NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States Defence Department issued its annul report on Soviet military power yesterday, saying that Moscow had a new ballistic missile submarine operational and three nuclear-tipped cruise missiles nearing deployment

The United States Defence Secretary, Mr Caspar Weinberger, said in a preface that the Soviet Union had greatly increased its arms and significantly improved its ability to conduct military operations worldMuch of the material, gathered from various telligence sources, had been declassified and released for the report senior defence officials said. They would not disclose how the infffßiatiirn was obtained!

but it appeared that much had come from satellite photographs and spies inside the Soviet Union. Officials said that about 350,000 copies of the 136page booklet were being published for distribution in the United States and overseas and it would be translated into Western European languages and Japanese.

Military analysts said that one aim of the booklet this year as in the past was to help persuade the United States Congress and West European parliaments to approve increases in military spending.

President Ronald Reagan’s 1985 arms budget of SUS3OS billion ($463.6 billion) is under heavy attack in Congress, which is trying to pare Federal spending to ‘reduce the national budget

deficit. Senior defence officials said that there had been no one spectacular Soviet move in the last year, but Mr Weinberger in his preface singled *out these new developments. • A 25,000-ton “Typhoon”-class strategic ballistic'missile submarine, which last year was conducting test firings of its SSN2O missiles, was now fully operational. A second would soon be operational and others were probably under construction. The report said that each “Typhoon,” the world’s biggest submarine, carried 20 solid-propellant missiles, bad an 8300-mile range, and could operate under the Arctic ice-cap. • Three new air, sea and ground-launched land attack nuclear m-uise missiles were close w deployment and

Moscow was developing a more advanced strategic cruise missile. The missiles would initially be fitted with nuclear warheads, but once they were made more accurate they could be armed with conventional warheads and pose a significant threat in a non-nuclear war.

• The Soviet Union was modernising fourth-genera-tion SSIB and SSI9 intercontinental ballistic missiles and was developing a fifthgeneration 1.C.8.M.

• The Kremlin had three manned strategic bombers, in production, including a new version of the older Tupolev “Bear” turbo-prop bomber designed to be the initial carrier for new cruise missiles.

Among other developments cited in the booklet, which contains artisti&ren-

ditions and photographs of Soviet weapons, is a new emphasis on anti-satellite warfare.

The report said that the Soviet Union, which has been able to knock out United States satellites in low Earth orbit since 1971 by using, ground-based interceptors, now saw greater promise in developing lasers to destroy satellites in space. It said that the Soviet Union could test a prototype laser anti-satellite weapon by the late 1980 s and put such weapons into initial operation between the early and mid-19905.

In addition to building and stockpiling chemical weapons, the Soviet Union was also actively conducting research into the use of biological weapons. The report said that there were at least seven Soviet

biological warfare centres under high security and strict military control. At one of those, in Sverdlovsk, an accident in 1979 had released an anthrax agent which caused a significant number of civilian deaths and casualties. In addition to new weapons, the booklet said, the Kremlin had big war storage areas to sustain protracted fighting. Ammunition depots in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe contained 10 million tonnes of arms and munitions, as well as storage areas for tanks, artillery and petrol. It said that the Soviet Union used military aid to the Third World as a main tool of policy, exporting more arms and sending more military advisers abroad than any other country-