THE RED ARMY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 228, 23 June 1941, Page 7

THE RED ARMY

Military Strength Estimated VAST MANPOWER Method Of Training Though the strength of the Red Army is not discoverable except in the test of modern war, certain facts are known about its structure. It is organized on a basis of universal military service. This is divided into three sections, preparatory, service with the colours, and reserve service. Preparatory training is on a militia basis and begins at the age of 18. It consists of a preliminary course of 96 hours, lasting a month and a half, and a supplementary course of 280 hours lasting 28 days, the whole spread over two years. Tte average number of men called up each year in peace time has been 1,200,000. Of these 400,000 are freed from military service. Of the remaining 800,000 260,000 go to regimental cadres, 200,000 of them are trained for territorial formations, and 340,000 are given extra military training. The whole territory of the U.S.S.R. is divided, for the purposes of the army, into 10 military districts. ’ The Red Army is organized into 21 infantry and three cavalry corps, comprising 69 infantry and 12 cavalry divisions. Thirty of the infantry divisions are regular, the rest territorial. One cavalry division is territorial. The infantry is composed of S 3 regiments of 252 battalions, and the cavalry of 61 regiments of 305 squadrons. The formations organized _on a military basis consisted of 28,150 State Security Department frontier guards, 17,240 State Security Department frontier troops stationed in the home country, and 13,200 escort troops. Size of Air Forces. The land, sea and air forces possessed 3000 aeroplanes. In addition is the regular air force, which was organized apart from the army but is under the general direction of the Commissar for War. This, according to the “Statesman's Year Book," is believed to have had in 1939 about 9000 planes, not including reserves. Those on active service both in the Standing Army and the Territorial Forces, while subject to the rules and regulations and military discipline, at the same time enjoy all the civic rights of Soviet citizens.

"Whitaker's Almanac” for 1941 gives the strength of the Red Army as 3,000.000 active, with 4,000,000 reserves. The personnel of the air force is given as 150,000 with 1500 first-line aircraft, and a total of 2500. The navy as nt January 1, 1910 f built and building) was listed as follows: Battleships. 6; aircraft-carriers, 3; cruisers, 13; destroyers, 47; submarines, 147. Many of the larger vessels were built well before the last war. Five-Year Expansion. In an address to the Communist Congress on the expansion of the regular army. Marshal Voroshilov, People’s Commissar of Defence, on March 14, 1939, said that the armed effectives were numerically 103 per cent, larger than in 1931, when the number was set down as 5G2.000, and later in the same year at 040,000. The size of an infantry division was set at 18.000.

and he said that these divisions had been greatly strengthened in artillery and tanks.

Marshal Voroshilov added that in that five years’ period the number of tanks had been increased by i9l per cent., heavy artillery by S 5 per cent., and aiiti-aircrat'l guns by 169 per cent. The air force had increased in the same period by 130 per cent. Heavy fighters and bombers comprised 30 per cent, of the total