Movement to contact and commitment to combat of reserve fronts

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There were no combat operations in Czechoslovakia, but there was a drawn-out political struggle. The situation in the country grew gradually stable.

In preparation to move into Afghanistan, they fielded combined and ordinary units of the 40th Army in the Turkestan and Central Asian military districts. Their total strength was 80,000. The force grouping to enter Afghanistan was comprised of the 40th Army (108th and 5th motor rifle divisions, 860th Separate Mechanized Rifle Regiment, 56th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, 36th Mixed Air Corps and other units).

Troops were brought into Afghanistan from two points: from Termez--across the Amu Darya, the Salang Pass, Kabul, Jalalabad; and from Kushka--Herat, Shindahar, Kandahar.

The troops were moving up under their own power. The first were the 108th Motorized Rifle Division to start toward Kabul and the 5th Motorized Division toward Herat. The 103rd Airborne Division landed at the airfield of Kabul. Later, two more divisions (201st and 68th motorized rifle divisions) and several separate units entered Afghanistan. The total strength of the forces was 100,000 men. The combined and ordinary units that entered the country were stationed in garrisons and with a mission to maintain order. Because of the armed attacks from the mujaheddin, the Soviet forces became drown in a number of areas into armed conflicts that subsequently deteriorated into combat operations that did not stop until the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989.

The stationing of forces after the war, considerable distances between the military districts and the groups of forces constituting the first echelon called for updating the methods and procedures of moving troops up from the country's interior for reinforcements.

Operational and strategic exercises during the 1960s and 1980s examined problems involved in moving up troops in conditions of hostile use of nuclear weapons. Commanders and staffs of fronts and armies did practical work to organize the moving up of troops and committing them to battle, check the ability of combined and ordinary units to execute long marches of up to 300 km a day.

The exercises proved that the best course of action is to move up troops during periods of threat preceding outbreak of hostilities. This precluded big losses and disruption of moving the troops up. Relatively favorable conditions could develop at the start of combat operations with the use of exclusively conventional weapons.

The moving of troops from the country's interior over great distances tended to be very problematic in nuclear environment because the enemy with nuclear weapons can employ them on a massive scale thus disrupting the moving of troops and committing them to battle. Analysis of the exercises shows that making it on time to designated areas in combat ready state takes painstaking planning for movement to contact and wideranging measures of operational support. Of special concern is the protection from weapons of mass destruction and measures to restore battleworthiness.