MILITARY THOUGHT: ENGINEER PREPARATION OF SITING AREAS FOR MISSILE LARGE UNITS AND UNITS, BY COLONEL YE. KOLIBERNOV AND CAPTAIN L. YEFIMOCHKIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80T00246A029700690001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 30, 1962
• Content Type: MEMO

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CFO6GT
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON 25. D. C.
IRONBARK
9 0 Jul
IJU?
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT . MILITARY THOUGHT (SECRET): "Engineer Prepa-
ration if Siting Areas for Missile Large
Units and Units", by Colonel Ye. Kolibernov
and Captain L. Yefimochkin
1. Enclosed'is a verbatim translation of an article from the
SECRET Collection of Articles of the Journal "Military Thought"
published by the Ministry of Defense, USSR, and distributed down
to the level of division commander.
2. For convenience of reference by USIB agencies, the
codeword IRONBARK has been assigned to this series of TOP SECRET
CSDB reports containing documentary Soviet material. The word
IRONBARK is classified CONFIDENTIAL and is to be used only among
persons authorized to read and handle this material.
3. In the interests of protecting our source, IRONBARK
material should be handled on a need-to-know basis within your
office. Requests for extra copies of this report or for utili-
zation of any part of this document in any other form should be
addressed to the originating office.
Richard Helms
Deputy Director (Plans)
Enclosure
vow
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IRONBARK
cc: The Director of Intelligence and Research,
Depa - tment of State
The Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
T'h; Director for Intelligence,
The Joint Staff
The Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence,
Department of the Army
The Director of Naval Intelligence
Department of the Navy
"'he Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence
U. S. Air Force
The Director, National Security Agency
Director, Division of Intelligence
Atomic Energy Commission
Chairman, Guided Missiles and Astronautics
Intelligence Committee
Deputy Director for Research
Deputy Director for Intelligence
Assistant Director for National Estimates
Assistant Director for Current Intelligence
Assistant Director for Research and Reports
Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence
Director, National Photographic Interpretation. Cent,-_,r
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IRONBARK
COUNTRY USSR
SUBJECT MILITARY THOUGHT (SECRET): "Engineer
Preparation of i ing Areas for Missile
Large Units and Units", by Colonel Ye.
Kolibernov and Captain L. Yefimochkin
DATE OF INFO : August 1961
APPRAISAL OF
CONTENT Documentary
SOURCE . A reliable source (B).
Following is a verbatim translation of an article
entitled "Engineer Preparation pf Siting Areas for Missile
Large Units and Units", which was written by Colonel Ye.
Kolibernov and Captain L. Y.efimochkin.
This article appeared in Issue 5(60) of 1961
of a special version of the Sowiet journal Military
Thought which is classified SECRET by the 5ovi-'ets
and is published irregularly
to press
Comment: Military Thought is published by the USSR
Ministry of Defense in three versions, classified RESTRICTED,
SECRET, and TOP SECRET. The RESTRICTED version has been issued
monthly since 1937, while the other two versions are issued
irregularly. The TOP SECRET version was initiated in early 1960.
By the end of 1961, 61 issues of the SECRET version had been
published, 6 of them during 1961.
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IRONBARK
Engineer Preparation of Siting Areas
for Missile Large Units and Units
by
Colonel Ye. Kolibernov
and
Captain L. Yefimochkin
It is known that the engineer preparation of siting
areas for missile large units and units is the basic
type of their antinuclear defense.
Several exercises which have been conducted allow
some conclusions to be drawn about organizing engineer
preparations of siting areas of a brigade and battalion
of operational-tactical missiles. The periods of
time required for preparing these areas are very short
and are determined by the time spent by the missile
brigade (battalion) in the previous siting area.
Considering the average daily speed of an offensive,
the movement of a missile brigade which is carried
out over a distance of 80 to 120 km and primarily
at night will occur, as a rule, once in a 24-hour
period. Consequently, this leaves no more than 14
to In hours for the engineer preparation of a siting
area for a missile brigade by the forces of a combat
engineer company, providing that the area selected
lends itself readily to camouflage, thereby permitting
engineer work to be carried out during daylight hours.
Even less time is available if the engineer work is
to be carried out in an open area.
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The primary siting area of the brigade will be
prepared by the organic field engineer company which
has powerful site-preparation (pozitsionnaya mashina)
and road building machinery. There is no need to
bring in the site-preparation units (pozitsionnaya
chast) of the army or front for this purpose.
In several articles in the Collections, the
volume of earth-moving operations (zemlyanaya
rabota) in the siting area of a missile brigade
was said to be 37,000 and 60,000m3. We shall cite
somewhat different figures. First of all, one must
determine the nature of the elements of the battle
formation in which the work is being done and the
volume of work. In our view, in a siting area for
a missile battalion it is necessary to prepare fully,
from an engineer standpoint, waiting positions, the
control point, positions for the technical support
platoon (reloading point), and the meteorological
post. Only one launch site is prepared in the
battalion _- for the duty battery which will
immediately occupy it when the battalion arrives
in the siting area. At the remaining launch sites,
only trenches for personnel are prepared, and, if
necessary, launching pads are leveled. Cross-
country routes from the waiting position to the
launch sites are laid and marked. In our opinion,
it is inadvisable to prepare cover for equipment
at the launch sites because this clearly reveals
the overall battle formation; besides, it is known
that all this equipment is brought to the launch
site only to launch a missile and is there for a
very short time only.
The volume of earth-moving operations in the
battalion's siting area with the indicated number
of objectives is reduced by 3 , 500 to 4,000m3 , i .e . ,
by 30 to 40 percent. In preparing a check point
and a joint f u e fueling and assembly point (punkt
zapravki i montazha)lthe volume of earth-moving
10 SEC ET
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operations at the site of a technical battery is
reduced up to 3,000 to 3,500m3; and at the brigade
control point and at the site of the meteorological
post, up to 2,500 to 3,000m3.
First of all, trenches should be dug, and then
shelters of a light type prepared for the personnel
of missile subunits. On the basis of the minimum
number of shelters needed and the actual amount of
materials which can be supplied, it seems to us
that for the personnel of a brigade it is sufficient
to prepare 30 to 35 shelters of a light type (with-
out counting shelters made from pieces of corrugated
steel sheets (KVS-U) at control points). We consider
it is sufficient to have shelters of a light type
for one-third of the personnel to provide them a
place to rest lying down. These same shelters,
however, may be used as protection for all the
personnel at the time of a nuclear burst. To set
them up in woodless areas, cloth frame construction
(karkasno-tkanevoye sooruzheniye) and curvilinear
paper bags (krivolineynyy bumazhnyy meshok) should
be used; and they can be moved on the transport
of the subunits together with an entrance arrange-
ment and a protective door. In heavily wooded areas,
shelters should be made from forest materials and
should be of unnotched construction.
Using eight excavating machines (kotlovannaya
mashina) the field engineer company of a brigade
digs 1200m3 of soil an hour. The practical
production of an MDK-2 excavating machine should
be considered as 200m3 an hour, and not 400m3 as
is indicated in some articles. Consequently, in
10 to 12 hours, all the earth-moving operations in
the primary siting area of a brigade will be
completed. As for the brigade's alternate area,
it is advisable to ready its engineer preparation
by using the forces of trench-digging units of a
front or army. It is not possible to employ the
SECRET
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brigade's field engineer company to prepare the
alternate siting area because in the time allotted
it can carry out the work only in the primary
siting area and then must move on to a new area.
Moreover, the alternate area must be prepared
simultaneously with the primary one, because it
may have to be occupied at any time and even before
the brigade arrives in the primary area.
The inclusion of new excavating machinery with
a production capacity of up to 1000m3 an hour
in the T/O&E of a field engineer company will
make it possible for the work to be done by the
forces of the field engineer company simultaneously
in the primary and alternate areas.
We do not agree with those authors who propose
using the BAT bulldozer to dig foundations
(otryvka kotlovanov) and who compare their
productivity with that of excavators and tractor
bulldozers. The BAT is a road-building machine and
a machine for laying railroads and, therefore, can
be used to dig foundations only where the soil is
loose, and even then it is inefficient (its cut
is too broad). It is impossible to use the BAT
in average soils, much less in hard soils;
experience has shown that even with devices to
change the shape of the cutting blade, the most
experienced operators are not able to dig foundations
in average and hard soils, or in loose but frozen
soils with a frozen depth of more than 30 to 40 cm.
In these cases, the productivity declines sharply,
and the load on the machine increases. It is use-
ful to employ the BAT for filling in blindages and
shelters, to lay out pads, etc.
If the field engineer company has seven BATs, it
is completely equipped to lay roads within the brigade's
siting area. Roads between siting areas, however,
must be prepared by engineer units from the army
or front.
RET
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In our view, it is advisable that the engineer
subunits of missile units have their own bridge
builders (mostoukladchik) (MTU). This would
make it possible for a brigade field engineer
company to lay roads for maneuvers without the
aid of engineer troops of a front, and also to
ensure the movement of a missile brigade along
the roads prepared by engineer units of an army
or front in the event these roads are destroyed
in individual sectors during the operation.
Camouflaging the disposition of missile units
presents great difficulties. The great length of
the equipment of missile units and the cover which
it requires, complicate the use of artificial cover.
In all instances, it is necessary to try to find
natural cover, even if this changes somewhat the
norms established for distances between elements of
a battle formation. In our opinion, it is useful
to exchange experiences about the troop and
operational camouflage of missile units on the
pages of the Collection.
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