What was the peak military strength of the USSR during the Cold War?

Question

Does anyone know where to find a good summary of the size and strength of the Soviet armed forces during the Cold War? Number of troops, tanks, aircraft, submarines, etc.

Answer 1

Size is fairly easy to compute. Soviet armed forces were organized on a conscription basis; every man aged 18 was supposed to be drafted for two years (three, if you're unlucky to land in the navy). There were, of course, health-related exemptions, but those were relatively few. The policy on drafting college students has been repeatedly reversed. So anyway, allyou need to do to arrive at the size of Soviet armed forces on any given day is to figure out how many men aged 18 to 20 there are and adjust this number 30% up to account for officers and warrant officers.

Strength, however, is a different matter altogether. Soviet armed forced had a tendency to undertrain personnel and undermaintain hardware. Misappropriation of supplies was another pervasive problem (so much so that thieving warrant officer became a stock comic character). Those problems, however, were never discussed; they were easier to ignore than to deal with...

Answer 2

Actually, there's a book called The Third World War-August 1984(I'm pretty sure that's the title) by Gen. Sir John Hackett that gives accurate troop strengths as of about 1979-1980 when the Nato situation was grimmest due to the Soviet build-up in the 70s. Fascinating stuff-we missed seeing the elephant by a slim margin.

Answer 3

by depriving the voters of each thing, utilising them as loose exertions, forcing many to stay and paintings in inhuman situations. Then there is the shortcoming of money for agriculture optimal to close to-starvation and different atrocities. The management colluded with each corrupt entity interior the international to get the money to fund their insanity. they did no longer do one in each of those good interest the two different than the MIG's and the nuclear submarines.....