The Soviet Army began a major program of chemical warfare modernization beginning in the mid-1960s. Soviet units are amply provided for waging chemical warfare, with both the weapons and the protective equipment. And there is strong evidence that they have experimented with chemical weapons in a number of circumstances, notably in Afghanistan.
Soviet motor rifle and tank divisions have an extensive infrastructure for chemical defense. Each division has a chemical defense battalion, and each of its four component regiments has its own chemical company. In total, about 500 soldiers in each division, about 4 percent, are devoted to chemical defense tasks. The division has a wide range of equipment for chemical defense, ranging from mobile decontamination facilities to individual protective suits.
Soviet equipment since the 1960s has been designed to fight in a chemically contaminated environment. All the standard combat vehicles are fitted with chemical protective equipment. Armored vehicles have a system of air filtration to remove chemical contaminants from the air breathed by the crew. The vehicles are also fitted with an overpressure system to keep contaminants out of the vehicle. Soviet tanks have had this feature since the mid-1960s. In contrast, American tanks did not have such a system until the mid-1980s, and only a tiny fraction of American armored vehicles have been equipped.
The Soviet Army has a number of specialized vehicles to operate in chemically contaminated areas. In the mid-1960s, they introduced the first chemical scout vehicles. These armored vehicles are sent into contaminated areas to conduct surveys of the type of chemical agent present and the degree of contamination. They are equipped with sensors that can detect all common chemical warfare agents. Each Soviet regiment has four of these, and there are more at divisional level. There have been three generations of these vehicles since the 1960s, the most recent being the RKhM tracked chemical scout vehicle that is fully amphibious. The Soviets also use a full range of manual testing equipment. By themselves, these chemical scout vehicles are not very threatening. But they are indicative of the sophistication and breadth of the Soviet chemical effort. In contrast, the U.S. Army has been talking about such a vehicle for the past few years, but has none in service. At the moment, the U.S. Army relies entirely on manual chemical testing kits.
The individual Soviet soldier is provided with a chemical protective suit and a chemical mask.
As the scenario has depicted, the standard Soviet suit, the OP-1, is no joy to use. It is clumsy, slow to don, and dangerous to the user in many circumstances. But it is better than nothing.
This is one area where NATO has a clear advantage. In the mid-1970s, the British Army came up with a new semipermeable material for chemical suits. It allows sweat to evaporate, but does not allow chemical agents to enter. This is a major breakthrough, since it means that the soldiers can operate in a more normal fashion. The Soviets' rubberized suits can be debilitating in hot weather, or even in cold weather if a lot of exertion is called for, although they are reusable once they have been washed. The main disadvantage of the new NATO suits is that they must be replaced fairly often, since certain chemicals can break down their filtering abilities. The Soviets have continued to use washable, rubberized fabric for the time being, in spite of its disadvantages. They have shown little interest in the NATO permeable suits, probably due to the high cost of the NATO-style suits, as well as a certain backwardness in Soviet textile technology.
The same applies to chemical masks. The no-frills approach reigns here as well. The Soviets rely on cheap masks with replaceable filters. There are none of the clever features used on NATO face masks. For example, certain NATO face masks have a small opening that permits the soldier to drink water from his canteen. While this may seem to be a luxury, the main problem of all suits, even the permeable ones, is that they invariably lead to the soldier heating up and sweating. Combine the normal stress of combat, sweating, and the resultant dehydration, and you get a debilitating heat exhaustion. A few mouthfuls of water become a medical necessity, not a luxury. Also, Soviet officers and radiomen receive face masks with voice emitters, but the rest of the troops receive chemical face masks without emitters since they are cheaper to manufacture. As a result, under chemical warfare conditions, it is virtually impossible for the troops to communicate with one another. This is another impediment to the smooth functioning of a combat unit.
The problem faced by the Soviets is that their army is so enormous, all these little economies are necessary if everyone is to be provided with equipment. They feel that mediocre protection is better than none at all.
In the area of chemical weapons, the Soviets probably have the world's largest stockpile. The U.S. estimates that the Soviet military has on the order of 500,000 tons of chemical agents, ranging from simple blood agents, like the Agent AC previously described, to sophisticated nerve gases. Delivery methods are ample, ranging from chemical hand grenades to large bombs capable of carrying more than a ton of nerve gas. The usual Soviet method for delivering chemical agents on the battlefield is artillery. This includes conventional artillery cannon, as well as artillery rockets and missiles. The cannon would be used to attack targets up to 30 miles from the battle line; the missiles could be used to attack vital targets like airfields and command posts up to 250 miles from the battle line.
It can be argued that much of this Soviet equipment simply points to a prudent concern about defending Soviet troops in the event of chemical attacks. This is not plausible for a variety of reasons. The Soviet buildup in chemical weapons and the related protective equipment came at a time when NATO showed very little interest in chemical warfare. If NATO had had any serious interest in chemical weapons between the 1950s and 1960s, this would have been manifest in defensive measures like chemical defense suites on armored vehicles.
Soviet interest in chemical warfare has been long-standing, but the surge of effort in the mid-1960s is probably due to refinements in Soviet doctrine. At that time Soviet military planners were making revolutionary changes in their war plans. The Soviet military leadership had previously assumed that all wars with NATO would inevitably turn nuclear. Compared to tactical nuclear weapons, chemical weapons were little more than an interesting curiosity. Soviet strategists began arguing that the enormous strategic nuclear arsenals created a stalemate.
Neither the U.S. nor the USSR would dare use tactical nuclear weapons on a European battlefield, since there was the risk that it would escalate to strategic nuclear exchanges against the American and Soviet homelands. Because of this stalemate, a war in Europe would likely be nonnuclear.
Due to this radical rethinking of Soviet military doctrine, weapons planners began looking afresh at chemical weapons. Chemical weapons have certain attractive features to an invading force, primarily an enormous psychological advantage against an unprepared defender. And in the early 1970s, NATO was certainly unprepared. The Soviet Army began an extensive training program for its troops. Soviet soldiers became accustomed to using chemical weapons and working in chemically contaminated environments. They began training with chemical decontamination gear to an extent unprecedented in NATO. And the Soviet Union began acquiring new chemical weapons and chemical warfare systems.
The presumption that chemicals would be used on a conventional battlefield became so prevalent that it seeped into the marrow of Soviet tactics. This is manifest in many small ways. Soviet books and magazines aimed at officers provide guidelines for operating in a chemical environment. To take but a single example, Soviet publications instructing Soviet officers on the standard methods of notating tactical battle maps provide extensive details about how to mark up different types of chemical contamination.