 000175649
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 Document 2 of 16                                                 Page   1
 Classification:     UNCLASSIFIED     .Status:       [STAY]
 DocuBent Date:      18 Sep 90        Category:      [CAT]
 Report Type:        JPRS Report      Report Date:
 Report Number:      JPRS-EER-90-149   UDC Number:
 Author(s):  Jaroslav Spurny: `?Birds of Steel " ]
 Headline:  Pitfalls of Army Reform: Officer Screening, Air Force
 Future
 Source Line:  91CHOO1IB Prague RESPERT in Czech 18 Sep 90 p 4
 Subslug:  [Article by Jaroslav Spurny:  "Birds of Steel~~]
 FULL TEgT OF ARTICLE:
 1.  jArticle by 3aroslav Spurny:  "Birds of Steel']
 2.  [Text] In per capita number of war planes Czechoslovakia holds
 the highest position in Europe. In this respect, only Bulgaria comes
 close to us. France, Great Britain, or the FRG remain far behind us.
 3.  The Air Force is at this time our most expensive weapon: One air
 regiment represents a yearly cast of roughly 1 billion korunas [Kcs].
 The expected reduction of war planes should save billions.
 4.  This military component has one peculiarity as compared to other
 types of armed forces--no great savings can be achieved by limiting
 the number of aircraft taking off.  Support of flights by ground
 technology is the same for one plane as it is for 50 planes, whereas
 in a tank regiment only four machines can be used for training while
 the others are preserved. The training of pilots is also very costly
 (about half a billion Kcs). In addition, our Air Force is being
 nonsensically modernized by purchases of Soviet equipment (this year
 the military bought six HIG-29, one of which costs Kcs50 million). We
 are thus totally dependent on the Soviet Union for the delivery of
 spare parts. In the present situation, when Czechoslovakia is
 considering leaving the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet representatives could
 refuse further contracts, and all our Air Force equipment could
 become useless. Hungary, for example, is taking care of this threat
 by negotiating imports of military equipment from the West.
 S.  At present Czechoslovakia has 22 military airfields in use.  A
 big problem is their unbalanced distribution on the territories of
 both republics: In Slovakia there are only four (a legacy of former
 strategy oriented toward the West). In addition, people living in
 Zvolen strongly protest having an airfield close-by in Tri Duby. The
 airfield in Kosice belongs to a military school; but it is not
 possible to maintain an establishment of more than 1,000 employees
 3+5
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 for the sake of 15 pilots and 10 navigators. A possible solution is
 the training of foreign customers, not, of course, the -
 "traditional "  Libya or Iraq.
 6.  The Air Force will probably be cut by half. The number of planes
 and personnel calculated per capita will thus decline to that of
 Belgium, the Soviet Union, or Romania. Some airfields will have to be
 closed down (but the runways will be retained in case there is a
 military conflict). Ground forces, whose placement in the vicinity of
 towns is untenable for ecological reasons, could be moved to the
 airfield areas. These changes will be particularly difficult for the
 Ministry of Defense, which is strenuously resisting any kind of
 reorganization. But it certainly will not be able to avoid them; in
 negotiations on disarmament, the neighboring countries are demanding
 the removal of military units a certain distance from the common
 borders. It is important which airfields will be kept because their
 peacetime arrangement must resemble a wartime one (during peacetime
 the main task of the Air Force is defending the sovereignty of air
 boundaries).
 7.  The geographical location of our country is strategically
 disadvantageous, and it is practically impossible to design a defense
 strategy. The Air Force is a very vulnerable component--its equipment
 can be concealed only with difficulty. In_the ev_en_t_ of a local
 conflict with a better equipped adversary it would be destroyed
 within three days, and we could as quickly destroy a weaker
 adversary. It is therefore necessary to determine a  "reasonable
 defensive sufficiency "  (not a  "defensive sufficiency's such as in
 the United States or the USSR, whose military equipment can checkmate
 the enemy). Experts should decide the amount of equipment that would
 be sufficient fn respect to potential conflicts and especially to
 financial possibilities.
 8.  The Air Force was divided into two components. The first one,
 with the code designation  "VL"  was to protect troops  "marching
 toward the Rhine " , and the other one-- " PVOS " --provided protection
 for the rear. The quality of the equipment was top rate within the
 framework of the Warsaw Pact, but from the global point of view only
 average, including the four air regiments of fighter bombers of a
 strictly attacking nature about which negotiations are now in
 progress in Vienna. We shall probably have to?reduce their number
 considerably.
 9.  The Air Force owns 407 combat aircraft.. The most modern of them
 is the fighter plane MIG-29, which can be armed with air-to-air
 missiles or with classic bombs. There is practically no civilian use
 for it; except perhaps for investigating  " unindentified flying
 objects " . The MIG-23, equipped with missiles against air and ground
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 targets, guns, and bombs, is the most versatile of the combat
 aircraft. In addition, the Air Force has supersonic bombers SU-22M4,
 armored fighter planes SU-25K, and transport planes TU-154-B-2. In
 view of the natural terrain our most needed weapon is the fighter
 helicopter MI-24 with a four-barrel machine gun, air-to-ground
 missiles, and guided antitank missiles. It is not dependent on a
 runway as are planes, and it can be effectively operational within a
 few minutes. It can be easily put to peace time use, for example
 during natural disasters.
 10.  Obviously, the reduction of the Air Force will also affect the
 pilots. Here we shall have problems. The training is very demanding
 and expensive. In addition, military pilots comprise a relative
 unusual group which did not have enough opportunities to become
 politically compromised.  Of 40 generals who underwent clearance
 proceedings, only two did not pass the verification commission. A
 similar situation exists in case of pilots of lower rank.
 11.  The problems of the Air Force cannot be judged separately from
 the problems of the other components of the Armed Forces. Minister
 Vacek said at one time that a professional army is too expensive. It
 seems that an excessive and unnecessarily expensive Air Force does
 not bother any one.

