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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)


Chemical Troops - Organization

The Chemical Troops are an independent branch that provides support to all the military services, but principally to the Ground Forces. The chiefs of this service reportes directly to the minister of defense. Units of the Chemical Troops respond to the in-branch chief regarding administrative and technical matters but are operationally subordinate to the commander of the formation to which they were attached. Chemical Troops are organized into battalions and companies within armies and divisions. The Chief of Chemical Troops in the General Staff/Ground Forces Headquarters controls several chemical defense and smoke units. The numbers and types of units at this level can vary widely, depending on the size and structure of the Ground Forces they support. The Chemical Warfare Troops have been renamed Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops. The federal program of chemical disarmament signed by Viktor Chernomyrdin on 21 March 1996 projected a budget of 16.6 trillion rubles to be allocated to the Army. The effect of this distribution would be to double the size of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops, which by the year 2000 would comprise 10,500 servicemen. As of early 2000, Gen. Valentin Yevstigneyev, former head of the Soviet army's 15th Directorate (the military wing of the bioweapons program), was deputy chief of Russia's Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Directorate. By the end of the Cold War there were approximately 80,000 to 100,000 fulltime NBC defense personnel in the Soviet ground forces. Although they are designated "chemical defense troops," their responsibilities also include protection against the effects of nuclear and biological weapons. Like engineer and signal forces, chemical defense troops were considered a vital element of combat support. Although all troop branches of the ground forces can he assigned to perform certain NBC protection-related activities, chemical defense troops are tasked with primary responsibility for insuring that combat units function as capably as possible in an NBC environment.

The basic chemical defense unit is the chemical defense company which is organic to tank and motorized rifle regiments. The company has an authorized strength of 35 to 50 personnel. At division level, there is a chemical defense battalion with an authorized personnel strength of approximately 200 men. A chemical defense battalion is also organic to each combined arms and tank army. These battalions are larger than the ones organic to divisions and at full strength consist of several hundred personnel.

The largest chemical defense troop unit is the chemical defense brigade. During the Cold War such units were subordinate to military districts and probably subordinate to Soviet groups of forces stationed in non-Soviet Warsaw Pact nations.

The reconnaissance and decontamination elements of chemical defense units are rarely employed as whole units. Commanders from military districts through regiments usually divide their chemical defense assets and assign them to their various maneuver units in a direct support role. No chemical defense units are subordinate to manuever battalions or companies. However, each tank and motorized ritle company has an NBC noncommissioned officer heading a small team of extra duty NBC specialists. Company- and battalion-level NBC specialists are capable of checking unit NBC equipment and conducting NBC training.








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