Good Sources on Cold War USSR and Warsaw Pact Soldiers, Conscription and RPG Details

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Was selection into different services, branches or units based on formal performance in physical, vocational and intellectual testing or was the process opaque to those involved and widely suspected to be mostly about who your family were connected to?

For most it was fairly 'fair', though I think party members' families could arrange better outcomes by making sure their children went to the right youth programs, etc.

For everyone else, each service were given quotas, and they got to pick based on what the government decided was their need for quality troops. So the Strategic Rocket Forces got first pick, then the various aviation forces, and so on. Infantry was at the bottom of the list. The navy was probably the least popular outcome, because they got you for three years rather than just two.

NCOs were selected on conscription and went to a special 'sergeant's school' for six months. This had the result of putting them in charge of troops with at least six months more experience of actual service than them, so it took a very strong person to be effective - actual status and power within the enlisted ranks was based on 'time in', not official rank.

Technical specialists tended to be officers, so technical service branches would have more officers than a NATO country's would, with them taking to place of the US' warrant officers, etc.

I know East Germans, in the latter years of the existence of that country and its conscription, had 18 months of duty, but volunteering for three years instead got you into NCO school. Officers had to agree to sign contracts for up to 10 or 25 years, but part of their service would involve university education and former military officers were often in a good place to go into politics or business, with their network of connections.

Was it similar in the Soviet Armed Forces?

How long would contracts be for skilled pathfinders of the VDV or helicopter mechanics?

My recollection is that officers signed up for a certain term, and if they wanted to make a career of it the next sign-up was for much longer. Senior NCOs would also be careerists, but reenlistment after the initial conscription period was very low (3% rings a bell), so there was always a very serious shortage of experienced senior NCOs (and thus a lack of continuity of institutional knowledge) and junior officers had to do way too much of what should've been the NCO cadre's jobs.

I don't have any great sources, unfortunately, and I studied this stuff long ago.

"Victor Suvorov's" Inside the Soviet Army might still be of use to you. It's old, but was written in the time you're looking at.