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Hungary Ground Forces
In 1989 about 77,000 troops served in the ground forces
(commonly referred to as the army), and about 45,000 of
them were
conscripts. As in other Warsaw Pact armed forces, the army
was by
far the largest service.
The reorganization of the HPA, still under way in 1989,
attempted to transform its overall structure from one army
and
one corps possessing one tank and five motorized rifle
divisions
into three corps with a combined total of five tank
brigades and
ten motorized rifle brigades. This reorganization set the
HPA
apart from the other armies of the Warsaw Pact, which were
still
primarily divided into divisions and regiments. The
leadership of
the HPA believed the reorganization would make the armed
forces
more efficient by reducing the number of commands by about
onethird .
In the late 1980s, the central headquarters of the HPA
was in
Szekesfehervar, with the three corps headquartered in
Tata,
Kaposvar, and Cegled, respectively. Each corps consisted
of five
brigades subdivided into battalions, including an
independent
artillery battalion and an engineering battalion. The
largest
corps, centered in Tata, possessed three tank brigades and
two
motorized rifle brigades. The two other corps each had one
tank
brigade and four motorized rifle brigades. The corps
stationed in
Cegled was a skeleton unit. The three corps together
possessed
three SA-6 surface-to-air missile (SAM) regiments.
In addition to the three corps and fifteen tank and
motorized
rifle brigades, the HPA possessed independent artillery
and Scud
surface-to-surface missile brigades, as well as an
airborne
battalion (the thirty-seventh, stationed in Szolnok). An
antitank
regiment, an antiaircraft artillery regiment, and an SA-4
SAM
regiment were still likewise army, and not corps, troops.
Independent engineering battalions were used for rail and
roadway
repairs, construction projects, and maintenance and repair
of
telephone and power lines.
In 1988 the Danube Flotilla, incorporated into the army
in
1968, consisted of 700 men and eighty-two vessels,
including ten
Nestin MSI (riverine) boats. During wartime its chief
functions
would be to clear the Danube and Tisza rivers of mines and
to
assist the army and its materiel in river crossings.
In 1988 the army possessed 1,200 T-54 and T-55 battle
tanks.
The Soviet Union has been producing these tanks since
1945, but
some have been built as recently as 1979, and many have
been
upgraded with infrared night-vision systems and laser
rangefinders . The HPA also had about 100 T-72s, a model that
appeared
in Soviet units in the early 1970s and began to be seen in
Warsaw
Pact armies about 1980. Hungary also possessed about 100
PT-76
light tanks.
The HPA's artillery inventory in 1988 included 225
M-1938
(122mm) and 50 M-1943 or D-1 (152mm) howitzers and 100
D-20
(152mm) gun howitzers. It also included 90 2S1 (122mm) and
20 2S3
(152mm) self-propelled guns and 100 M-43 (120mm) mortars.
The HPA
had fifty BM-21 (122mm) multiple-rocket launchers and
twenty-four
Frog-7 and Frog-9 Scud surface-to-surface missile
launchers.
Antitank defense consisted of 100 AT-3 Sagger (including
BRDM-2
self-propelled) and 100 AT-4 Spigot antitank guided
weapons, 125
SPG-9 (73mm) recoilless launchers, and 100 D-44 (85mm) and
50 D12 (100mm) antitank guns. Air defense weaponry consisted
of 80 S60 (57mm) towed antiaircraft guns, 50 ZSU-4 SP (23mm)
selfpropelled antiaircraft guns; and 30 SA-4, 60 SA-6, 350
SA-7, and
50 SA-9 SAMs.
Reconnaissance units in the HPA possessed an estimated
300
BRDM-2 and 400 Hungarian-produced FUG-65 (OT-65) scout
vehicles.
Motorized infantry units were equipped with 350 BMP-1
infantry
combat vehicles and 1,000 Hungarian-produced PSz-H-IV
(FUG-70)
armored personnel carriers. The PSz-H-IV had been in
service
since 1983, but production was discontinued; it was to be
replaced by Soviet BMP-1 tracked mechanized infantry
combat
vehicles.
In the late 1980s, the HPA used as its standard
infantry
weapon the Kalashnikov 7.62mm AKM assault rifle and its
7.62mm
AMD-65 version with a folding stock. The 7.62mm RPK and
RPD light
machine guns were also in service. As of mid-1988, the
armed
forces planned to convert to the new standard Soviet
5.45mm
weapons, but the actual conversion had not yet begun.
The HPA imported most of its ground forces weaponry
from the
Soviet Union. Domestic industry supplied only a small
portion of
the army's needs, such as small-caliber weapons (pistols,
rifles,
and machine guns), some types of artillery pieces, and
ammunition.
In 1988 the HPA's stock of road transport vehicles
consisted
mostly of Hungarian-produced heavy-duty D-566 trucks,
Soviet GAS69 and UAZ-69 trucks, and East German Robur LO-1800
trucks.
Soviet Ural-355 and ZIL-131 trucks had just been
introduced into
service.
Engineering equipment included PMP heavy pontoon
bridges, GSP
ferries, K-61 and PTS amphibious vehicles, T-54 MTUs,
MT55s, and
TMM truck-mounted bridging units to build shorter spans.
Hungary
built bridging equipment under license from the Soviet
Union,
Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Signal troops used
Hungarianmade and Soviet-made equipment.
The HPA's engineering and construction corps were
considered
top notch among the Warsaw Pact countries for their
excellent
support of amphibious operations. Even Western analysts
have
called this contribution Hungary's most important one to
Warsaw
Pact defense. If engineering was the strongest component
of the
HPA, logistics was its weakest. Only the regular army was
trained
in logistics and provided with means of transportation. In
a war,
the underequipped units would have few logisticians and an
insufficient number of vehicles.
In August 1989, the Ministry of Defense disbanded an
armored
brigade of about 2,000 officers and enlisted men stationed
in
Szabadszallas in Bacs-Kiskun County as part of a planned 9
percent reduction of troops and arms in the army scheduled
for
1989 and 1990. Most of the heavy weaponry at the site was
scheduled to be melted down.
Data as of September 1989
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