Balkan Front (Bulgarian People's Army)

The Balkan Front was a military formation of the Bulgarian People's Army, intended for wartime use under the general direction of the Soviet General Staff. If a war was to have broken out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the bulk of the Bulgarian army would have been assigned to it.Inside the Cold War

In case of war the Bulgarian People's Army's Land Forces Command would have formed the 1st Balkan Front with the three Bulgarian armies and wartime reinforcements. Additional Soviet units would also come under its command (particularly 10th Army of the Soviet Union (10th Air Army?),Nb. in the late 1940s the 37th Army (Soviet Union), in Bulgaria became the 10th Mechanized Army for a period before disbandment in June 1947. planned to deploy between the fifth and tenth day after a full mobilization in the area between Silistra, Tolbukhin, Varna and Omurtag)

Purpose Colonel-General Hristo Dobrev, the first commander of the Land Forces Command (the peacetime organisation, which would transform into the Balkan Front in case of war) gave the following reasons for its formation:

"It is well established, that according to the operational plans of the Warsaw Pact's Joint Forces High Command, our country should have formed a front operational-strategic formation, including the main forces of the BPA. In case of an armed aggression this front should have organised defensive operations along the southern border and provide the cover for the deployment of one Soviet and one Romanian front, after which the combined forces of the three fronts with the support of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces and the Combined Black Sea Fleet were to execute counter-offensive operations for the destruction of the aggressor.

These plans have been rehearsed in several strategic command and staff exercises under the command of the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the [Bulgarian] Minister of People's Defence. Initially the command of the front was formed following the "emission" method - dispatching personnel from the General Staff and the departments of the Ministry of People's Defence [on an ad hoc basis].

There is hardly any need to proove, that this means to form the Front Command suffered from significant flaws. In its comprehensive form it only existed for the duration of massive operational-strategic exercises. That hindered its training and manpower recruitment. The personnel of the front command was always different from one formation to another. The chiefs of departments within the MPO and the General Staff were disincentivized to dispatch their best subordinates to the FC, knowing that this meant, that in case of war their departments would lose that personnel. In these circumstance the FC was unable to mobilise and interact with the headquarters of its subordinated armies, formations and the units in its direct subordination [in a meaningful way].

Taking these shortages into account already in 1963 the Minister decided, that a peacetime nucleus for the mobilization of the wartime Front Command should be formed. This has led to the birth of the Main Directorate for Preparedness of the Troops (Главно управление за подготовка на войските (ГУПВ)) It consisted of a command, staff, Political Directorate, commands of the various combat branches and an operational group of personnel from the BPA's logistical department and the MPO's Main Directorate for Weapons and Equipment. General Vrachev, until that moment First Deputy-Minister of People's Defence was appointed as its first chief and I, until then First Deputy-Chief of the General Staff, was appointed as its chief of staff.

In this form the MDPT has existed for two years. During that time it was responsible for the combat and mobilization readiness, operational and combat training of the Land Forces, training of staff personnel and participation in front-level exercises commanded by the Minister. The experience gained during its existence has unequivocally showed its usefulness as a model for the formation of a front command in peacetime, but nevertheless due to factors completely outside of operational considerations, the MDPT was disestablished in 1965 and for several years we made a step back to the old ad hoc practices for the formation of an FC, which were proven time and again to be ineffective.

During the years after 1965 our experience has convinced us in the necessity of having a permanent peacetime nucleus for the formation of a wartime front command. After long discussions and despite the objections of the General Staff, in the summer of 1973 the Collegium [leadership] of the Ministry of People's Defence has decided for the formation of the Land Forces Command (Командване на сухопътните войски (КСВ)) with two main tasks - to direct the complete preparedness and build-up of the land forces as a type of the armed forces and to prepare to transform into a front command in case of a war..." Д-р Димитър Йончев "Строителството на въоръжените сили на България (История и политика)", София, 2002, СД Симолини-94 със съдействието на ЦС на СОСЗ, с. 17-18

According to Lieutenant-General Hristo Hristov (former Chief of the Land Forces and Chief of the Georgi Rakovski Military Academy): "For that purpose the Land Forces Command was formed in 1973. Its first chief was Colonel-General Hristo Dobrev, with the rank of Deputy Minister of People's Defence. At a conference about the organization of the armed forces of about ten years ago [around 2003] Lt.-Gen. Hristov described the need for the LFC as such:

"It is well known, that according to the operational plans of the Supreme Headquarters of the Warsaw Pact Organization our country was supposed to form a frontal Operational-Strategical Formation (фронтово оперативно-стратегическо обединение), mainly including the Bulgarian People's Army with the mission in case of an aggression launched against the People's Republic of Bulgaria to mount defensive action on the southern state border in order to secure the deployment on Bulgarian soil of additionally one Soviet and one Romanian front, after which with the support of the Soviet Strategic Missile Troops the three fronts were, with the support of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet [which at that point would have absorbed the Bulgarian and the Romanian Navies] to launch a strategic operation aimed at the total destruction of the aggressor... Our men were excellently trained. Our Land Forces at the moment [the 1970s] numbered around 60~62 000 men, the exercises were constant. Each division executed annually one winter and one summer exercise in full strength. The three army headquarters - one command exercise under the leadership of the respective army commander and one command exercise under the leadership of the Land Forces Main Staff annually. The massive exercises of the Land Forces, normally during the summers normally included an army headquarters from the Soviet Army and occasionally an army headquarters from the Romanian Army. On the Balkan operational direction our armed forces were planned to cooperate with them."

The headquarters of the 1st Balkan Front, at Sofia, would have had direct command of the following units and formations:

Directly Subordinated Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff: 68th Independent Parachute-Reconnaissance Regiment (Plovdiv, an equivalent of the Soviet GRU-Spetsnaz, the Intelligence Directorate even had a "Spetsnaz"-Department with that exact name and the responsibility for combat readiness and mission planning of the Specnaz units). The regiment was formed on October 1, 1975, by bringing together the battalion-sized 68th (in Plovdiv) and 86th Training Parachute-Reconnaissance Base (in Musachevo village, immediately to the east of Sofia. The bases, called "Training" (Учебна Парашутно-Разузнавателна База - Резерв на Главното Командване (УПРБ-РГК)) for maskirovka were special mission units, directly subordinated to the General Staff with the capabilities to execute covert intelligence gathering and direct actions deep in the enemy rear of the two NATO adversaries in the region - Greece and Turkey respectively. Each of the bases was composed of a Command, Staff, and Staff Services; 3 Para-Recon Companies of 6 Para-Recon Groups each (consisting of 7 people: a commanding officer, a master sergeant executive commander, a radiotelegraphist, a senior intelligence gatherer, an intelligence gatherer, an intelligence gatherer/ grenadier and a military interpreter); a Training Company, a Signals Company and diverse support and supply units. The newly formed 68th IPRR included a Command; Staff and Staff Services; 3 x Para-Recon Battalions; Diversionary-Reconnaissance Detachment (reinforced company, specialised in direct actions, upgraded to an entire battalion in 1989); Training Battalion; Signals Battalion and support and supply units. The full compliance to Soviet GRU-Spetsnaz standards since the formation of the regiment is also noted in the specification of the Para-Recon Groups, which were renamed Spetsnaz-Reconnaissance Groups (Разузнавателни Групи със Специално Назначение (РГСН))."The Bulgarian Special Forces", by Plamen Grigorov, Rasper Publishing House, Sofia 2002 ("Българските спецсили", Пламен Григоров), The regiment is the forerunner of the modern 68th Special Forces Brigade. ?. Independent Brigade for Radio-intercept and Radio-technical Reconnaissance OSNAZ (?. Отделната Бригада за Радио и Радиотехническо Разузнаване ОСНАЗ) in Musachevo, just to the east of Sofia (the ELINT and Radio Interception units of the BPA were called OSNAZ from the Russian ОСобое НАЗначение (roughly translated as "of specific purpose"), Electronic Warfare, such as the N, S and NS type units were called SPETSNAZ (same as the special forces units) from the Russian СПЕЦиальное НАЗначение (translated as "of special purpose")) Directorate for Signals and Electronics of the General Staff: 62nd Signals Brigade (Bulgaria), in Gorna MalinaMichael Holm, Army Command/Frontal Command - with the escalation in the nuclear armament of NATO and the Warsaw Pact a plan was devised by the Bulgarian government, that in the case of a full-sized conflict, to retain command and control, the higher echelon of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the senior military command was to be divided in three groups and evacuated to nuclear blast-protected bunkers in the Bulgarian mountains. Next to the functions of the Signals Regiment in the Sofia suburb of Suhodol, the brigade also maintained higher military communication lines. For that reason, the 62nd Brigade had at least three dispersed signals regiments for government communications, such as the 75th Signals Regiment (Lovech), the 65th Signals Regiment (Nova Zagora) and at least one additional unknown Signals Regiment in the Rila-Pirin mountain massif. The modern successor of the 62nd Signals Brigade is the Stationary Communication and Information System (Стационарна Комуникационна Информационна Система (СКИС)) of the Defence Staff (which fulfills also the tasks of Signals Intelligence and Cyber Defence next to its strategic communications mission) and the Mobile Communication and Information System (Мобилна Комуникационна Информационна Система (МКИС)) of the Joint Forces Command. Electronic Warfare Department (Отдел за Радиоелектронна Борба към Генералния Щаб (ОРЕБ-ГЩ)) (a General Staff department, headed by a Colonel) Stationary Battalion for Radiojamming (Стационарен Батальон за Радиосмущения) Unit for Radioelectronic Control (Отряд за Радиоелектронен Контрол) (The unit's task was to control the radioelectronic signature of the own forces and to manage their survivability against jamming by the enemy. U.S. DOD "electronic protection".) Central Workshop (Централна Работилница) several Signals intelligence units, including in Berkovitsa, Gorna Oryahovitsa, etc.