Women of the Warsaw Pact

[boogiedowndonovan]

Hey all,

anyone have any figures for the number of women serving in the Warsaw Pact armies circa 1996?

Also in Kings Ransom, the characters have the opportunity to encounter an Soviet all female communications unit. anyone know if real world Soviet communications units were all female? Also in Black Madonna, characters can encounter the Czech 1AAB which has a female officer, but I assume that females in WP line units is a T2k thing.

I assume that women in the Warsaw Pact weren't as integrated into the military as they were in NATO, but I also assume that once the crap hit the fan and manpower losses were felt, more Warsaw Pact women would find themselves on the front lines similar to WWII where Russian women served as pilots, snipers, etc.

-bdd

[James Langham]

Hey all,

anyone have any figures for the number of women serving in the Warsaw Pact armies circa 1996?

Also in Kings Ransom, the characters have the opportunity to encounter an Soviet all female communications unit. anyone know if real world Soviet communications units were all female? Also in Black Madonna, characters can encounter the Czech 1AAB which has a female officer, but I assume that females in WP line units is a T2k thing.

I assume that women in the Warsaw Pact weren't as integrated into the military as they were in NATO, but I also assume that once the crap hit the fan and manpower losses were felt, more Warsaw Pact women would find themselves on the front lines similar to WWII where Russian women served as pilots, snipers, etc.

-bdd

From memory it was a lot lower than in NATO, I will try and find what I can for you.

Your assumptions are all correct and I haven't come across any all female units outside of the Russian Revolution and Great Patriotic War (World War Two) (which even then included some mail officers in WW2).

[simonmark6]

Interesting article from the right period:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1982/jan-feb/obrien.html

There are also a lot of women in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces although again they are mainly in technical jobs.

According to the article you'd likely see two types of females in the Soviet military:
Specialists like medics and technicians who are highly competent in their trades but less able in combat skills
Raw recruits drawn up at the height of the manpower crisis: many will be dead or sent to the Chinese front. As a lot of them would be in the rawest units and these are the units that were most likely to turn marauders, I wouldn't like to speculate on what happened to the female draftees when the units mutinied.