RED CHALLENGE ON THE GROUND

IN the worldwide alarm over Soviet long-range missiles, scant attention was paid to the U.S. Army's warning that Russia has made startling progress in the development and production of conventional weapons. Last week, with its Explorer triumphantly orbiting, the Army found a readier audience for its down-to-earth worries. The Army's argument: if it is to meet the Soviet challenge on the ground, it needs more and newer hardware.

Films of new Soviet weapons paraded in Moscow last November shook a cherished tenet of Western military men: that what the West's forces lacked in quantity, they made up in quality of weaponry. Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor warned in early winter that the Soviet army is equipped with tactical rockets and missiles "to which we have no response." While the U.S. has much first-rate equipment under development, Russia has it in the field. Declared U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Donald A. Quarles: "Let us concede them [the Soviets] general superiority in their present ground-force equipment."

From the display in Red Square and intelligence reports come these minimum estimates of Russian equipment:

Tanks: The Soviets have equipped all major combat units with the diesel-powered, 53-ton T-54, which has a range of 250 miles, cruises at 30 m.p.h., carries a 100-mm. gun. U.S. officials concede that the T-54 is superior to its closest U.S. equivalent--the M48 Patton (49 tons, range 90 miles, high-velocity 90-mm. gun)--but they believe the T-54 may prove too heavy for effective use. are themselves looking for a fast new 30-ton tank. In the Moscow parade the Soviets also showed an antiaircraft tank, as big and mobile as the T-54, mounting twin 57-mm. flak guns. The U.S. has no antiaircraft tanks.

Troop Carriers: The Soviets have an amphibious, caterpillar-tracked vehicle that is or soon will be in mass production. The U.S. has only a few such armored troop carriers, its allies virtually none.

Artillery: A new Soviet 203-mm. gun-howitzer can be emplaced for firing within minutes (compared to 36 hours for the World War II version), throws a conventional or nuclear shell 15 miles. The U.S. 8-in. howitzer is comparable but less mobile. The Russians boast a 240-mm. breech-loading mortar that doubles as an infantry and short-range artillery weapon. While its value in modern warfare is questionable, the U.S. has no counterpart.

Short-Range Missiles: Soviet short-range missiles are solid-fueled, therefore can be fired more quickly than such liquid-fueled missiles as the U.S. Corporal. The Russians have mounted rocket launchers on vehicles with caterpillar tracks. In Red Square they showed a launcher for rockets 12 in. in diameter, mounted on a tanklike chassis. U.S. ground-support missiles are carried on wheeled trucks.

Transport: The Soviets are producing a large twin-rotor helicopter called "The Horse," which can lift 40 soldiers or 10,000 Ibs. at a speed of 110 m.p.h. Ready for production is the gas-turbine MI-6 ("The Hook"), which will carry twice the load of The Horse. U.S. Army experts say they have nothing to match either of these Soviet choppers.

Small Arms: Soviet infantrymen have been equipped with a new rifle, submachine gun and light machine gun, all newly developed (1950), all firing a standard 7.62 short round. The Soviets' 8 1/2-lb. rifle is a semi-automatic carbine, gas-operated, with a ten-round magazine. The U.S. M-15 rifle (14.1 Ibs., semi-or fully automatic, 20 rounds) is effective, but only 8,000 have been turned out--the average G.I. still carries the Garand designed in 1936. With more than enough of the new small rifles for itself, Russia has already shipped some of its new rifles to Egypt and Syria.

Design: The Russian weapons are generally simpler in design and more mobile. For too long the West believed that the Soviets made simple weapons because they were too unsophisticated to make complex ones. Now the West realizes that the simplicity bespeaks a high state of engineering skill.

None of these weapons would figure decisively in a war of nuclear powers. (Only last week, in its annual White Paper on defense, Britain warned that if the Russians launched an attack on Western Europe, "even with conventional forces only," the West would retaliate with strategic nuclear weapons.) Since the threat of mutual destruction reduces the chance of such an all-out war, the U.S. Army argues that the real danger may be a series of "nibbling wars," in which the Russians might not fight themselves, but would furnish arms for others to use. For nibbling warfare, the relative quantity and quality of ground equipment might still be decisive. Concludes the U.S. Army Information Digest: "The Soviet army is the only major force in the world today that has a completely new postwar arsenal of weapons, in being, in the hands of trained troops, capable of fighting either a nuclear or a non-nuclear war, big or small, in any kind of climate or terrain."

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