to gas or nuclear radiation.

As the cycle progresses, the individual usually becomes part of a crew
manning a larger weapon or a more complex piece of equipment. When the
crew knows its equipment, it then becomes involved in exercises of
increasing size, in which it learns to employ weapons and equipment in
coordination with other systems. The training cycle culminates in late
summer or autumn with the largest of the year's maneuvers. Although the
more important Warsaw Pact maneuvers have been held in the northern
group of Eastern European countries, smaller exercises are held in
Bulgaria and are occasionally participated in by visiting Soviet or
Romanian forces.

Air defense crews with small-caliber antiaircraft guns and tracking
radar practice in conjunction with the early warning network and air
defense communications. After target identification they practice
holding their weapons on the aircraft by radar or visual sighting.
Target aircraft average about 450 miles per hour and fly just above the
treetops.

Ground forces train with a wide variety of weapons and in many
situations, but they claim special capabilities and excellence in
mountain and winter exercises. These maneuvers are scheduled to exploit
the long winter nights and fog, snow, or blizzard conditions to teach
troops how to achieve surprise in encircling movements. Troops
exercising in the snow are provided a white outergarment for camouflage.

Combined arms exercises are held when all support units are engaged in
supporting offensive operations led by tank and motorized rifle groups.
In such exercises the equipment is used as realistically as possible,
with blank ammunition and training grenades. Ultra-shortwave
communication equipment, whose normal fifty- to sixty-mile range would
suffice more than adequately in small maneuver areas, is relayed over
long distances to simulate a more typical combat situation.

Political education is the responsibility of a main administration of
the Ministry of National Defense and has status on a par with the other
most important ministry functions. The administration states its mission
as "cultivating moral-political and combat virtues that train men and
units for skillful and selfless action under the conditions of modern
warfare." Its leaders stress the point that, although large forces and
massive firepower are employed in modern combat, the complexity and use
of weapons is such that individual initiative is