Mr. Moormanasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will show the relative strengths of the NATO tank force and that of the USSR; and if he will make a statement on the likely future trends concerning tank forces as between NATO and the USSR.
§ Mr. MasonIn central Europe and on the flanks the USSR has an advantage over NATO in numbers of tanks of about 3:1; while the Warsaw Pact as a whole, including the USSR, has an advantage over NATO of about 4.25:1. There are no indications of any slackening in the efforts of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies to improve the quality and numbers of their tanks.