Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; MILITARY GEOGRAPHY CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110011-1.pdf/18

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110011-1

'''FIGURE 15. This facility near Karvina is one of the largest mining enterprises in the country; its setting typifies the environs of cities in the basin (U/OU)'''

(population 16,000). Mosnov Airfield, 9 miles southwest of Ostrava, one of the best fields in the country, is the home base for fighter aircraft and can accommodate heavy bombers; it serves also as the commercial airport for the complex. Billeting facilities in the area are available for 2,500 troops. The capacity of POL storage facilities in Ostrava is estimated at 200,000 barrels.

3. Bratislava

Bratislava (population 318,000 in 1973), is the capital of the Slovak Socialist Republic and an important transportation, industrial, commercial, and telecommunication center (Figure 17). Railroads and highways radiate from the city (Figure 18) to other major urban areas of the country and connect via key bridges across the Danube with networks in Austria and Hungary (Figure 19). One of the principal Danube ports, the city has expanding cargo handling and ship repair facilities. Presently, the average yearly turnover is 2 million metric tons. As the focal point of a growing petrochemical industry supplying about 150 petrochemical products, the strategic area has at Podunajske Biskupice an oil refinery and petrochemical complex (Figure 20) that is one of the largest of its type in central Europe. Production of the complex depends on crude oil supplied by pipeline from the U.S.S.R. The capacity of POL storage facilities is estimated to exceed 1½ million barrels.

Other significant plants produce high explosives, chemicals, fertilizers, artificial fibers, industrial gases, plastics, rubber products, cables and conductors, optical and photographic equipment, radio receivers, and textiles. There are extensive railroad repair and maintenance facilities. The city is the headquarters of the Central Communications Directorate of the Slovak Socialist Republic. Programs originating in the city are beamed abroad by a shortwave radiobroadcast transmitter. The civil airport is capable of sustaining long-range bomber operations in case of emergency.

4. Brno

This strategic area (Figure 21) focuses on Brno (population 350,000 in 1973), the administrative center of Jihomoravsky Kraj (South Moravian Region) and, after Prague, the country's second largest single

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110011-1