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OSR Contribution to NIE 11-14-68, Soviet and East European General Purpose Forces, CIA/DI/OSR, October 1968.

Central Intelligence Agency · 115 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is an October 1968 contribution by the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Strategic Research to National Intelligence Estimate 11-14-68 on Soviet and East European general purpose forces. It covers Warsaw Pact war plans for Central Europe, the effects of the Czechoslovak crisis, and the doubling of Soviet forces on the Chinese border since 1965. It also assesses ground, tactical air, naval and coastal defense forces. The text does not mention UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena.

  • p. 13 …areas long the domain of the ______ - US and British navies is one example of this evolution…
  • p. 14 …ranean would severely strain the Soviet Navy. For the last 15 months the Soviets have maintained…
  • p. 93 …The Soviets are continuing their close surveillance of US naval formations, particularly carrier operations, but. monitor…
  • p. 99 …The reaction of the Soviet Navy and its submarine force to the Middle East crisis reflects…
  • p. 106 …adoption of the alongside refueling technique used by Western navies--has been observed during the past…
  • p. 108 TOP-SEORF , normal peacetime use of ships in civilian trade, many would be unavailable on short…
  • p. 112 …It is apparent that the success of US aircraft carrier operations is keeping alive an internal…
TOPGRFT
account for about one-third of all the combat aircraft
in Front air forces.
3. Force Composition
About three-fourths.of the 3,500 combat
aircraft in Soviet tactical air units are assigned
to fighter regiments. These regiments usually are
designated for either. air defense or ground attack,
although they all train for both missions. The air-
craft are- generally specialized for one mission and
are of.only limited effectiveness in their secondary
roles. The ground attack capabilities of the fighters.
assigned to air defense regiments are limited by their
relatively short combat radius and small payload ca-
pacities. Conversely, the fighter-bombers assigned
to ground attack regiments are not equipped with air-
borne intercept radar and are armed only with guns
and unguided rockets.
Only about 360 light bombers are deployed
with strike regiments in the tactical air forces, and
more than 500 aircraft of various types are assigned
to reconnaissance units. (See Figure 7, below, and
Table 2, opposite page.)
Figure 7
Soviet Tactical Aviation: Aircraft Inventory
5,000
2,500
0
19__196f_ 1963 1967 1970
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 115 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.