Documents / FOIA release
This is Volume II of National Intelligence Estimate 11-14-79, Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO, issued by the Director of Central Intelligence and dated January 1979. The National Foreign Intelligence Board concurred with it. It was the first comprehensive estimate of Pact forces facing NATO since 1971. It covers Pact doctrine, the ground, air, naval, nuclear and chemical forces, command and control, and campaign plans for war in Europe. It judges that Central Europe would be the decisive arena, and it lists Pact weaknesses in pilot training and antisubmarine warfare. The document contains no UFO material.
“Headquarters”14 pages
CHAPTER V THEATER NUCLEAR OPERATIONS 1. Pact nuclear operations against NATO in the probably would be mated to most tactical ballistic European theater could involve: missiles at the start of a war and up to one-fourth of . TSoviet tactical aircraft probably would be withheld -- factical nuclear wveapons assignedl to Soviet from conventional operations as a nuclear alert force. ground and air forces in Eastern Europe and in the USSR and to Soviet naval forces in the three 5. Once the decision to use nuclear weapons was western Fleets. made, all tactical systems probably would come into play and the timing and targeting of tactical strikes - Soviet strategic systems (mainly medium- and would be planned to take advantage of the special intermediate-range ballistic missiles, bombers of characteristics of each system. The primary objective Long Range Aviation, and some ballistic missile in Soviet tactical nuclear planning appears to be the submarines) which are based nthe USSR andu. . submrin e s) hi c aorueaseint he . a assured destruction of military targets. Limiting collat- intended chiefly for use against NATO.erld aglontneaohamancocneral damage dues__noatanear__to he_a_main_conce m 3. The scope and specific targets of Pact nuclear operations would depend on Soviet campaign objec- tives, the scale of NATO's nuclear use, and other circumstances. The following discussion is confined to the likely general characteristics of large-scale theater nuclear operations by the Pact. A. Tactical Nuclear Operations 4. The Pact tactical nuclear arsenal consists of aircraft, missiles, artillery, submarines, and surface ships. Although nuclear weapons are normally carried aboard Soviet submarines and some surface ships during peacetime deployments, the Soviets do not maintain nuclear-armed tactical missiles or aircraft on alert during peacetime. During the period of tension that probably would precede a war in Europe, howev- er, and during any initial conventional phase of such a war, the Pact would take steps to ready its tactical air and missile delivery systems for nuclear operations. Warheads and bombs probably would be dispersed from storage sites to delivery units. Nuclear warheads V-1 Top--set
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 201 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.