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Warsaw Pact Forces opposite NATO, NIE 11-14-79, Volume II, the Estimate, CIA/NFAC, 31 January 1979

Central Intelligence Agency · 201 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 114 …recently halted Soviet air operations from Conakry. These developments will obviously force the 257. Many officers…
  • p. 115 …order to keep other in establishing effective air cover over supporting lines units operational. of communication…
  • p. 185 …The Soviets could elect to provide combat forces scale commitment of manpower and materiel which to…
  • p. 187 …This force is occasionally aug- forces could not be safely transported by sea or air to…
  • p. 188 …a war, but they couldsome naval and air force weapons (including a few recently introduced Flogger…
Selected Warsaw Pact Fighter-Bomber Aircraft Figure 11-14
Year Maximum Representative NATO*
operational speed (knots) - fuel/weapons/payloads mission profile
Fuel Fuel Bomb, rocket or (radius in nm)
(kg) tanks TASM loads Hi-Lo-Hi Lo-Lo-Hi Lo-Lo-Lo
SU-17 Fitter D 1976 1,205 3,730 0 8x500-kg bombs 300 175 135
Mach 2.1 3,730 0 20x100-kg bombs 330 180 135
5,060 2 6x500-kg bombs 530 290 210
5,060 2 ECM pod and 595 320 225
96x57-mm rockets
5,060 2 4xAS-10 TASMs 580 300 215
MIG-27 Flogger D 1975 975 4,365 0 4x500-kg bombs 380 225 170
Mach 1.7 6,360 3 4x500-kg bombs 620 350 250
SU-24 Fencer A 1974 1,435 9,080 0 7x1,000-kg bombs 540 285 205
Mach 2.5 14,925 2 10x250-kg bombs 980 515 340
9,980 0 4xAS-10 TASMs 685 325 225
.14,925 2 4xAS-10 TASMs 1,075 530 400
13,290 2 2xAS-9 TASMs 935 460 315
The Central Intelligence Agency believes that the operational
assumptions basic to the NATO Mission Profile Hi-Lo-Hi def-
inition are extremely optimistic and produce combat radius es-
timates which cannot be achieved under wartime conditions.
CIA believes that the combat radii associated with.the
Lo-Lo-Hi definitions are much more in line with Warsaw Pact
estimates of the combat radius capability of Pact aircraft and
are in fact a more realistic reflection of Pact intentions
concerning the use of these aircraft.
579019 n cu
11-24

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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.