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
Top defenses and attacking targets in the open ocean than aircraft, which improve their overall capabilities does the Badger. Also, it is far more capable than the against NATO naval surface forces. There is insuffi- Badger of crossing potentially hostile land areas, such cient evidence to judge how the Soviets would use as Turkey and Greece, and operating over the either of these aircraft against ships at sea or how Mediterranean. effective they might be in wartime. Most Forger training thus far has been of the kind useful for attacks 121. In the antiship role, wartime operational con- against ships at sea. The Fitters, however, all of which siderations probably would tend to dictate the use of are hased in the Baltic, are probably intended for Backfires for strikes against important NATO warships ground attack in support of amphibious operations and in certain key areas. These areas would include the antiship attacks. North Atlantic at least as far south as the Greenland- Iceland-United Kingdom (G-l-UK) gap, the North 123. The three Soviet western fleets have 14 princi- Sea, and the Mediterranean. The operational con- pal surface combatant ships armed with antiship straints tending to limit the use of Backfires include cruise missiles. (See figure II-23.) Six of these ships mission planning allowances for combat maneuvering' have long-range (160 to 300 nm, or 300 to 555 km) and requirements for routing around and penetrating missiles, including the Kiev aircraft carrier, with an NATO air defenses. Aerial refueling could add flexi- estimated 24 SS-N-12s; two Kynda cruisers, with 16 bility for the employment of Backfires, however. SS-N-3b's each; and three Kresta-I cruisers, with four 122. The Soviet naval air forces opposite NATO SS-N-3b's each. To fire these missiles accurately to have in the past few years added some 40 shore-based their maximum range requires that these ships obtain SU-17 Fitter C/D and some 35 carrier-based YAK-36 external targeting support. For this purpose, the Kiev Forger V/STOL (vertical/short takeoff and landing) and the Kresta-Is carry reconnaissance helicopters and, Nominal Flight Profiles of Soviet Air-Launched Cruise Missiles Figure II-22b Altitude (m) 25,000 AS 4 AS ,6 20,000 A 3 15,000 10,000 5,000 -S 5 AS-- 650 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Range (km) Target Sec /9027 eeu - 11-37 To6'~emst
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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.