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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…
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Characteristics of Soviet Intermediate-Range Bombers Figure I-29a
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k.' i ~Di i 1 "'1 ; ,
There are only about 20 aircraft configured as tankers in the intermediate-range bomber force. In the
past, the Soviets have made little use of this limited capability; in the case of the TU-22, aerial refueling
has rarely been noted.
*Based on subsonic flight at optimum cruise altitude. For jet aircraft, a general rule is that each mile flown at altitudes of 300 meters or less reduces
combat radius by about 2 miles. For example an aircraft with a combat radius of 1,000 nm could fly only 600 nm if required to fly at an altitude of
100 meters for 200 nm (1,000-[2x2001-600); the first 400 nm would be flown at high-altitude cruise and the remaining 200 nm at low level.
5174219-78CIA
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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.