Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Intelligence assessment, dated January 1985, examines how Warsaw Pact air forces would support large strategic operations in Central Europe. It concludes that the Soviets see NATO air power as the greatest threat to a Pact ground offensive. They revised their air supremacy plans in 1980 and 1981 to use sector-concentrated raids and a defensive air operation. The assessment also finds that heavy aircraft losses and limited deep attack capability would remain serious problems. The document has no UFO content.
“Sea”15 pages
T'o1 Sceret Warsaw Pact Air Forces: Support of Strategic 0 orations in Central Europe Background "Strategic," "Operational, "and "Tactic-al" - The Soviets use the term "strategic operation" to describe the totality of their military actions in large Throughout this paper we use the terms "strategic." geographic areas such as Central Europe or the Far "operational,'and "tactical'"inthe Soviet sense.East. which they call theaters of military operations which is not necessari/v consistent with Western (TMOs). A strategic operation would be conducted definitions. These terms de/ine the three levels ofaccording to a single, centralized war plan at the mnilitary theory, command, and planning in the Sovietdirection of the Soviet Supreme High Command. It hierarchy' of military concepts. In Soviet usage, "stra-could incorporate the operations of several fronts, tegic"refers to the policies, objectives, plans, and fleets, strategic air armies. Strategic Rocket Forces jbrees of national-level command authorities and ofarmies, national air defense formations, and airborne the high comnimands in the main TMOs. In generaldivisions.' the term "operational 'describes the objectives, plats, and forces offront-, armly-, and corps-size jointThe Soviets' military writings indicate that the con- forces formations, while the term "tactical" appliescept of TMO strategic operations became the basic to those attributes offormations of division size andorganizing principle for their militaryplanning during smaller. More detailed definitions of these and otherthe late 1970s, following more than a decade of Soviet ternts used in this paper are contained in thedevelopment. Provision was made for the activation in glossary. appendix D wartime of high command headquarters in the most important TMOs as extensions of the Soviet General Staff to provide centralized management of the larg- This paper does not cover in detail the roles of Sovietest strategic operations. In 1980 and 1981 the Soviet air forces in the more familiar front and armyair and air defense forces were reorganized,' largely to operations. Direct support of these smaller scale oper-give the wartime high commands in the TMOs better ations is discussed bricly in appendix A. The scope ofcontrol during these large joint forces operations. this paper also is limited geographically to Central Europe-the theater for which we have the most comprehensive evidence of Soviet intentions for con-This paper takes a fresh look at the Soviets' percep- ducting wartime operationtions of how their airpower should be used to achieve the strategic-level objectives of large TMO strategic operations. Particular attention is paid to Soviet force The Western Theater of Military Operationsemployment concepts for the conventional air suprem- acy campaign and for the first major nuclear strike, Soviet military planners consider the Westernbecause of the extreme importance that the Soviets TMO-Central Europe from the Baltic to the Alps-accord these missions. It also covers Soviet concepts the most important of the three land TMOs in thefor conducting bomber offensives and for supporting European theater of war (figure 1), and some militaryairborne operations, amphibious landings, and strate- writers have viewed it as the most important of thegic reconnaissance approximately seven or eight TMOs for which they may plan strategic operations for a general wvar.The Warsaw Pact join: forces command structure is discussed in aToendiAS Top ~secret
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 95 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.