Warsaw Pact Air Forces: Support of Strategic Operations in Central Europe, CIA/DI/SOVA Intelligence Assessment, January 1985.

To "Secret
substantial numbers of NATO aircraft on the ground squadrons, comprising about 17 to 20 aircraft, invari-
during the airfield attacks and would reduce Pact ably are used against each airfield. Attacks by Blind-
losses to NATO air defenses. Even though they have er or Backfire medium bombers typically have used
expressed interest in conducting air raids at night- onl half as many aircraft. Fencer airfield attackQ
for which strategic aviation units have trained-to have ranged in size from one to three
enhance surprise and impair NATO's air defenses, squadrons (six to 26 aircraft). Fighter-bomber attacks
military writers repeatedly have rejected this possibil- on airfields usually use a full regiment (30 to 40
ity. This rejection is because of front aviation's very aircraft), although smaller groups have been used to
limited training and target-acquisition capabilities for mine runways as a prelude to the main attack by
offensive operations at night. The Soviets instead have another unit
shown a preference for conducting
the massed air raids at around dawn and dusk. Their The Soviets probably do not now intend to supplement
writings have noted that the massed raids could be aircraft attacks against NATO airfields with major
spaced as little as seven hours apart, however, with ground forces missile attacks using conventional clus-
the limiting factor being the time required for the ter munitions."' Because of the substantial expansion
preparation and transit of the medium bomber force that is occurring in the Soviet SRBM force ", its
to their targets. growing participation in other aspects of conventional
operations, and the ongoing development of a terminal
Airfield Atracks. The heart of the initial air operation guidance capability for their SRBMs, however, we
would be a series of airfield attacks designed to predict the Soviets may develop a significant airfield
destroy a sulfhcient portion of NATO's air forces to attack mission for their ground forces missile forces in
establish strategic air supremacy as well as to sub- the 1990s. SRBM-delivered cluster mines could be
stantially reduce NATO's nuclear strike potential. used to trap NATO aircraft on airfields immediately
Airbases housingfighter-bomber wings with nuclear before the airfield attacks by Pact aircraft, with the
strike roles generally are the top-priority targetsj Improved Scud and the SS-23 covering most airbases
because their destruction would si- in the FRG and the Scaleboard covering the airbases
niultaneously satisfy both objectives. This preference in the Benelux countries and northeastern France. We
for attacking fighter-bomber units with nuclear roles have seen no evidence that the Soviets would use
also demonstrates the primacy of preparing for nuce- chemical warheads in the air operation and believe
ar escalation, however, because the qualitative air they do not intend to do so.
balance could be altered much more quickly if the
Soviets were to instead concentrate on destroying
fighter-interceptors (especially F- I5s), which the Sovi-
cts credit with having substantially greater combat
potential. Some fighter-interceptor and reconnais-
sance bases also would be attacked. Soviet military
writings note that front aviation also would make less
ambitious attacks against NATO airfields between
the massed air raids and outside the framework of the
air opceation, because each front commander would
be responsible for maintaining pressure on the NATO
air forces in his sector of responsibility.
The number of Pact aircraft used to attack each
airfield has varied from as little as a
suadron to as much as a regiment of attack aircraft.
involving Badgers, two attack
To en 34