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.
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To' Secret Table 5 Estimated Numbers of Strikes Planned for the Western TMO in the Initial Massed Nuclear Strike (One Possible Variant) Zone of Strikes Force Component Surface-to-Surface Air Strikes Total Strikes Missile Strikes FRG mostly within 100 to 200 km of Baltic Sea Fleet 0 35b 5the FEBA (including Denmark and the polish-DR Front 75 25Baltic Sea) -i D Fn5251 GSFG-GDR Front 300c 170 470 Czechoslovak-CGF Front 125* 50' 175 Legnica SAA NA 200* 200 Subtotal (approximate) 500500 1,000 Targets mostly in excessof 100 to SRF MR/IRBMs 600 to 7008 NA 600to700200 km beyond the FEBA (including Smolensk SAA NA 6200 the North Sea, Britain, France, 290 d 290 and the Iberian Peninsula) Baltic Sea Fleet IS b 35 b50 Subtotal (approximate) 600 to 700 300 900 to ,000Total (approxtmate) 1,100 to 1,200 800 1,900 to 2.000 We have assumed that the initial massednuclear strike occurs at more strikes to the total for the first-echelon fronts. The assumptionthe outset ora war (attrition from conventional operations is not a has also been made that the Vinnitsa SAA and the Belorussian andfactor) and that theGeneral Stall estimates that a Warsaw Pact Carpathian fronts do notparticipate is the initial massednuclearnuclear preemption is possible (front air forces participation has not strike. Their inclusion could add noughty 100 to ISO SSM strikes been reduced to free fighter-bombers to hunt SSMs with conven- plus about 340 air-delivered strikes (all in the shallow zone).tion[sweapons prior to the strike) e The estimated figures for SRF MR/IRBM strikes in the deeperThe totalsn mber of Baltic Sea Fleet strikes is derived zone are speculative, due to a scarcity o Icvidnce, and strikesbut their distribution is nspculative. by SSBNs and ICBMs are not depicted, aswe have not estimatedtar__nmteh. ,-1,-.t are the extent of participation of these systems. There also isconsider-estimate n omthe past able uncertainty in the estimated number of Smolensk SAA strikeseight yeaa -no-socnuas-s-ne--or-roe-0Fattl (msting the forward dueto an absence of evidence detailing nuclear strike planning anddeployment of Scaleboard SRBMs). These figures do not include typical nuclear bomb loading. See appendix B for the deriatic. of the recent additio - nuclear our medium bomber strike estimate.artillery, which we imae pro ably would a ut 1 o o fronts could deliver roughly 500 strikes at the outset be delivered in the initial massed nuclear strike wouldof hostilities (which could increase to approximately be carried by strategic aviation bombers if the strike600 to 650 strikes if there were a total of five first- occurred early in the war. Analysis echelon fronts in the TMO). The use of nuclear indicates that the Legnica strategicairartillery has been an increasingly common feature army, with its two light bomber divisions, probably but the likely extent of its participation would be tasked to deliver about 200 of those nuclearIs not clar to us (our preliminary estimate is that they weapons. Our analysis also leads us to estimate thatwould conduct about 100 to 150 strikes). We believe all of the nuclear weapons probably would be carriedthe extent of planned SSBN participation in the by about 75 percent of the available light bombersWestern TMO during the initial massed nuclear (with more than half of them carrying two bombsstrike would be relatively modest apiece), and that the remaining bombers would sup- port the strike by conducting conventional defenseStrategie Aviation. Strategic aviation aircraft would be major contributors to the initial massed nuclear strike in the Western TMO. We estimate that be- tween 400 and 700 of the nuclear weapons directed to 43 'aySmei
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 95 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.