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.
“The Advance”13 pages
'op\Secret %writingsindicate that the newly created wartime theater high command headquarters was designated as the focal point for integrating the planning and direction of complex theaterwide air defense operations (and also oflensive air operations)-a responsibility formerly shared by the Soviet Air Forces Main StalT and the multitude of regional air defense com- mands. The Soviets also unified their na tional and tactical air defense systems and established joint command posts for the air forces and the air defense forces at each command echelon to improve coordination of simultaneous offensive and defensive activity. Persistent Problems. Despite these initiatives, we believe the Pact air forces would have to overcome several serious problems to successfully complete their air supremacy campaign: - Aircraft losses substantially higher than anticipated would probably - prevent the Pact from decisively winning the air supremacy battle of attrition and force the cancellation or 'he offensive air operation. Losses higher than anticipated would be a ditinct possibility, because the Soviet General Stalks aircraft attrition planning factors appear highly op mtiistic. - Pact deep attack capabilities are limited by inadequate equipping and training of fighter forces for ensuring local air superiority in NATO's rear areas, a lack of ellicient munitions for cutting runways or neutraliz- ing clusters of hardened aircraft shelters, and a lack of suitable sensors and training in front aviation for conducting large offensive operations at night or in adverse weather. . Pact air forces also have only a limited capability to find NATO's concealed mobile surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs)-yet we believe the Pact probably will plan to divert many more aircraft from attacking airfields to instead hunting for SSMs because of the introduction of " Pershing [Is and GLCMs. * Airspace management and stalT coordination among the many force components and nationalities participating in such large, complex theater operations is vulnerable to breakdowns vcr Iunnnr
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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.