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

r
and we made no reinforcements to RAF-Germany negligible amount of training in the air-to-air role. If
(because of our uncertainty about intended timing, the Soviets instead applied ground attack scores to
and because this force would be small in any case). NATO's multirole fighter-bombers-and we cannot
The primary variable in our calculations of the likely be absolutely certain that this would not happen-we
composition of NATO air forces was the progressive estimate that it would have the approximate effect of
reinforcement of 2ATAF and 4ATAF by the US turning a typical 1.05-to-1 NATO air balance advan-
Tactical Air Command. We believe that Soviet mili- tage in our calculations into a 1.15-to-I Warsaw Pact
tary intelligence has a reasonable approximation of advantage.
NATO's intended reinforcement schedule.
Estimated Soviet Perceptions of the Air Balance
Applying Combat Potential Scores. We think that, Air Balance Trends 1975 to 1985. Based on Soviet
since at least the late 1970s, Soviet theaterwide air combat potential scores, our analysis of trends in the
balance calculations have contrasted high estimates of qualitative air balance in the Western TMO from
NATO air forces aggregate combat potential with 1975 to 1985 is generally consistent with the Soviets'
more moderate estimates of Warsaw Pact air forces perceptions of it as expressed in their military writ-
aggregate combat potential. This is likely because of ings. Our air balance calculations for the early and
dissimilarities in the NATO and Pact force structures middle 1970s, however, match what we believe were
and the way that we believe multirole aircraft are Soviet p :ceptions only if we assume that the multiple
treated in the Soviet combat potential scores. Some- combat potential scores for each aircraft type were
time between the late 1960s and 1977, the Soviets still in use then
began to use a unitary combat potential score for each
mode)-of-aircraft, rather than multiple scores (which Through at least 1975 the Soviets wrote confidently
had allowed planners to select an air-to-air, air-to- about launching a TMO-wide air operation for air
ground, or reconnaissance score for each aircraft). In supremacy at the outset of war. By implication, the
the unitary set of scores, fighter-interceptors (like the Soviets believed they could meet their doctrinal re-
MIG-21 and MIG-23) have substantially higher quirements for success, which probably stipulated a
scores than their fighter-bomber counterparts (the minimum starting advantage in the TMO-wide quali-
SU-7 and MIG-27), and multirole fighter aircraft tative air balance of about 1.4:1. Moreover, authorita-
(such as the F-104, F-4, and F-16) apparently are tive Soviet military writings from the mid-1970s
given the higher scores associated with their part-time stated that the Warsaw Pact would have to destroy 40
air-to-air role. This bias in the Soviet scores in favor to 50 percent of NATO's combat aircraft in the initial
of multirole aircraft produces a high estimate for air operation to achieve air srenlacv
NATO air forces because most of its fighter-bomber th Soviets
wings are equipped with multirole fighter aircraft that expected to accompish this while sustaining only
appear to be scored by the Soviets as if they operated about 15-percent losses of Pact aircraft. Thus, the
entirely as fighter-interceptors. By contrast, nearly all Pact would have needed a starting advantage in the
Pact fighter-bomber regiments are equipped with qualitative air balance of between 1.5:1 and 1.8:1 if,
specialized ground attack aircraft that score lower. as we believe, the Soviets defined air supremacy for
planning purposes as a qualitative advantage
exceeding 2.5:1.
Soviet General StafT planners may have decided to
use the higher air-to-air scores for NATO multirole Our air balance estimates for 1975 (table 8) show
aircraft assigned to fighter-bomber wings because of starting Warsaw Pact TMO-wide advantages in the
their expectation that most of those aircraft would be 1.5:1 to 1.8:1 range when we use estimated ground
used in their secondary air-to-air role to counter the
massed air raids of Pact air operations and because
most of the pilots in those units receive a significant
amount of air-to-air training. Pact fighter-bomber
pilots are more specialized, however, receiving only a
71 ToiJLerct
I~IIIII