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.
“Cooper”4 pages
onnccret under the TMO high commands or as part of the communications-intercept aircraft of the Main Intelli- Soviet national strategic reserve. The Soviets actually gence Directorate of the General Staff. call the two light bombcr-equipped air armies oppositc NATO operational air armies-presumably because Strategic Reserves. Forces and materiel retained tn- of the relatively limited rangc'of their Fencer aircraft. der the control of national or theater commanders for use as supplementary resources, rather than being attached to the first-echelon Warsaw Pact fronts or Strategic Aviation. The branch of the Soviet Air NATO army groups Forces that equips cand trains the predominately bomber-type units of the independent strategic air Strategic Zone. A geographic, political, and economic armies-which constitute the main forces for con- subdivision of a TMO. The Soviets use this term in ducting offensive air operations in the Soviet armed strategic planning to define areas of sufficient impor- forces tance that conquering one of them could constitute a strategic goal of the war in the theater. For the Strategic Depth. A Soviet targeting term used to purposes of operational-level planning, strategic zones describe the area occupied by NATO's forces located are subdivided into operational axes, which are as- behind its first-echelon army groups. The Soviets signed as sectors of res onsibility for fronts and expect that the first-cchelon NATO army groups armies, would typically extend about 200 to 400 kilometers behind the FEBA. They describe NATO's overall Supreme High Command. The Soviet wartime au- force disposition in the Western TMO as having a thority that would provide strategic leadership for all depth of 1,200 to 1,800 kilometers. Soviet and non-Soviet Warsaw Pact armed forces on behalf of the Soviet national command authorities Strategic Grouping. The forces that would be used to (the Politburo and the Defense Council). We believe conduct a strategic operation in a TMO to accomplish that the Supreme High Command would include the a strategic goal of the war. A strategic grouping could General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party include several fronts, one or more fleets, strategic air (acting as the Supreme Commander in Chico, the armies, national air defense formations, allocations Minister of Defense, the Chief of the General Staff, from strategic missile forces, and various other inde- the Commander in Chief (CinC) of the Combined pendent reserve formations. Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact, the Chief of the Main Political Administration, the First Deputy Min- Strategic Operation, A large-scale operation planned ister of Defense for General Affairs, and the CinCs of and directed by the Soviet General StaTff or by the the five services of the Soviet armed forces. high command in a TMO to achieve strategic goals. A strategic operation would be conducted according to a unified plan that incorporated the combat operations Tactical. The lowest of the three levels of military of all of the forces in the TMO (the so-called strategic theory, command, and planning in the Soviet hierar- grouping). chy of military concepts. The term applies to the forces and combat activities of division-size com- Strategic Reconnaissance. Intelligence colletion con- mands and their component elements. Tactical forces ducted for the General Staff and the TMO high have headquarters staffs of limited size; their combat commands to support the planning and execution of engagements are too small and brief to be classified as strategic operations. Strategic reconnaissance would operations by the Soviets. Tactical-level objectives are be conducted against rear-area targets of strategic most commonly expressed in the form of the task of interest to the full depth of the theater (for example, the day. The term "tactical" is also used to describe to a depth of 1,200 to 1,800 kilometers in the Western pieces of equipment used by tactical forces and TMO). Strategic air reconnaissance would be per- weapons inte ded for striking targets only in the formed primarily by strategic aviation reconnaissance tactical depth aircraft (mostly medium and heavy bombers) and by Topse;t 84
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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.