Public knowledge of the Soviet Air Power in Europe (70's - 80's)

[B52STRATO 215]

I recently bought an used monthly French magazine from September 1979 with interesting articles about the Soviet Air Power, and tend to anticipate the characteristics of several systems, making them more dangerous than they were. An article also concern the case of the name of the "Backfire" and its capabilities, so as to share this extract with you !

 

"The last addition of the Soviet Strategic Aviation is the Tu-122 (or Tu-26) Backfire which 50 units are already in active service. This aircraft remember that the USSR is detremined to stay at a high degree on her triple nuclear base: ground-to-ground intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines launched ICBMs and air-to-ground cruise missiles. The United States already adopted this triad during the 50's. Their recently decision to equipped the USAF with the recent Rockwell International B-1A, added to the terrifiant B-52, shurely justified the decision of the Russians to go forward in their strategic bomber fleet modernisation.

The B-1 will be even more powerful than the Backfire.

But, if the B-1 prototype flies since 1974, it still isn't developped - and his own program looks to be questioned - while the Backfire is already operational; and, as we saw it, 50 units are in service. This terrible, three crew (!!), swept-wings bomber is powered by two high-by-pass NK-144 turbofans, equipped with afterburners.

His aerodynamics characteristics are surprisingly advanced. His ultramodern equipment included a doppler radar, an inertial navigation system, a ground proximity radar, a computer and an advanced RWR. His weapons inventory includes a 37mm tail cannon. It carried 15x500kg conventional bombs or 8 tonnes of nuclear weapon in its bombay or two AS-6 cruise missiles under the wings. The AS-6, which the Western intelligence informations agree to give them a range of 800 km, are firstly guided by an inertial unit and by radar on final phase.

The Backfire has a range of 5 715 km at high altitude, and 2 480 km at low altitude. It is capable of more than Mach 2 at high level, and probably has a cruise speed of Mach 0.82 at low level."

 

Tu-26 Backfire A and B characteristics

 

Type : strategic bomber

Powerplants : two turbofans (probably NK-144), capable of 22 000 kg of thrust

Lenght : 41,20 m

Wingspan :

Spread : 33,50 m

Swept : 26,80 m

Height : 12,00 m

Empty weight : 55 000 kg

Max. weight : 123 350 kg

Performances :

Max speed : 2 450 km/h

Service ceilling : 19 000 m

Range : 5 750 km

Ferry range : 12 9000 km

 

 

It is impressive to see that apart some errors the inteligences already had a good idea of ​​the aircraft capabilities at this times, and yet, it still are a public article.

Edited December 30, 2012 by B52STRATO

[+streakeagle 871]

To justify the huge defense budget, Reagan had a propaganda report published and periodically updated: Soviet Military Power

It was a lot of wild intelligence guesses packed with slick graphics.

The version I own was the 1985 edition that was published by an anti-Reagan author, Tom Gervasi, The Pentagon's Document Annotated and Corrected

The beauty of having that is you get to see two extremes at the same time: inflated US intelligence estimates used to justify horrendous defense spending and wishful thinking believing that the Soviets were incapable of challenging US military technology.

Decades later, one can see that many of the estimates were not so wild.

In particular, Tom Gervasi would have us believe that the Soviets only had 30 operational MiG-29s rather than the 300 estimated by the DoD.

In retrospect, the in-service numbers were much closer to if not higher than 300 by 1985.

[+JonathanRL 974]

I have a pretty amusing translated book from the late 70s that explain that in the early 2000s; manned aircraft is a thing of the past and that the Soviet Union is at least a decade ahead of the west in fighter technology since Israeli Air Force where unable to intercept Foxbat Recce Runs :-)

[+Gepard 11,324]

It was called Kremlin Astrology in the bad good old days. Cheating was on the table to form a soviet danger. (vice versa too)

 

On funny thing i remember are the comparisions of tank numbers during cold war.

From west it was always to hear, that the soviets had much more tanks than the west. The soviets had 10 times more tanks than the free world.

But how they came to that figures?

Okay. First step: reduce the numbers of the won side.

It were only counted tanks in western Europe, no tanks in the USA, no tanks in Asia.

It were only counted tanks in active units, stored tanks were not counted.

It were only counted tanks of the Army, not of the Naval Infantry (Marines etc)

It were not counted tanks of France and Spain, because they were not members of the military organisation of the NATO.

 

Then came step 2: Inflating enemies numbers.

It were counted all soviet tanks from the Elbe river to Kamchatka penisula, tanks in Afgahnistan and tanks in far east on the chinese or korean border.

It were also counted tanks in storage facilities.

It were counted all tanks of the soviet naval infantry

then all tanks were counted which were used as shooting targets at shooting ranges (some 1000 pieces)

then were counted all tanks in museums (some hundret)

and then were counted all T-34 which were used as memorials (some 1000 pieces too, interestingly the two T-34 of the soviet victory memorial in Berlin (West) were also counted to the tank potential of the WP, logically they should have counted for the West )

 

and so on.

 

In reality the WP : NATO ratio for tanks in Europe was 1.4 : 1

Edited December 30, 2012 by Gepard

[B52STRATO 215]

The saga continues with the Su-19 Fencer (X)

 

Extract from the same magazine:

"Most important chiefs from American air staff to describe the Fencer as the 'first real ground attack aircraft, purely designed as a bomber and a fighter-bomber' of the VVS. Bigger than the MiG-23 Flogger, the Fencer reminds the American F-111 or the French Mirage G-serie. With the Foxbat, the Fencer is, today, one of the most feared aircraft ever. Its Occidental best counter-part could be seen in the US top naval aircraft, the F-14 Tomcat.

 

Characteristics:

 

Type : "two-seat M.R.C.A" (already at this time)

Powerplants : two unknow turbojets or maybe turbofans, probably MiG-23 Tumansky engines, capable of approx 10 000 kg of thrust

Lenght : 21,29 m

Wingspan :

Spread : 17,15 m

Swept : 9,53 m

Height : 6,40 m

Empty weight : 16 000 kg

Max. weight : 32 000 kg

Performances :

Max speed : 2 670 km/h (!)

Service ceilling : 18 000 m

Range : 800 km

Ferry range : 4 000 km

Weapons:

- double-tubed GSh-23 cannon

-Rockets, conventional and nuclear bombs

 

 

Drawing from 1979, based on the time's knowledge

[JediMaster 451]

That picture is fairly accurate, but it was no Tomcat. It's an F-111-type, plain and simple.

 

I have a book somewhere with an artist's render of the MiG-29 from the early 80s, based on the dodgy satellite photos made public at the time. The nose was fairly accurate, but the aft section looked more like the MiG-25.

[B52STRATO 215]

This comparison to the Tomcat surprised me too... mainly cause the autor talk about the F-111 or the G8 just before.

The other drawings, also from 1978 and 79, showed a really aproximate MiG-25 with a big nose and tall vertical stabilizers, something that look alike the Tu-142, but named "Tu-20" Bear-C and an interesting one of the Mil Mi-24 first version, with the large glass cabin.

[+streakeagle 871]

It was originally known as the Su-19 Fencer in the West.

There was some confusion in the 1960's/early '70s between the MiG-23 and MiG-25.

Some publications used the name MiG-23 Foxbat.

The old board game, Foxbat and Phantom, used the MiG-23 designation for the Foxbat.

It was 1983 when I found the first books at Walden Books and B. Dalton that described the RAM-L and RAM-K MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters in some detail using DoD artist concepts and/or early prototype satellite photos and TV footage.

I still have those books.

It was feared that the US teen series fighters had been completely outclassed in dogfighting ability.

Bill Gunston was a contributor/author in a lot of those books, and he felt the Harrier made all of the other planes obsolete.

Mike Spick was the other common contributor/author, and he seemed to be more of an F-4/F-15/ATF kind of guy.

I still have and love all of those old books even if some of the information is not as accurate as modern publications.

Public info on MiGs (MiG-17/19/21/23) was surprisingly accurate prior to Glastnost.

Some details were wrong, especially the actual Soviet designation for variants, but big picture details engine and armament were usually pretty close.

A minor fallacy was the belief that Soviets always carried missiles in matched IRM and RHM pairs to be fired together at the same target for increased kill probability.

Until very recently, every source I have says that is the way AA-7s were carried and used on MiG-23s when in reality they usually carried two SARH variants and were not really set up to carry or fire a mixed pair of AA-7s.

[MigBuster 2,884]

That picture is fairly accurate, but it was no Tomcat. It's an F-111-type, plain and simple.

 

I have a book somewhere with an artist's render of the MiG-29 from the early 80s, based on the dodgy satellite photos made public at the time. The nose was fairly accurate, but the aft section looked more like the MiG-25.

 

I think I read in one of Yefim Gordons books that they went to the trouble of sticking false parts on some jets to fool the satellite intel.