The second cause for unease concerned changes in SAF operational procedures. Throughout the 1970s, although the SAF re-equipped with aircraft able to carry three times the payload over twice the range of their predecessors, its squadrons tended to fly the same rigidly controlled, highly predictable patterns of attack and defence which had been evident for thirty years. From 1979 onwards, however, articles began to appear in Red Star and some air force journals, purporting to be written by senior officers, which openly commended pilots who had shown initiative in departing from prearranged plans and procedures which, in exercises, they had found to be inadequate. No such noises were heard from the Red Army, which was carrying on in the old familiar straitjacket.
The causes of these changes in the SAF can now be seen more clearly. To operate the Fencer under conditions of inflexible command and control would undermine its long-range potential. Moreover, the considerable investment which the Soviet Union had made in computer-assisted command and control procedures was beginning to pay dividends in easing the enormous airspace management problems created by the large-scale SAM deployment in Eastern Europe. Hitherto, rigid control had not only been politically desirable but it had been adequate for short-range offensive operations and air defence, and had enhanced flight safety in airspace shared at many heights with SAM and guns. There was another factor. Soviet air power doctrine assumed the application of large numbers over very large areas. In the Red Army, with a similar basic philosophy, initiative was expected not so much from a lieutenant as from the commanders at not less than divisional level. In the SAF the operational concept required control and command to be exercised at a level appropriate to the reach and hitting power of the aircraft concerned. Moreover, in pre-planned offensive operations of a kind envisaged by the Warsaw Pact, conformity on the part of individual air crew to the plan had seemed more important than an ability to exercise initiative in adversity. This was the exact opposite of what was to be found in the numerically inferior NATO air forces.
By 1985, however, it was apparent that far-reaching reorganization of command and control in the SAF had been completed. The general staff now controlled the heavy bombers, Bears and Bisons, and the medium bombers, Badgers and Backfires, as two virtually independent air armies. They could, therefore, be directed not only against targets in Europe but in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and, if necessary, the Far East. The shorter-range Floggers and Fencers were controlled at the lower theatre headquarters level, while the fixed-wing aircraft with the shortest range, the SU-17 Fitter Js and SU-25s and remaining MiG-21 Fishbeds, stayed under control of frontal aviation headquarters. Below them, the close air support Hip and Hind helicopters were controlled by the armies. The net result of this reorganization had been to match the level of command with the combat radius of the aircraft, thereby ensuring greater flexibility and concentration of force in relation to the demands of tactical control and rapid response. As has been indicated, however (and we shall be seeing some lively evidence of this in chapter 11), there was room for difference of opinion on what was really meant by flexibility.
At the same time as the command infrastructure had been revised, Soviet operational training also began to approach more closely the potential of the new aircraft. The MiG-23 Flogger G, hitherto flown only as an interceptor, was fitted with underwing rails to take air-to-surface rockets. Flogger squadrons in Eastern Europe began to assume multi-role commitments. Periodically they would deploy to armament camps in central USSR to develop new ground-attack techniques away from the prying eyes of Sentry. On their return, each would demonstrate a marked improvement in weapon delivery. More ominously, exercises involving the co-ordination of three or more air regiments increased in frequency. In the 1970s it had not been uncommon for a squadron of ground-attack Fitters, for example, to be given top cover by a squadron of MiG-21 Fishbeds. By 1984, Flogger Gs or Js could be escorted by entire regiments of other Flogger Gs. Some Western military analysts had expected to see such escort provided by the most recent addition to the MiG-25 family: the two-seat Foxbat F with its improved pulse-doppler radar and long-range air-to-air missiles (AAM). But its basic airframe still made it quite unsuitable for the low-level air-superiority role and its additional weight had actually restricted its combat radius still further. It therefore remained on traditional PVO Strany (Air Defence Force) combat patrols working with IL-76C Cooker, the SAF’s new AEW aircraft developed from the Candid transport.
The advent of Cooker had long been forecast in the West, but even when it began to enter service in 1982 very little was known about its operational capabilities. Its trials and development flying had been carried out in Central Asia out of range of most Western electronic intelligence (ELINT) agencies. It was well known that Soviet radar engineering was in many respects as good as that in the West and that the Candid airframe could provide ample space for bulky Soviet equipment which had not yet fully benefited from the microprocessor revolution. It was possible, therefore, that Cooker’s radar range was similar to that of NATO’s AWACS. If that were so, and if it had similar powers to identify low-flying aircraft and communicate instantaneously with ground and air defences, the task of NATO aircraft attacking deep behind Warsaw Pact lines would become much more difficult.
By January 1985 twenty-four Cookers had come into service. Ten were based in south-eastern Poland out of range of most NATO aircraft, strategically located to fly standing patrols either up towards the Baltic or south-east across Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria. Others patrolled former report lines across the northern USSR. A third detachment operated in the Black Sea, Caucasus and Caspian areas, while three were regularly deployed to the Chinese border regions. The Soviet crews were apparently well trained and well disciplined. Within a very short time NATO specialists were convinced that Cookers were not using anything like all their frequency range or transmitting power while on routine patrols over Eastern Europe. These suspicions were heightened by regular deployments of individual aircraft back to central USSR with two or more regiments of Foxbats and Flogger Gs. Satellite information was sketchy but was sufficient to indicate that the SAF was holding regular exercises similar to the NATO Red Flag series in Nevada run by the USAF in which Soviet air opposition was realistically simulated. In these, Cooker appeared to be locating several low-flying aircraft and either vectoring interceptors directly on to them or relaying target information to ground control units. But unless the full extent of Cooker’s frequencies could be identified, and its operating ranges established, comprehensive ECM could not be prepared by NATO. Not for the first time, however, at least one of NATO’s problems was to be dramatically reduced as a result of endemic weaknesses within the Soviet system, which in this case culminated in what became known as the Gdansk incident. The account of it given below appeared in the December 1986 number of the RUSI Journal published by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, London.