In 1983 the odds of a bolt out of the blue attack by the USSR actually succeeding in being a PH type surprise was close to zero. There were all sorts of indicators that would be impossible to hide such as surging of submarines well above normal patterns, forward displacement of strategic bombers in significant numbers form home bases deep in the USSR to forward fields, and so forth.(1) If it looked like things were going to happen, then any trailers, sub/surface/air within range of a CVBG are going to be tracked with a hair trigger and smacked the moment the shooting starts. Unless the airstrikes are already on the way and relatively close, targeting data is lost, and if there are air strikes already launched they will be noted and surprise lost. The Atlantic and Pacific will provide lots of hiding space, any CVBG in the Med are likely to have a worse time of it.
Antiship ballistic missiles have the advantage of being difficult to intercept, however they need to be nuclear armed to be effective. They will still take 10 minutes or so from launch which means the target can move 2-3nm from the aiming point, so they need some sort of terminal guidance which can be spoofed. I doubt they can use IR due to the heating of reentry. Also all missiles have a CEP issue, and this is large enough so that a conventional warhead if it does not score a direct hit won't do much if any damage.
(1) For strategic bomber attacks on the USA, the home bases of most of the strategic bomber force of the USSR were too far away. The USSR had very limited tanker ability, so unless missions were guaranteed to be one way, strategic bombers would stage forward to bases closer to the USA. This sort of thing was exercised, however it was felt that if the USSR planned a strike the movement would be much larger both for attack and dispersal purposes as the major bases were going to go away pretty quickly.
Antiship ballistic missiles have the advantage of being difficult to intercept, however they need to be nuclear armed to be effective. They will still take 10 minutes or so from launch which means the target can move 2-3nm from the aiming point, so they need some sort of terminal guidance which can be spoofed. I doubt they can use IR due to the heating of reentry. Also all missiles have a CEP issue, and this is large enough so that a conventional warhead if it does not score a direct hit won't do much if any damage.
(1) For strategic bomber attacks on the USA, the home bases of most of the strategic bomber force of the USSR were too far away. The USSR had very limited tanker ability, so unless missions were guaranteed to be one way, strategic bombers would stage forward to bases closer to the USA. This sort of thing was exercised, however it was felt that if the USSR planned a strike the movement would be much larger both for attack and dispersal purposes as the major bases were going to go away pretty quickly.