Soviet frontal air defence solely based on SAM

[Khanzeer]

How will the soviet air defences be affected if there were no tactical fighters in VVS and frontal aviation only had strike planes and only SAM for air defence in the 1955 to 1990 era
So no mig21, mig23, mig29 for VVS
Just mobile SAM units to provide umbrella over advancing soviet army or to defend it from air attacks

They opted out of it for whatever reason maybe
1 failure to match NATO fighters in quality
2 poor fighter pilot training
3 more faith in SAM , concern for friendly fire
4 trying to devote more resources to ground forces and in their opinion strike planes in frontal aviation are far more important

How will this affect the soviet air doctrine ?




PVO however will continue to have similar number of interceptors as in OTL as its impossible to cover the land mass of USSR from air attacks

 

[Michele]

How will this affect the soviet air doctrine ?

Badly.

In case of war, the NATO/OTAN will field anti-SAM attacks first. HARM strikes against the radars, and the like. The Soviets will face the dilemma: turn it on and be hit, or keep it off and see nothing? They might wait to power their radars on, but anti-radar Western "Wild Weasel" aircraft can loiter over the battlefield, waiting for the radars to come online; they do not have to worry about being intercepted by enemy fighters.

Once the SAMs are neutralized, not only jet strike aircraft, but also attack helicopters, and slow ground attack airplanes, will not need to fear the worst threat for them, enemy fighters. The sky will be full of death for the Soviet ground troops.

All of that, with the Westerners having a full picture of the air theater, because they have their AWACS airborne. The lack of frontal fighter defense means the Soviets, on the contrary, have given up keeping their Mainstays in the air, so they have a poor picture of what's going on.

 

[Khanzeer]

Badly.

In case of war, the NATO/OTAN will field anti-SAM attacks first. HARM strikes against the radars, and the like. The Soviets will face the dilemma: turn it on and be hit, or keep it off and see nothing? They might wait to power their radars on, but anti-radar Western "Wild Weasel" aircraft can loiter over the battlefield, waiting for the radars to come online; they do not have to worry about being intercepted by enemy fighters.

Once the SAMs are neutralized, not only jet strike aircraft, but also attack helicopters, and slow ground attack airplanes, will not need to fear the worst threat for them, enemy fighters. The sky will be full of death for the Soviet ground troops.

All of that, with the Westerners having a full picture of the air theater, because they have their AWACS airborne. The lack of frontal fighter defense means the Soviets, on the contrary, have given up keeping their Mainstays in the air, so they have a poor picture of what's going on.

Great points
What can the Soviets do to minimize their disadvantages ?
Make all SAM mobile?
Use ground jammers to block the frequencies of airborne NATO radars
Can they use ground based flares / chaff to counter ARM ?

 

[AdA]

If you're suggesting renouncing the fighter aircraft component of air defense that would be a crazy proposal that would send it's soviet author to a rest facility of the Siberian kind.
The Soviet doctrine rested in offensive operations, that required projecting air superiority forward, both to allow strike aircraft to operate and to provide cover to forward elements.
If the OP had used this POD for a country like Switzerland, with a defensive doctrine, it could generate a more interesting debate.

 

[Michele]

Make all SAM mobile?

That's default for frontal assets, but makes no difference. Operating radars can't move to dodge a Mach 2 missile.

Use ground jammers to block the frequencies of airborne NATO radars

Hmm. If the Soviet radars are emitting, then it's not NATO/OTAN active radars that spot and target them. It's passive radar detectors. I doubt they are that vulnerable to ECM jamming.

Can they use ground based flares / chaff to counter ARM ?

Flares are meaningless, they interfere with IR homing, we're talking about anti-radiation missiles.
Chaff works on active radar homing. We're (mainly) talking passive radar homing here.
The AGM-88 (available only after 1985) also had a home-on-jamming system. The AGM-78B (1969) could hunt through several radio bands and did remember where it was heading once locked on a target, so that turning the radar off, or achieving successful signal jamming, after that moment was - too late.

 

[AdA]

Forward deployed SAM, once located, are premium targets for long range artilery, against which there are no ECM options.

 

[Khanzeer]

[QUOTE="AdA, post: 19170293, member:
If the OP had used this POD for a country like Switzerland, with a defensive doctrine, it could generate a more interesting debate.[/QUOTE]
Agreed
How will a defensive doctrine benefit from SAM only defence ?

 

[Orcbuster]

Why would they do this?

 

[Michele]

A bad idea?

 

[Khanzeer]

A bad idea?

Totally
Main purpose of this thread was to illustrate the importance of FA fighter force in soviet air defences.

 

[Khanzeer]

If the OP had used this POD for a country like Switzerland, with a defensive doctrine, it could generate a more interesting debate.

lets do that , how do you suggest that a country like switzerland or a similar state with a defensive doctrine can rely on SAMs only ?
thanks

 

[Roches]

lets do that , how do you suggest that a country like switzerland or a similar state with a defensive doctrine can rely on SAMs only ?
thanks

I think it can be done. Let’s not carry it to unrealistic extremes, though — they’re allowed to have short-range AAMs like Sidewinder or Atoll. Just no dedicated fighters or BVR missiles. If the country has access to the whole range of Soviet missiles, it’s entirely doable. They had a layered system of long-range, medium-range, short-range and man-portable SAMs. For, say, Hungary or Czechoslovakia, long-range SAMs would be far more cost-effective than MiG-25s or -31s. SAMs are cost-effective generally for minor powers and satellite states. One important benefit is that it’s harder to attack dispersed SAM sites than it is to blow up a handful of front-line interceptors on the ground in the first 30 minutes.

HARM didn’t enter service until 1985, and, like any new weapon, it would’ve taken time before it was available in quantity at the right places. (Aside, the same applies to AMRAAM.) By that time, things are beginning to look very bad for the WP militarily and politically. So, during the time when there was something of a balance, NATO has Shrike, Standard and Martel. NATO neglected ARMs at their own peril, I think. (The WP had several long- and short-ranged ARMs before 1985, though not a good medium-range one.)

Even OTL, WP SAMs gave satellite states such as Hungary an IADS that was, I think, superior to that of West Germany or Italy. Making their MiG-21s and 23s ground-attack only won’t change much — actually, they’d probably do more good that way. The F-15s will eat them up regardless, so dropping some bombs in their short lives will count for more than not winning any air-to-air victories.

 

[Alanith]

lets do that , how do you suggest that a country like switzerland or a similar state with a defensive doctrine can rely on SAMs only ?
thanks

It can't. SAM's can't force an intruder to land at an airbase, or go out and see what they actually are, recon plane or airliner full of 400 tourists that got lost.

 

[Khanzeer]

I think it can be done. Let’s not carry it to unrealistic extremes, though — they’re allowed to have short-range AAMs like Sidewinder or Atoll. Just no dedicated fighters or BVR missiles. If the country has access to the whole range of Soviet missiles, it’s entirely doable. They had a layered system of long-range, medium-range, short-range and man-portable SAMs. For, say, Hungary or Czechoslovakia, long-range SAMs would be far more cost-effective than MiG-25s or -31s. SAMs are cost-effective generally for minor powers and satellite states. One important benefit is that it’s harder to attack dispersed SAM sites than it is to blow up a handful of front-line interceptors on the ground in the first 30 minutes.

HARM didn’t enter service until 1985, and, like any new weapon, it would’ve taken time before it was available in quantity at the right places. (Aside, the same applies to AMRAAM.) By that time, things are beginning to look very bad for the WP militarily and politically. So, during the time when there was something of a balance, NATO has Shrike, Standard and Martel. NATO neglected ARMs at their own peril, I think. (The WP had several long- and short-ranged ARMs before 1985, though not a good medium-range one.)

Even OTL, WP SAMs gave satellite states such as Hungary an IADS that was, I think, superior to that of West Germany or Italy. Making their MiG-21s and 23s ground-attack only won’t change much — actually, they’d probably do more good that way. The F-15s will eat them up regardless, so dropping some bombs in their short lives will count for more than not winning any air-to-air victories.

how would the layered SAM system work lets say in 1982
will it look something like ?
SA-2, SA-4, SA-5 for long range
, SA-6,SA-3, for medium range
SA-9, SA-8 , ZSU-23 short range
and lots of SA-7 for helos and low altitude CAS planes ?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Badly.

In case of war, the NATO/OTAN will field anti-SAM attacks first. HARM strikes against the radars, and the like. The Soviets will face the dilemma: turn it on and be hit, or keep it off and see nothing? They might wait to power their radars on, but anti-radar Western "Wild Weasel" aircraft can loiter over the battlefield, waiting for the radars to come online; they do not have to worry about being intercepted by enemy fighters.

Eh, taking out SAMs and ground based radars has never really been as easy as you are making it out to be, save against rank incompetents. It is true, however, that fighters participating in an IADS with a layered ground based air defense system are going to be far more effective than ground based defenses alone.

 

[AdA]

lets do that , how do you suggest that a country like switzerland or a similar state with a defensive doctrine can rely on SAMs only ?
thanks

By going for a defense in depth, with redundant radar systems and a resilient C2 structure, that allowed for hostile aircraft to be engaged by overlapping layers of SAM soon as they entered Swiss air space.
The problems would be
1. The need for a lot of SAM units, since attacking aircraft could just fly around a too thinly spread defensive net.
2. No peace time "turn around or we'll shot" visual capability.
3. The need for a very well protected C2
System and logistics that could operate under a sustained bombing campaign.
The Swiss could create a decentralized Web of Stinger units, all getting early warning from a national network, overlapping another Web of medium range SAM (Roland, Hawk) with Patriot batteries covering the main targets and providing high altitude interdiction.

 

[marathag]

Great points
What can the Soviets do to minimize their disadvantages ?
Make all SAM mobile?
Use ground jammers to block the frequencies of airborne NATO radars
Can they use ground based flares / chaff to counter ARM ?

From LINK

At 8 p.m. on March 27, 1999, a bizarre-looking black painted airplane cut through the night sky over Serbia. This particular F-117 Nighthawk—a subsonic attack plane that was the world’s first operational stealth aircraft—flew by the call sign of Vega-31 and was named “Something Wicked.” Moments earlier, it had released its two Paveway laser-guided bombs on targets near the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade. Its pilot, Lt. Col. Dale Zelko, was a veteran with experience in the 1991 Gulf War.

A dozen Nighthawks had deployed to Aviano, Italy on February 21 to participate in Operation Allied Force—a NATO bombing campaign intended to pressure Belgrade into withdrawing its troops from the province of Kosovo after President Slobodan Milosevic initiated a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign seeking to expel the Kosovar Albanian population.


The Yugoslav National Army (JNA) possessed a mix S-75 and S-125 surface-to-air missile systems dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, as well as more recent 2K12 Kub mobile SAMs and MiG-29 Fulcrum twin-engine fighters. Together these posed a moderate threat to NATO warplanes, forcing them to fly at higher altitudes and be escorted by radar-jamming planes like the EA-6B Prowler.


However, that evening the Prowlers were grounded by bad weather. Something Wicked and her three flight mates were dispatched anyway because their faceted surfaces drastically reduced the range at which they could be detected by radar and shot at.


Suddenly, Zelko spotted two bright dots blasting upwards through the clouds below, closing on him at three-and-a-half times the speed of sound. These were radar-guided V-601M missiles, fired from the quadruple launch rails of an S-125M Neva surface-to-air missile system. Boosted by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket motors, one of the six-meter long missiles zipped so close that it shook Vega 31 planes with its passage. The other detonated its 154-pound proximity-fused warhead, catching Zelko’s jet in the blast that sprayed 4,500 metal fragments in the air.


Something Wicked lost control and plunged towards the ground inverted. The resulting g-force was so powerful Zelko only barely managed to grasp the ejection ring and escape the doomed Nighthawk.


How had a dated Serbian missile system shot down a sophisticated (though no longer state-of-the-art) stealth fighter?


Zelko’s adversary that evening was Serbian Col. Zoltán Dani, commander of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade. Dani was by all accounts a highly motivated commander who studied earlier Western air-defense suppression tactics. He redeployed his Neva batteries frequently, in contrast to the static posture adopted by ill-fated Iraqi and Syrian missile defenses in the Middle East. He permitted his crews to activating their active targeting radars for no longer than twenty seconds, after which they were required to redeploy, even if they had not opened fire.


The S-125M wasn’t normally considered a ‘mobile’ SAM system, but Zoltan had his unit drilled to redeploy the weapons in just 90 minutes (the standard time required is 150 minutes), a procedure facilitated by halving the number of launchers in his battery. While his batteries shuttled from one site to another, Dani also setup dummy SAM sites and decoy targeting radars taken from old MiG fighters to divert NATO anti-radiation missiles.



Thanks to the decoys and constant movement, Zoltan’s unit didn’t lose a single SAM battery despite the twenty-three HARM missiles shot at him by NATO war planes.


Dani had noticed that his battery’s P-18 “Spoon Rest-D” long-range surveillance radar was able to provide a rough track of Nighthawks within a 15-mile range when tuned down to the lowest possible bandwidth—so low, in fact, that NATO radar-warning receivers were not calibrated to detect it. (Dani initially claimed he had modified the P-18’s hardware to achieve this, but later admitted this was a hoax.)

However, low-bandwidth radars are imprecise and cannot provide a ‘weapons-grade’ lock. However, that the NATO mission planners had complacently scheduled the stealth bombers on predictable, routine flight patterns. Worse, the Serbs had managed to break into NATO communications and could overhear conversations between U.S. fighters and the airborne radar planes directing them, allowing Dani to piece together a accurate picture of those routines.

So there are a few things can be done, as well as work on an integrated radar network, like the US SAGE, so one radar could 'share' return info

 

[marathag]

The other thing the Soviet Bloc SAMs could do to be more a threat, is to use the top vector attack like the Talos and Nike Hercules: both would go high above the illuminated target, then attack from a dive.

Soviet SAMs were able to be seen easily from launch, from the boosters smoke trail. Seeing from above from when the missile is in sustainer or glide mode, far harder to spot and then to plan evasive maneuvers

 

[Dilvish]

Relying on SAMs alone means you can't move fighters around to meet changing threats. Can't concentrate fighter squadrons where the enemy is making a major aerial effort. It is faster to move planes around than it is to move heavy missile batteries. I assume you would still want fighters around to escort strike aircraft, cover helicopters, and the like.

 

[Blue cat]

How will the soviet air defences be affected if there were no tactical fighters in VVS and frontal aviation only had strike planes and only SAM for air defence in the 1955 to 1990 era
So no mig21, mig23, mig29 for VVS
Just mobile SAM units to provide umbrella over advancing soviet army or to defend it from air attacks

They opted out of it for whatever reason maybe
1 failure to match NATO fighters in quality
2 poor fighter pilot training
3 more faith in SAM , concern for friendly fire
4 trying to devote more resources to ground forces and in their opinion strike planes in frontal aviation are far more important

How will this affect the soviet air doctrine ?




PVO however will continue to have similar number of interceptors as in OTL as its impossible to cover the land mass of USSR from air attacks

IMHO,

I suspect if the Soviets had attempted this in the 1950's and 1960's the experiences of the Vietnamese in countering the line backer raids in 1972 and the Arab experiences in the Yom Kippur war and the subsequent conflict over Lebanon in 1983 would lead to a change in doctrine.

Edit to add:
I suspect the U.S. use of PGM's over North Vietnam and their ability to fly high altitude B52 missions over areas defended by SAM's would have been a significant wake up call. (Ie visions of USAF aircraft being able to potentially roam the rear areas of a Soviet Army while flying high enough to avoid most guns and many SAMS, while employing PGM's against high value targets would likely be an unpleasant thought for the Red Army.)