Arthur, I know they did do those huge excersises on a regular level, but imho not regular enough to get a decent training from it. They worked under the conditions given by the ecercises they made. But those exercises were very much pre-planed so the outcome was know before the exercise started.
Daily training on the other hand consisted of more or less boring and routine flying. For the NVA (East German Airforce) it was often limited to easy intercepts and navigational training. Very few air to air training.
If you look at the time a carrier airwing needs to train before they are able to really function as one big alpha strike, then I think the training given by the WarPac would not have been enough.
12 Mi-6 or 20+ Mi-8 + Mi-24 is a pretty strong force, or a pretty huge target, for fighters, SAMs, AA and manpads.
Those raids would have been unstoppable, but I´m not sure how many raids they could have actually made before losses would have made those huge formations small.
I´m not sure if those war would have gone nuclear that quickly. I think Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the other NATO countries close to the frontline would have objected to NATO first strikes on their country. (Better Red then dead)
The critical time would have been, if NATO forces would have been able to stop the advance of the WarPac forces. Depending on the saituation in the North Atlantic (reeinforcements coming through from the US or not) this could have been decision time for the WarPac. Nuke a hole into the defensive line, or face a long and bloody stalemate.
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