I’m interested in seeing the AVMF strike plans you found. Is there a way you can share those?

But since I’m only guessing, I would think it would be Kh-25s that would be employed.

I didn’t find any plans I was just guessing too going by the normal weapon loads of VVS su-24 and the performance of their Air-to-surface missiles
Kh-25 is AS-10 Karen ? I m not sure if it can home on to all kinds of radars though, I have asked this on a Russian military forum too so if something comes up there I will post it here as well with permission ofcourse

That was far from TopGun, it was even far from the daily bounces between NATO aircraft. It was something along the line of BFM tactics, with both parties following a scripted sequence of manoeuvres.

The basic use of the MiG-23 would have been similar to the MiG-23, with a pair of fighters being directed by GCI to intercept enemy planes. The better avionics of the MiG-23 should have been an advantage, especially the use of BVR missiles. In the offensive role MiG-23 fighters would use their speed to make slashing attacks against NATO CAPs to open a gap for strikers. High Speed and the use of BVR would give them a decent chance to fire the first shot, which allows them to gain in initiative in the merge, but the high fuel use would mean that they would bingo quickly, especially if they want to get out at high speeds as well. The experience of forgein MiG-23 users can be called a mixed bag. The plane had some serious problems with the avionics in the early versions and was hard to master. Many pilots preferred the MiG-21, which was more nimble.

I have read that the main Mig-23 tactics against other fighters was mainly “hit and run” and to avoid prolonged dogfights
But then I see the Mig-23P, ML, MLA and MLD had the R-60 which was a ultraclose range weapon designed to counter maneuverable fighters ,from a practical standpoint when was the Mig-23 expected to use this weapon ? WHat is the benefit of having 4 of these weapons with a very short range ?
since it was outranged by the sidewinder the Wests most common AAM
Wouldn’t it be better to equip the Mig-23 with 4 x R-24 missiles as they would give them longer spear to deal with the sidewinder armed opponents esp when the IR version of this version was essentially a fire and forget weapon

???

Specifically designed to counter the USN, Soviet Navy was devised with its advantage on sole task of eliminating vessels.

Do you know a man by Hyman G. Rickover?

The admiral ? not much about him why ?

Apologies Nastle not got a lot of time for this site these days!

Last question first….the P-20 Termit did have an IR seeker variant, but, the harbour attacks in Karachi I believe were executed with the ARH version. This was a fairly simple weapon that was set, manually before launch, with a height and a seeker activation time. It was then fired on bearing to target. As I understand it some of the first targets hit in the harbour were some large POL storage tanks….which would fit as being the biggest RF contrast target in FoV on seeker-activation.

Tom Clancy’s vampires in Red Storm Rising have set an assumed pattern for how ‘SeaAir84’ would’ve played out. That wasnt the fight the RN was expecting to find in the Atlantic basin and on transit though. Principle striking arm was always the subs SSGN’s, SSN’s and SS’s in large numbers…small numbers (surface-launched) of large, fast ‘hi-diving’ missiles were the primary concern. The variables are impossible to calculate as they vary with the starting criteria…from which its possible to stack the deck in either direction. My view is that SOSUS and the GIUK choke gave NATO a ‘home field’ advantage that wouldve been hard to beat without some very creative tactics. There were clearly creative thinkers in the Soviet Navy though. This glosses over the key point also though that its also impossible to look at solely the naval arena as if it were divorced from the AirLand campaign. For example Soviet Long Range Aviation would have had to be tasked with interdicting Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Leuchars in support of Atlantic operations.

So, yes, you are correct that Soviet tactics were to coordinate fires from different platforms to split defensive fire and give their missiles/torpedoes the best chances, but, saturation fires with hundreds of inbounds plotted, out in oceanic waters, was largely literary fiction.

Thanks for replying
I forgot to check it myself ! Now forgive for this generalization but I think ( and correct me if I’m wrong ) soviet navy even at its height of the cold war in the mid 80s was a capable force able to counter maybe the combined strength of Japanese/ Turkish/ non-US NATO navies in the Baltic/Barents/Black and Pacific fleet but was never capable enough to beat the USN SAG/CV.(This comparison obviously does not extend to the SLBM from SSBNs)
The anti-ship capabilities of the SSGn/SSN/AV-MF bombers and the “Large rocket ships” of the SOviet navy must have been a huge threat to the Cruisers/Destroyers and frigates of the smaller navies but in time of war could have been easily defeated by 4- 5 carrier battle groups of the USN

Sure I couldn’t comment on the actual GWS60 system we deploy still. Official Secrets Act etc.

I completely understand , Im only interested in the late 80s era anyway

Don’t think it’s revealing much to say that most of the early missiles active seekers required a high RF contrast target though….Harpoon itself was intended to hit surfaced submarines so a standout profile against a flat background. AM39 Exocet similarly had modest seeker resolution leading to the fact that I’ve still never heard of an Exocet that hit a target that was actively countering it!.

Thanks ! Can you comment on the soviet tactics of anti-ship strikes against NATO SAG ? I was reading a book on it by Milan Vego and he said that soviets planned to strike a SAG from multiple directions
SSGN
Crusie missile carrying bombers
Large rocket ships
and lastly by SSN or SS depending on whats available

My humble opnion is that against a USN CV group this will most likely fail given its AEGIS system and long range interceptors F-15/18 can counter saturation tactics
However against other NATO /Allied navy SAG like Japan , FDR, France, turkey etc it might work given in the 80s none of them had the AEGIS system and would be vulnerable esp to the SSN-7/9 launched from submerged SSGN ( like from Charlie class ) and the supersonic AS-4 from AVMF bombers.The sheer numbers probably compensating for accuracy ( even given a hit probability of 10 %) a single hit from a larger soviet missile would likely disable a destroyer/frigate sized ship. Is this a reasonable assumption ?

appreciate your input

Some IR missiles may have had some capability attacking harbour shipping and someone once told me about a capability Sea Eagle had that may have enabled that weapon to be effective in that environment. I would not imagine any of the standard early ARH weapons would have been of huge value in that role though.

DId the soviet short range missiles like Styx , Siren etc have the IR versions ? I wonder if that’s what the indian navy used against pak navy ships at Karachi in 1971

Simple answer is break the kill-chain from the Harpoon-shooter. If the other guy cant find you, localise you or identify you at a range that favours his missile….singularly or in any combination of those factors….he cant shoot at you at all!. Be that for reasons of RoE or a simply a desire to avoid wasting the limited number of available shots!.

If you can complete your kill-chain before he does his you will get your missiles off first every time. Failing that you make sure that you get in amongst a lot of other similar sized surface contacts when the inbound missile kicks into terminal phase seeker switch-on. Active Radar missiles like Harpoon arent that picky on which target they hit!.

How effective were the early model of the Harpoon in the 80s in identifying ships when they are in port , or from other features of the landscape close to shore/cliff/islands/fiords ?

Also I’m sure attacking a Harpoon armed ship from multiple directions will make this problem worse for them

e.g In a standoff between 2 Rastrub armed ships and 2 harpoon armed frigates , if the Rastrub armed ships have friendly nuclear powered submarines available in the vicinity that would certainly help.The submarines can close in on the ships firing torpedoes providing a distraction while it gives time for the rastrub ships to close the range with the Harpoon ships and can engage at roughly equal terms ?