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Did the Soviets & Warsaw Pact ever fly any Adversary type aircraft


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There was a Russian aggressor outfit based in Turkmenia in the 1990's - using MiG-23MLD's and MiG-29's.

The Fulcrum of the 1st Aggressor Sqn sported a sharkmouth and a 'winged 1' on the fin - a cheeky copy of SAC's 'Winged 2' emblem.

The MiG-23MLDs also had a sharkmouth - and a caricature of a Viking on the intake sides.

There are photos of another MiG-29 sporting a copy of the US Navy's VA-176 'Bumblebee' emblem on the fin.

Someone made a nice 1:48 scale model of it here

The old Russian enterprise of Travers did decal sheets in 1:72 scale for both the agressor schemes - and, IIRC, the Bumblebee MiG-29.

Ken

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I thought the Soviets flew an adversary-type unit out of Mary AB in the late 70's / early 80's using MiG-21's with some unusual color schemes? They weren't NATO schemes but seemed to be non-standard compared to other -21's.

Somewhere online (maybe even on this site), I thought I saw some pics. I'll try to find them when I get a few minutes.

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With the „arrival†of cruise missiles on European soil on each Hungarian fighter base a mock up of a cruise missile was built (the best and most authentic looking one was at Taszar base) and put up on a range for the pilots to fly against. But these were stationary imitations. At the same time each base had to have a dissimilar painted aircraft to serve as a target and fly low level profiles for the fighters searching for cruise missiles. I know its not a NATO style camo but it was very different from the standard paint scheme in Hungarian AF. Something close to what the original question was.

Best regards

Gabor

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A buddy of mine recently did a model of an agressor Mig-29 which had the classic A-1 Skyraider tail artwork of a stinging bee (can't remember the squadron that carried it, but it was a popular one).

I am kind of curious as to what tactics they used myself.

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A buddy of mine recently did a model of an agressor Mig-29 which had the classic A-1 Skyraider tail artwork of a stinging bee (can't remember the squadron that carried it, but it was a popular one).

I am kind of curious as to what tactics they used myself.

See my post #3.

Ken

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After the breakup of the USSR and the loss of 1521st air base to independent Turkmenistan, the 'aggressor' mission for the Russian AF was transferred to the 116th combat employment center in Astrakhan-Privolzhskiy, flying MiG-29s and -23s.

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They knew a bit more than you would imagine about Western tactics. . .

Best regards

Gabor

From all I have read, the Warsaw Pact forces had a good understanding of NATO technology and tactics, both from studying all the open-source info out there and also from their very efficient espionage operations.

I think that many folks in the West tend to sell them a bit short, especially their state of preparedness. My guess is that they were probably at the top of their game by the mid-80's.

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They knew a bit more than you would imagine about Western tactics. . .

Best regards

Gabor

To be more precise, they knew everything about western tactics and combat readiness. And not only thanks to their spies, but thanks to the high ranked western officers and politicians! :)

I can confirm that Ex-Yugoslavia was exceptionally well informed about western tactics and combat readiness as well! :woot.gif:

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From all I have read, the Warsaw Pact forces had a good understanding of NATO technology and tactics, both from studying all the open-source info out there and also from their very efficient espionage operations.

I think that many folks in the West tend to sell them a bit short, especially their state of preparedness. My guess is that they were probably at the top of their game by the mid-80's.

:D, Yes John, I've reckoned for years that we've been selling them short and we're in big part still selling them short. But then again that's just my opinion.

:cheers:,

Ross.

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To be more precise, they knew everything about western tactics and combat readiness.

The same goes for the other side too! This was the cat and mouse gave of the cold war, those in the know knew exactly what they where up against, this is why neither dared to pull the triger. Thankfully!!!

Best regards

Gabor

Edited by ya-gabor
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See my post #3.

Ken

DOH!!!! :doh:

Concerning the question of tactics, while I have no doubt the Soviets were well aware of our combat tactics, I am curious as to how they were employed in training. I mean, in the West we favor individual action compared to strict ground control and/or wingman tactics. Now granted if overall tactics involve showing the might of the Soviet Air Force in strict coordination of combat compared to a few individual "cowboy" pilots, I can see that. But, in 1 vs 1 dogfights (or 2 vs 2) things are a bit more blurred as individual initiative becomes a big key in such fights since the planes are most certainly "fangs out" at that point and no ground control will help them unless it involves vectoring other jets in for assistance to gang bang the bandit while he is tied up with one plane in a furball. So I am a bit curious as to if the attempts were made to keep things as close to real world as possible or not.

Edited by Jay Chladek
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In every air force you will find “Maverick’s†who excel in every bit their colleagues within the unit. I would say that most of the pilots are average or . . . and there are only a few who have true “individuality†in every respect and can become a true ACE if it comes to it. The rest will go by the book. No mater if it is a red star or a star and bars he (or she) has on the aircraft in which he (or she) goes into battle. For many of the pilots that I know it is just a job, they go to the base in the morning and go home after 5. They do the job OK but that special spark is missing from them. I have to say that on my visit to a US carrier I have also found similar attitude with some of the pilots so it is not a question of nationality.

It is a small elite of every airforce that will be willing and capable of stepping a bit further and learn more on what he should do and what the other side is going to do or wants to do. This is the real problem but also (if we stay with the Russians) a lot of lessons were learned in Afganistan and by reading through some of the accounts of pilots involved the real problem was that little of the lessons was passed on to other pilots. The reasons for this are very wide to go into but in the end a lot of the experience was lost while it should have been incorporated in the syllabus.

There is a time and place for individual action just as for following the instructions of a ground control (or airborne control, word AWACS ring a bell?).

Best regards

Gabor

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Concerning the question of tactics, while I have no doubt the Soviets were well aware of our combat tactics, I am curious as to how they were employed in training. I mean, in the West we favor individual action compared to strict ground control and/or wingman tactics. Now granted if overall tactics involve showing the might of the Soviet Air Force in strict coordination of combat compared to a few individual "cowboy" pilots, I can see that. But, in 1 vs 1 dogfights (or 2 vs 2) things are a bit more blurred as individual initiative becomes a big key in such fights since the planes are most certainly "fangs out" at that point and no ground control will help them unless it involves vectoring other jets in for assistance to gang bang the bandit while he is tied up with one plane in a furball. So I am a bit curious as to if the attempts were made to keep things as close to real world as possible or not.

From reading about US aggressor units, especially the folks who flew actual Migs, I can see how the Soviets and Warsaw Pact forces could have used simulated NATO tactics to train not only the pilots, but also ground control and AA units. There are a lot of chess style moves before it turns into a furball and like chess, it is helpful to know the likely counter to the move that you want to make. Ultimately if you can kill or drive off the enemy without a dogfight, that's better. I think the fancy adversary camo and markings are mostly for esprit de corps. It's the tactics that are really important.

Through some trial and error, the North Vietnamese learned how to use Soviet style (strict ground control and coordinated AA) tactics to great advantage against the US, only rarely getting involved in dogfights. Adversary "war games" are supposed to let a force experience that trial and error without getting killed in the process. The more realistic the adversary, the better the result.

Edited by dmk0210
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11bee, on 11 April 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

I think that many folks in the West tend to sell them a bit short, especially their state of preparedness. My guess is that they were probably at the top of their game by the mid-80's.

:D, Yes John, I've reckoned for years that we've been selling them short and we're in big part still selling them short. But then again that's just my opinion.

:cheers:,

Ross.

You gents are welcome to your opinions. As a member of the intelligence community during a good chunk of the cold war years, I can assure you the DoD took the Warsaw Pact countries VERY seriously. Do you know what it took to divert $ from the DoD budget start ACM training during the Viet Nam war? Trust me, no one who 'was there' and had access thought the Soviets and/or their satellite states were ill-prepared or incapable. We were betting our lives on it.

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The thing is, many air forces besides the U.S. (including Russia) have such cool paint schemes already. Most (almost all or all) U.S. F-16s, F15s, etc. (besides aggressor/adversary units) have the same, or very similar schemes that are uniform and can arguably be called boring. The whole point of many a modeler for building any Mig or Su, or any U.S. aggressor scheme is the paint scheme. When it comes to people building (or wanting to build) A/C in other forces colors, the lion's share of modelers are probably "Western" builders admiring "Eastern" schemes rather than "Eastern" builders admiring that really neat-o scheme applied to the Hornet.

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know the Czechs had some L-29s painted up in US Markings. They were supposed to represent F-84Es in the very early 70s

Two L-29R's were painted with USAF marking for movie "Vysoka modra zed" (High blue wall) only, not for training purposes.

Delfin_USAF_02.jpg

Delfin_USAF_01.jpg

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