It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Soviet Union was obsessed with America’s aircraft carriers. If the Cold War ever became hot, Moscow’s forces planned to launch massive air attacks against any American carriers operating near Soviet territorial waters. Specifically, the Soviet’s naval air force intended to launch a fleet of 100 bombers armed with anti-ship missiles, with the expectation that they would lose at least half of those birds during the strike on any carrier group.

Soviet strategists intended to saturate the air defenses of a carrier group by sending so many planes into the fray. The idea was to stymie and confuse the air controllers in the US Navy carrier groups, overburdening their sensors, and numbing the American air controllers to the profound sense of danger they were in. Soviet planners wanted the Americans to assume that most of the Soviet planes were decoys, when in fact all were fully armed. 

The Soviet Union’s........

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