The Balloon Goes Up 

I really do think that this is precisely the scenario, era and plane/map/asset collection that ED should be focusing on. The issues about classified materials make Modern too patchy & inconsistent, whereas the 60’s-80’s stuff is likely to be more accessible for development and depiction. . Also Redfor has some actual parity in the form of the Su-25, Mi-8, Mi-24, MiG-21bis, and hopefully the MiG-23 (fingers crossed it isn’t deceased) and the MiG-29A. Great stuff and looking forward to more!

Apologies if this was previously mentioned, but a fun fact is that the situation would be even more dire, as the A-10A we have is actually an early-mid 1990's LASTE variant. The Low Altitude Safety and Targeting Enhancements upgrade is what gave the A-10A its upgrade autopilot, law altitude warnings, and most importantly CCIP capability, so our hogs in the late 70s and 80s (even desert storm outside of a few lucky) all had to use conventional tables and mk.1 eyeballs like some older aircraft. The A-10s in your scenario in a real hot war would have an infinitely more difficult time without LASTE, but they at least would have mavericks and PAVEPENNY (1978) laser spotting!

I'd love a Fulda map

When I was in the Army in the early 70's, we were warned we would not have air superiority for at least a week. We as an operational unit (3rd Armored Division) at the company level would survive as a unit for only 72 hours at best.

"all because of 99 airbaloons..."

Thank you for making this interesting and informative video Iain.

So glad you’re doing this series, I was just thinking about what this would look like. I’ve been playing ghpc and looking forward to Sea Power. Both of those heavily feature this era of the Cold War and really inspired me to think about how to approximate this in DCS.

Nice setup. Looking forward to hearing how it all plays out.

Wow this was great. Learned a lot and very well put together!

Really excited about this!

How confident are you that USAF evaluated the IADS effect on tacair particularly with regards to how long it would take to secure air superiority agains swarms of Soviet interceptors operating within their own GCI/SAM coverage? That is a complex and multi-threat environment and Redfor only has to operate almost like a fleet in being to complicate the strategic picture. If that process took days or even weeks, how many German airfields did USAF even think would be left?

Oh cool, a new series on my favorite what-if scenario! The A-10s would certainly have a rough time if the MIGs of the VVS or WarPac forces got through to them.

So, you're not really concentrating on a WarPac IADS system? Is this when the WarPac burst through the borders into Germany? Or at a later stage of the conflict? I've read many autobiographies of F-4, A-10 and F-16 pilots where they tell how the air would be HUGELY contested and filled with aircraft from both sides. Low altitude would have been the order of the day given the layered air defenses. Just look at what happened to the Israeli air force during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. They encountered MASSIVE layered SAM/AAA defenses that took them completely by surprise. The Egyptians were using the Soviet model.

I'll be patiently waiting for the next video in this series. 😁

Look mom! I lived in the red zone. 😂 And a complete soviet T-64 brigade was hiding in my town's forest.