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Background Use 
Only
Do Not Reproduce
Summary of Initial Missions
In the period from 20 June to 10 July 1956 the Soviet Bloc air defense
system as subjected to eight penetrations of an unprecedented nature, seven
occurning within a period of only eight days. It must be remembered that
24 COMI provides the only basis of judging the performance of the Soviet
system. This is important because it is clear from REGAL material that
considerable air defense business is conducted over landlines and thus not j
observed by COMINT. However, some tentative conclusions may be drawn from
These initial flights and these are indicated as follows:
1. In spite of the fact that these missions come as a surprise,
none of them went undetected. This is clear evidence that their
radar coverage extends above (72,000 feet.
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2. By 5 July 1956, the fourth flight, the USSR was aware
of the purpose of the missions 
and were taking counter action.
One positive action was the 
standdown of civil flights while 
the
mission aircraft was over the 
USSR, and a second action which is
believed related is the moving 
of MIG-19 aircraft into East
Germany and Poland on 7 July 
1956. Also MIG-19's were moved
into Hungary at about this 
time.
3. The performance of the Soviet system on the 5 July mission,
While the action evident from (COMENT) 24
2014, was indeed curious.
is not clear an explanation which appears to fit the 
known facts
As 
a result of the previous missions, the
is offered as follows:
Soviets had concluded the essential facts concerning 
the missions
,
24
JJ
They
feet, and that a penetration as deep as Moscow was possible.
probably surmised that the 
5 July mission was headed for 
Moscow when
the track appeared on a 
northeasterly heading. The loss of the
target when it entered Soviet 
territory was probably deliberate 
and
the "red herring" track 
returning to the west was either a dodge
or a convenience to avoid 
broadcasting a track for all the system
to see that a "hostile or 
intruder" was coming over Moscow with 
no
This idea is supported by the use
means available to stop it.
of a raid number assigned in the region just beyond the 
point
In addition, the track was 
not
where the track had been 
"lost".
labeled "hostile or intruder
" 
when it was broadcast after 
it
The 
reporting of the track when 
it did
had passed beyond Moscow.
appear was only by Moscow and it has been suggested 
that other
stations had been 
instructed not to broadcast the track.
or may not be a coincidence that 
the height broadcast was 
almost
exactly half of the true 
altitude of the mission aircraft, but 
on
the next missions, four days 
later, the altitude reporting was
consistently above 50,000 
feet.
Further, it may
4. By 9 July 1956, in addition to the evident recognition of
the great height of the mission 
flights, tracking was better and
in general the performance 
of the warning system was much improved
.
5. The next day, 10 July 1956, the Soviet air defense warning
system closed a 3000 mile track 
with only two short periods of
Altitude reporting was over 60,000 
feet
confusion or track loss.
with one plot passed 68,800 which was only 100 feet 
off target.
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6. The first eight missions proved that the air defense warning
This was evident from both the continuity
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system is deployed in depth..
of track and most forcefully from the ELINT data collected.
intercepts of Soviet Bloc 
radars operating in the 3000 mc/s 
band were
TOKEN-1331, WHIFF-37, GAGE-26,
obtained by project ET.INT 
as follows:
These 
numbers cannot be equated to in-
PATTY CAKE-37, Other 30.
Because
Some
dividual radar sets since the same radar may be intercepted more than
once. 618 TOKEN sites were 
located, including 213 new sites.
343 additional TOKEN signals 
were identified but available 
information
does not permit determination 
of location so that it must be con-
cluded that these signals 
include both known and new sites.
of the limitation of ELINT 
to the 3000 mc/s band and the 
Soviet
practice of collocating 
radars on different frequencies the total
number of radars may be expected 
to be at least double the number
of sites.
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7. Confusion and track loss seemed to be related to the 99
presence of large numbers of fighters although the saturation point
has not 
been determined because of insufficient data.
8. The question of radars for height finding, the capabilities
of TOKEN in this role, the introduction of ROCK CAKES and later
developments are discussed in another section. It is believed,
however, that these missions were a catalyst in the introduction
of ROCK 
CAKES.
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