People,
Could you tell me, please, preferrably those who are from MPRA, was there any kind of protection that P-3 crews can get from the fighter/strike fighter carrier-based squadrons while aloft? Let me explain some: while we the Soviets were commissioning the first four VSTOL-carriers of Kiev-class (1973-85), the only fixed-wings aircraft in those airgroups was Yak-38 which was (entered service 1971, effectively grounded in 1991 and written off 1993) an attack aircraft roughly of the same tactical background that Harrier had (firstly the shore-based CAS-able VTOL, based somewhere in European landmass in liaison with the armor avalanche, then when Navy had found out this Yak's existance and tried to adopt it to the flight decks it turned out that it is very hard to improve that poor design much in respect of antishipping, let alone AAW). Indeed, the aircraft could carry just a pair of R-60 WVR missiles and had no radar. And the process of writing the tactical schemes for Yak-38 was left to the squadrons, namely the Naval Attack Air Regiments 279 and 311 in North and Pacific fleets, respectively. Then their papers, based on the evaluation of the plane, were added to Guidance for the Battle Performance of the Naval Aviation. Despite the fact that the main purpose of that Attack Regiment (up to 40 Yaks) deployed aboard of the Kiev-class ship was the secondary strikes on CVGs if they survived the co-ordinated missile strikes from SSGNs, Backfires and guided missile cruisers, there was the phrase there: " If the carrier air group possesses the [truely] fighter-equipped and trained unit, then the main aim of that unit is supposed to be the hunting on Orions/Nimrods just before the start of SSBNs mass deployment through Faroese-Icelandic ASW barrier". When it came to the fifth ship, STOBAR Kuznetsov, this additional phrase became the main one and that is why the beast Su-33, hardly able to be deployed on the ship (designed with Yak-41/141's and MiG-29's moderate dimensions in mind) and full zero in CAS, interdiction and antishipping, but much better interceptor, had been choosen to occupy this flight deck - as anti-MPRA asset it was big step forward. So the question is - could the P-3 or EP-3 operating from Iceland and Norway be defended by some means or they could be an easy prey for Soviet carrier-based fighters?