In 1979, Adolf Georgievich Tolkachev, an electronics engineer who was working as one of the chief designers at the Phazotron Design Bureau, became disappointed by the persecution of his wife’s parents and the communist rule in general
In line with the widespread tendency to disparage Arab armed forces—especially the Iraqi military—most accounts of aerial warfare in the 1991 Second Persian Gulf War ignore a crucial espionage case from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
As Tom Cooper describes in his book In the Claws of the Tomcat: US Navy F-14 Tomcats in Air Combat against Iran and Iraq, 1987–2000, in 1979 Adolf Georgievich Tolkachev—an electronics engineer serving as one of the chief designers at the Scientific Research Institute of Radar (NIIR or NII Radar, now better known as the Phazotron Design Bureau), the Soviet Union’s largest developer of military radars and avionics—became disillusioned by the persecution of his wife’s parents and by communist rule in general. As a result, he secretly made contact with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Moscow and began passing on vast amounts of highly classified, extremely sensitive information about the key radars and weapons systems used in Soviet-built aircraft.
Tolkachev supplied such a vast quantity of material that CIA translators could not keep pace with processing it. In fact, well into the 1990s—years after he had been exposed to the Soviets by a mole inside the US intelligence community and arrested in early 1985—US intelligence was still translating and analyzing the information he had provided.
Although the CIA has never disclosed exact specifics, the available evidence indicates that Tolkachev’s intelligence was instrumental in prompting the USAF to completely redesign the electronic systems for its newest fighter aircraft in 1979. A CIA internal review from March 1980 praised the Soviet source for delivering information of unprecedented quality and noted that this data had already been put into operational use. Then, in April 1980, another internal memorandum described his material on jam-resistance tests for Soviet fighter radar systems as ‘unique,’ underscoring that he was supplying information unobtainable by any other means.
Just a few months later, Tolkachev was credited with ‘providing unique intelligence on a new Soviet fighter aircraft, and documents on several new models of airborne missile systems.’ Likewise, a September 1980 memorandum from the Department of Defense described the value of his reporting as ‘limitless’ in terms of improving the effectiveness of US military systems and ‘its potential to save lives and equipment… instrumental in shaping the course of billions of dollars in US research and development activities…’
Although Moscow has remained completely silent about the case to this day, analysis of related reports suggests that Tolkachev inflicted irreparable harm on the Soviet defense sector, particularly its aviation industry. It is almost certain that his betrayal also played a significant role in helping the United States and its allies defeat the Iraqi Air Force (IrAF) in 1991.
Tolkachev compromised an entire generation of advanced fighter aircraft—among them the MiG-29, MiG-31, and Su-27, along with their weapon systems—making it possible to develop effective electronic countermeasures against them even before they entered frontline service in the 1980s.
According to Cooper, especially, ‘the Su-27 proved to be anything but “ideal” as an air superiority fighter in real combat because of Tolkachev’s affair.
‘In real combat, the decisive factor was the poor cockpit ergonomics and complex avionics, combined with the fact that the aircraft was still depending on ages-old R-27s (yes, these were compromised by Tolkachev, too). The primary issue is nearly always that of actually finding and detecting the target: even a reasonably advanced LD/SD-radar/weapons system (like that on the Su-27) is not ‘always and 100% reliably’ going to detect a ‘target’ moving within its detection & engagement envelope.
‘On the contrary, in the case of such systems, like on the vanilla Su-27, it’s not going to do that in even 50% of cases. Moreover, even once it detects and tracks a target, there is always the issue of IFF. This remains anything but ‘100% reliable.’
This is why various Su-27s over the years were involved in incidents with civilian aircraft, accidentally shot down their own wingmen during test firings, or failed to intercept low-flying MiG-29s. One factor was how they were employed; another was their poor cockpit ergonomics. For instance, detecting targets depends heavily on selecting the correct radar mode, which itself depends on the specific tactical situation. In the single-seat Su-27, the pilot had to make all these decisions alone while also flying the aircraft and actually fighting. In practice, this proved almost impossible because of the cockpit’s poor ergonomic design—for example, changing radar modes or selecting the desired range was cumbersome and difficult.
‘Unsurprisingly,
‘—the type never came anywhere near getting a single kill against any Western type of aircraft;
‘— and its most serious test was Ethiopian deployment of Su-27s during the Badme War against Eritrea, fought 1998-2001.’
Cooper continues;
‘Now, to keep a long story short, the Ethiopians tended to operate their Su-27s in pairs during that war. An Su-27UB crewed by an Ethiopian pilot—often with a Russian advisor in the back seat—was there to control the situation and help and advise the (Ethiopian-crewed) single-seater. If a Russian was on board, the Su-27UB was strictly forbidden from going anywhere near the combat zone: it had to stay several dozen kilometers away from it.
‘But, that was perfectly enough: the battlefields of the Badme War were rather small, and inexperienced Eritreans operated in a predictable way. Thus, two of their MiG-29s got shot down, and the air war was decided, once and for all. Related descriptions are meanwhile available in the form of the book Ethiopian-Eritrean Wars, Volume 2.’
Cooper concludes,
‘At least as unsurprising is that after the end of the Badme War, the Ethiopians placed a big follow-up order, though this time they demanded Su-27UBs only…
‘…while the Sukhoi rushed to apply about 15,000 diverse changes to the Su-27 (resulting in Su-27SM and sub-variants)…’
Check out Helion & Company’s website for books featuring interesting stories written by Tom Cooper.
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