Contras Air Force: New Factor Is Added to War : Sandinistas Deploy More Soviet Copters

The Nicaraguan war appears to be on the threshold of a major escalation, with increased use of helicopters, missiles and larger-scale tactics, military and diplomatic analysts report.

The Sandinistas are rapidly expanding their fleet of Soviet-made helicopters, the analysts say. They say the bigger fleet will enable the army to move a battalion of men and support them with rocket and machine-gun fire in large operations.

Meanwhile, the anti-Sandinista guerrillas, known as contras , expect to receive ample supplies of ground-to-air missiles and other potent weapons with the $100-million aid package now pending in the U.S. Senate. They hope that their increased firepower will neutralize the Sandinista air advantage and give them the capability to spread their attacks, hitting more important targets.

Intensity of War to Grow

The contras are also working to expand their fledgling air force of 12 airplanes and two helicopters, based at a secret air base in the mountains of eastern Honduras. For now, the “contra air force” is being used only for reconnaissance, resupply and medical evacuation, but contras officials say they hope to outfit some planes with machine guns to attack Sandinista units on the ground.

“The contras will be capable of applying more pressure, and I think the Sandinistas will be better able to react rapidly to unforeseen situations,” a foreign military analyst said. “The intensity of the war will increase, and the scale too.”

The analyst said that the Sandinista army has received 10 or 11 new MI-17 helicopters from the Soviet Union since April and probably will receive that many more in the coming months.

Several other Western diplomats and military specialists gave different numbers, but all confirmed that shipments of MI-17s have been arriving. They also predicted that more would come.

The MI-17 can fly as fast as 155 m.p.h., can carry up to 32 people and can be equipped with rockets and machine guns. It serves the Sandinista army as both a transport and attack helicopter.

Plenty of Firepower

Early this year, the Sandinistas were believed to have 10 to 15 MI-17 and MI-8 helicopters. The MI-8 is similar to the MI-17 but has less powerful engines.

The Sandinistas also are known to have at least six MI-24 helicopters, armored gunships with more formidable firepower.

Capt. Ricardo Wheelock, chief of Sandinista military intelligence, said recently that the number of helicopters in the army’s fleet is a military secret.

“We have few,” he said after a press conference. “The number that we have is really miserable. We would like to have double the number of helicopters.”

In the last year, the MI-8s, MI-17s and MI-24s have changed the Nicaraguan war by giving the Sandinista army the capability to react rapidly and with airborne firepower.

“It gives the Sandinista army a very significant advantage,” said a military analyst.

“It deters the contras from massing, which means they can never do anything significant,” a Western diplomat said.

The contras generally have been limited to hit-and-run attacks, small-scale ambushes and other harassment action. The harassment reportedly includes increased use of land mines. Wheelock said the mines have caused “very few” military casualties, but he estimated that they have killed between 60 and 100 civilians this year.

Sandinista officials said that 32 civilians were killed when a contras mine exploded under a truck on a road in northern Jinotega province July 2. In late May, the Sandinista newspaper Barricada reported that six Nicaraguan civilians and a Spanish medical worker were killed by a contras mine on another rural road in Jinotega.

Seven Soldiers Killed

Last week, however, the official Sandinista radio station, Radio Sandino, admitted that seven soldiers were killed last Wednesday when their truck hit an anti-tank mine near the Jinotega province town of Wiwili, 105 miles north of Managua. Government officials blamed the contras for the mine.

Adolfo Calero, head of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, an umbrella organization for several contras groups, denied that the guerrillas laid the mine that killed the 32 civilians.

“It was a military truck. It was carrying explosives,” he told The Times recently in Miami.

He said contras officials were investigating the incident. Asked if they were investigating the possibility that contras planted the mine, he said, “We are investigating the possibility. We believe it was a Sandinista mine.”

Contras Deny Having Mines

Although Calero said the contras would like to have mines, he declared: “We have no mines. The Sandinistas have mines.”

The Sandinistas have mined contras infiltration routes along the Honduran border for at least the last three years. A diplomat in Managua said that the contras pick up those anti-personnel mines and plant them elsewhere.

The diplomat said the rebels also acquire anti-tank and anti-vehicle mines on the international arms market.

“The contras have just begun acquiring these things in significant numbers since sometime toward the end of last year,” he said.

‘Higher Casualties’

A military analyst said use of mines will not be decisive in the outcome of the war but “it takes it in the direction of higher casualties.”

In recent months, increasing numbers of Sandinista soldiers with mine-sweeping metal detectors have been seen on rural roads.

Another new element in the war is the Sandinista army’s “light hunter battalions,” units of 400 to 600 men who are specially trained in counterinsurgency warfare and permanently stationed in combat zones.

One foreign military analyst said six of the new battalions have been created since late last year, but another put the number at 12.

Seeking Out the Enemy

The hunter battalions are said to range around their assigned areas in company-sized units of about 100 men, seeking contact with the enemy.

“They are from the area, so they know it well,” said one analyst. He said the hunter battalions work closely with local Sandinista militia units that guard farm centers and villages.

Backing up the hunter battalions are about 15 longer-established “irregular warfare battalions,” known by the Spanish acronym BLI. Unlike hunter battalions, BLIs are moved around the country according to the tactical needs of the moment.

When elements of a BLI are needed urgently, they often are flown in by MI-8 or MI-17 helicopter. So far in the war, however, helicopters have rarely or never been used to deploy a full battalion in an air-mobile operation, according to military specialists.

‘Workhorse of the Fleet’

With the new MI-17s, that will be soon possible.

“Easily,” said one military analyst. “Fifteen of those babies will move a battalion.”

The analyst said the Sandinistas evidently like the MI-17 because it can be used both for transport and as a gunship.

“I think the 17 is going to be the workhorse of their fleet,” he said. He predicted that the Sandinistas will have a total of 35 or 40 MI-8s and MI-17s by the end of the year.

Another military analyst estimated that they already have at least 30. He said three MI-17s arrived by Soviet ship at the port of Corinto on the Pacific in early May, and 15 more arrived at the Caribbean port of El Bluff during June.

Helicopter Shot Down

Both military analysts predicted that the Sandinistas will carry out more air-mobile operations with the bigger helicopter fleet, but they both predicted that the aircraft will be vulnerable when the contras become equipped for widespread use of ground-to-air missiles.

The contras have shot down at least one helicopter with a Soviet-designed SAM-7 ground-to-air missile. And they claimed another last week, an MI-8 that they say they brought down with two SAM-7s on July 19, killing 22 people. The Sandinistas had acknowledged the loss of an MI-8 and the death toll, but blamed mechanical problems.

Still, the contras have few SAM-7s and have had trouble keeping them clean enough to fire. With more missiles and the training to use them properly, analysts say, they would have a good means for defending large units from airborne attack by the Sandinistas.

“Those helicopters are going to be very vulnerable, and they are going to start losing some helicopters,” said one of the military analysts.

Missiles a Top Desire

Missiles are at the top of the list of equipment that contras leaders hope to receive in the $100-million U.S. aid package.

In addition, the rebels are expected to stock up on machine guns and mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and grenade launchers. They also want helicopters, new supply planes, secure field radios and advanced training.

Calero, the contras leader, said the aid will give the guerrillas the ability to resupply units with ammunition in a constant flow, making it unnecessary for the units to return to border bases.

“We have not been able to keep up a sustained effort,” he said, adding that with the aid, they expect to begin “a sustained effort throughout the country . . . simultaneous combats, attacks throughout the country that will make it almost impossible for the Sandinistas to deal with them.”

He predicted that the contras will topple the Sandinistas “within one year from the receipt of continued support.”

Diplomats in Managua make no such predictions, but they do foresee an intensified contras campaign.

“I assume that there will be better executed operations with more people and with bigger results,” said one Western diplomat.

Sandinistas Worried

Another said the Nicaraguan government’s worst fear is that the CIA, which is expected to administer the new aid, will help the contras escalate their campaign to include urban guerrilla action.

The Sandinistas are “not worried about better contras units in northern Jinotega, but they are worried about commando units in the cities,” the diplomat said. “If they (the Sandinistas) have to draw their forces back to the cities, that’s going to put them in an awfully difficult position in the provinces.”

But it will not be easy for the contras to seize the advantage in this war. The diplomat said the Sandinistas, with their Cuban-trained anti-insurgency battalions, their helicopters and other Soviet equipment, and their highly developed intelligence apparatus, have built up “a significant gap over the contras” in military prowess.

“That’s what the $100 million is going to be all about,” he said. “How much can $100 million close that gap? I don’t have the answer to that, but that is the question.”

Times staff writer Marjorie Miller contributed to this article from Miami.