New Soviet Bomber Base Cited in Norwegian Report

The Soviet Union has almost completed an airfield that will strengthen its ability to strike targets in the United States without using land-based nuclear missiles, according to documents published Friday.

Norway’s Foreign Policy Institute, a government-backed study group, said that the Schagui strategic bomber base on the Kola Peninsula was being designed especially for Moscow’s new long-range strategic nuclear bomber, dubbed Blackjack.

The institute published satellite photographs of the main runway, taken last year, and described it as 4,600 yards long and 500 yards wide, with a parallel 3,700-yard runway.

The Kola Peninsula, near Norway’s Arctic border, contains the largest concentration of nuclear missiles in the Soviet Union, and the rugged coastline is packed with Soviet naval bases.

Researcher Tomas Ries, co-author of the report, told reporters that security services probably already knew about the airstrip, but pictures from the civilian American satellite Landsat enabled the institute to make its findings public.

He said that Moscow might be trying to strengthen the capabilities of its long-range nuclear bombers to compensate for any advances the United States might make via the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) “Star Wars” system for destroying nuclear missiles in space.

“They may be saying, ‘perhaps SDI will work, so perhaps we should have more long-range bombers,’ ” Ries said. He added, however, that construction of the airstrip began before President Reagan announced the SDI plan.

The report said it is likely that the Blackjack would be based at the new airstrip.

The U.S. publication, “Soviet Military Power,” estimates that the Blackjack is currently undergoing advanced flight-testing. The supersonic bomber, built to carry both cruise missiles and bombs, could be operational by 1988.

The institute also published photographs of what it said was a new strategic submarine base at Gremikha, east of most of the naval bases on the Kola Peninsula, designed especially for Moscow’s Typhoon class submarine.

The Soviet Union is believed to have four Typhoon-class submarines, which U.S. experts believe can fire long-range nuclear missiles from beneath the polar ice cap, and Western experts believe that more are being built.

According to the report, the Gremikha complex has a very large harbor and major underground bunkers blasted into the rock.

The main sign that Typhoon submarines will use the base is that all 15 new docks are at least 200 yards long, the same length as the submarine.