Air Battle over the North Atlantic

The Air Battle of the North Atlantic was an unnamed air battle over the North Atlantic. It was a massive air battle, involving dozens of aircraft and several large naval vessels. Both the Americans and the Soviets had heavy losses, however it was a desisive Soviet victory.

Prelude
Because of the rapidly increased Soviet naval activity in the North Atlantic, with Submarines abroad, they were able to detect the American naval battle group moving around in the area. They relayed the information to the Soviet-occupied Klefavik Airport, and Tupolev Tu-16 "Badgers" and Tupolev Tu-22 "Backfires" were launched to carry out the Soviet Air Force's plan to hit the convoy as hard as possible.

The Air Battle
The Badgers flew to the distance from the convoy where antiship missiles would normally be launched and released their drones, prompting all of the convoy's CAPs to be diverted to meet the threat. Once the fighters were off chasing the drones, the Backfires moved in and launched the real attack, with devastating effect.

Three of the Soviet's prime targets, the American carriers Nimitz and Saratoga and the French carrier Foch, were all hit by Soviet antiship missiles. Nimitz managed to stay afloat, albeit severely damaged, but Foch went down soon afterward. The amphibious assault ship USS Saipan took a hit and exploded, lost with all hands. Saratoga managed to stay afloat with relatively light damage, while one of the heaviest escort vessels in the convoy, the cruiser USS Ticonderoga, was badly damaged as it attempted to defend the carriers and transport ships.

Aftermath
The battle was a tactical victory for the Soviets; their decoy effort worked exactly as intended and NATO paid for it dearly. The French Navy lost an aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy's Nimitz was forced to spend a month in drydock in Britain undergoing repairs, putting her out of the fight, an amphibious assault ship, Saipan, was sunk, killing over a thousand Marines who had been on their way to fight in Europe. Numerous other NATO ships sustained varying degrees of damage, removing many of them from action for days or weeks at a time when every ship was desperately needed. On the strategic level, however, the impact of the battle was considerably different. Due to their very success in the battle, the "Backfire" bomber crews won the undivided attention of NATO's highest-ranking commanders. The Soviet bomber force had been striking convoys before the Air Battle over the North Atlantic, but never with such dire losses for NATO. A repeat performance of the battle could well have meant the Soviets could close NATO's vital sea lanes between North America and Europe. The Backfires were explicitly targeted in a number of engagements that followed, and NATO soon reduced the squadrons to a shadow of their former selves.