Tu-16 Badgers and Tu-95 Bears supported a system in which reconnaissance aircraft located enemy carrier groups and a command aircraft coordinated the attack. The forward commander would bring together bomber strikes with submarines and surface ships to overwhelm the target. Tu-95s commonly supplied the command role, while Badgers appeared in several reconnaissance and strike forms. Communications equipment, aircraft, and weapons available in the 1950s made ideas discussed since the interwar years more practical. The choice of these aircraft followed the late-1940s debate over whether to develop a carrier force.
Chapter · 51:42-53:52
The Badger-Bear reconnaissance and strike complex
From the 1950s, Soviet naval aviation linked reconnaissance, command aircraft, submarines, surface forces, and missile bombers into one strike system.