Airborne early warning was not yet available in the mature form familiar from later Cold War fleets. Ground radar existed, but the eastern Mediterranean did not have the dense warning system Britain had used during the Second World War. A carrier force facing long-range Soviet aircraft would therefore depend heavily on its own fighters and shipborne detection. This technological limit turns the counterfactual from a simple comparison of aircraft ranges into a problem of warning time and fleet interception.
Notable Point · 2:01:08-2:01:27
Fleet Air Defence Without Modern Airborne Early Warning
A Soviet bomber threat would have met a force still heavily dependent on ship and shore radar rather than modern airborne warning networks.