# Soviet Troposcatter Equipment Locations in Europe (NPIC PIR-024/77, September 1977)

Compiled by [Robin Monks](https://coldwar.tech/about), a Cold War archival expert.

*NPIC's September 1977 survey of Soviet troposcatter equipment across Europe, the parent report behind later Warsaw Pact troposcatter reporting and the shift to the mobile R-410 generation.*

## Metadata

| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Document Type | declassified |
| Creator | National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) |
| Date | 1977 |
| Classification | Top Secret (declassified) |
| Document ID | NPIC PIR-024/77 |
| Original Language | english |

By 1977 Soviet mobile troposcatter had spread far enough through the western military districts and the Groups of Forces that NPIC compiled a dedicated survey of it: *Soviet Troposcatter Equipment Locations in Europe (TSR)*. This is the parent document that later imagery reporting kept updating; the October 1980 report on the network in Poland cites it by number.

It marks the shift in Western attention from the fixed Arctic trunk line of the 1960s to the *mobile* R-410 generation that NATO would meet in every exercise, crisis, and export customer of the 1980s: the equipment the interpreters called TWIN PLATE.

Source: [CIA FOIA Reading Room](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp78t05162a000500010025-9) ([archived](https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp78t05162a000500010025-9)). Public domain as a US government work.

## Related

- [Tropospheric Scatter Communications](https://coldwar.tech/technologies/troposcatter) (Technologies)

Tags: NPIC, troposcatter, R-410, TWIN PLATE, Warsaw Pact, Europe, declassified, 1977

---
Canonical URL: https://coldwar.tech/archive/documents/npic-soviet-troposcatter-europe-1977
Last updated: 2026-07-15