Interesting scenario. I had much the same experience as Space Apes, with the bombers avoiding the forward deployed air defenses entirely, the Mig 25s splashing half of the bomber element before it got to Moscow, the New York destroyed event triggered without Moscow having yet been destroyed, and the SAMs splashing the remaining bombers with little difficulty (I set their WRA to fire all available weapons, which may have helped). Really good idea for a scenario, though.

Many thanks for the comments. I do appreciate you taking an interest in my scenario.
I had great trouble getting any missiles to work with the "Vindicators". The book hints that the bomber's defensive missiles are nuclear so I went for the solution I did (won't say here exactly what I did). It's been a while since I read the book, but if my memory serves me right all the missiles go after aircraft and decoys/countermeaures are the main defensive armament. The timeline in the book is wholly alternative reality so anything goes provided it doesn't strain credulity too much. Your're right about tbe non-nav zone thank you. I'm amazed you got any of them with SA-2s, I playtested it over and over and didn't get one. I will check out that event because clearly what happened there shouldn't have.

Its too bad CMANO doesn't model anti-anti-air missiles, because I assume the "Vindicators" would be carrying Pye Wackets ( http://www.astronautix.com/p/pyewacket.html ). Those would help with all the nuclear armed SAMs. I once sent a CMANO dev this link during a related discussion and he said he'd implement it if one was ever actually introduced to service!

Unless the Soviets really didn't have any defences east of those present in the scenario I'd say set up a no-navigation zone on both east and west beyond wherever you place the SAMs and airfields, for both the AI and the player. This would mean the bombers either have to be sneaky, for example hugging terrain and carefully skirting around SAM ranges, or they need to preemptively nuke the defences facing them with AGM-28 Hound Dogs (or the SRAM, that didn't enter service until 1972 but you're fudging the timeline a bit anyway).

Great idea for a scenario, just played through. Managed to pare the bombers down to 3 before they got near Moscow. I would have gotten them all but I assumed the distinct eastern edge of the USSR's defences meant that area wasn't in-play (because presumably they had air defences there as well IRL) and therefore the bombers wouldn't fly through that area. Well, they did and went around all of the fighters I had forward deployed.

Unfortunately, after the "Moscow is in danger" event the President evened the score well before the bombers got to Moscow, which was pointless because one bomber ran out of fuel and the SA-2s took care of the other two.