We show that if ocean surface waves of the order of a few meters long are frequently steep enough to generate bound centimetric waves, then composite surface scattering theory can account for many anomalous properties of microwave backscatter from the sea at high incidence angles. The model proposed here postulates that these intermediate waves are made sufficiently steep to generate bound centimetric waves because of their modulation by longer, dominant ocean surface waves. The bound centimetric waves have a nonzero mean tilt because they are located on the steep forward face of the intermediate waves, and they move at the speed of the intermediate waves. Applying composite surface scattering theory to this sea surface model, we show that much of the apparently anomalous behavior of microwave sea return measured at incidence angles between 50¿ and 80¿ during the Synthetic Aperture Radar and X Band Ocean Nonlinarities-Forschungsplatform Nordsee (SAXON-FPN) experiment can be explained using reasonable parameters to characterize the surface waves. In the SAXON-FPN measurements the mean values of the first moments of microwave Doppler spectra for horizontally polarized backscatter differ from those for vertically polarized backscatter by an amount which varies with the incidence angle and with the azimuthal angle between the radar look direction and the direction of the dominant wave. The modulation of this first moment by surface waves tens of meters in length is the same for the two polarizations at low to moderate incidence angles and can be interpreted in terms of the advection of free centimetric waves by the long waves. At higher incidence angles, however, this modulation is different for the two polarizations and cannot be explained by simple advection of free waves. Finally, microwave cross sections measured at high incidence angles using horizontal polarization are much larger than can be explained by a composite surface theory that includes only freely propagating centimetric waves. Most of these effects can be explained by the composite surface model presented here, which includes Bragg scattering from both free and bound, tilted waves.¿ 1997 American Geophysical Union