The Cold War: A MILITARY History (23 page)

Typhoon

The first Typhoon hull was laid down in 1977, and when it was first revealed in the West in the early 1980s it caused a greater stir than almost any other weapon system in the Cold War. Western intelligence had become aware of something unusual three years previously, when First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev told President Gerald Ford that he would go ahead with Project Typhoon if the US would not agree to drop the Trident programme. Later, US reconnaissance satellites took pictures of components being assembled
at
Severodvinsk which were so large that it was assumed that they were for another long-awaited project, an aircraft carrier. What eventually appeared, however, was the largest submarine the world has ever seen: its submerged displacement of 25,000 tonnes far exceeds that of the US navy’s Ohio-class SSBN (16,964 tonnes), while its length of 171 m is a little greater than that of a US navy Ticonderoga-class cruiser.

The Typhoon was innovative in many ways apart from its sheer size. The outer casing conceals no less than five interconnected pressure hulls, and the twenty SS-N-20 missiles are mounted forward of the sail – a feature unique among SSBNs.

The Typhoon was designed to provide a platform which would spend most of its very long patrols lying on the seabed beneath the Arctic ice cap. It would sit out a nuclear exchange and surface through the ice to launch its missiles only when the adversary was taking the first steps towards post-nuclear recovery. In the original concept it was planned that each Typhoon would spend as much as a year on patrol, and one of the reasons for its huge size was the need to provide good habitability and adequate recreation possibilities for the crew. Internally, the Typhoon is exceptionally spacious, with extensive facilities including saunas and a swimming pool, all designed to ease the burden of protracted periods at sea. Six of these unique submarines were built between 1977 and 1989.

ALTERNATIVE SOVIET SEA SYSTEMS

As far as is known, the sole Soviet alternative to SLBMs was a 1.5 m diameter torpedo developed in the late 1940s, which would have been launched from a single bow tube at a range of some 30–40 km from the target, usually a port. The missile travelled at approximately 55 km/h, and with a payload of some 3.6 tonnes it would have delivered a nuclear warhead with a yield of approximately 1 MT.
^fn4

SOVIET SSBN STRATEGY

In the early years of the Cold War the Soviet Union found itself in a position where US missile and airbases, some operated by the USA and others by NATO allies, directly threatened the Soviet land mass. On the other
hand
, the Soviet Union did not have a long-range air capability equivalent to the USAF’s Strategic Air Command with which to pose a corresponding threat to the USA, and it thus turned to missile-armed submarines as the quickest way of obtaining such a capability. The early missiles had a short range (650 km for the SS-N-4, for example) and the submarines would have been vulnerable to very active ASW activity by the USA. In particular, submarines armed with the surface-launched missiles (SS-N-1 and SS-N-4) would have been extremely vulnerable during their lengthy launch preparations.

At that time the primary purpose of the nuclear force was to pose an anti-city threat, and there were large numbers of important urban concentrations down the east and west coasts of the USA within the range of those missiles. When the Yankee SSBNs first started to patrol off the US Pacific and Atlantic coasts in the late 1960s, armed with their counter-value SS-N-6s, they too were targeted at large area targets, such as cities, government facilities, military bases and airfields. All these early SSBNs – including the Yankees – also brought another factor to the threat to the USA, since their missiles would have had a very short time of flight (possibly between four and five minutes), compared to the thirty minutes’ warning the USA expected to receive of a trans-polar missile attack. For the Soviet navy, these new types of submarine and missile also had the advantage that, apart from increasing the capability of the navy, they also helped to increase the experience of its officers and ratings.

The Delta-I/SS-N-8 combination, however, represented a complete change in strategy, since the long range of the missiles enabled the submarines to operate in what came to be known as the ‘SSBN bastions’. There were two of these – the Barents Sea in the west and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east – where the SSBNs had plenty of room for submerged patrols, while the sea around them and the airspace above them were patrolled and defended by Soviet naval and air forces. In particular, the Soviet SSBNs were defended against attacks by US and British SSNs, one of whose primary roles was to try to destroy Soviet SSBNs before they could launch their missiles. One consequence of this strategy was that Soviet war plans allocated increasing surface and air forces to the defence of the bastions, which reduced the assets they could assign to attacking NATO naval forces elsewhere.

Delta-II/SS-N-8 and Delta-III/SS-N-18 continued this pattern, but the Delta-IV/SS-N-23 and Typhoon/SS-N-20 combinations, which were produced simultaneously in the 1980s, introduced a new dimension. They were intended for different missions, the Delta IV being intended for use early in a nuclear campaign, possibly even in the first strike, but from the Arctic region, rising though relatively thin ice to fire its missiles from the surface. Typhoon, on the other hand, was intended to submerge under the
deep
ice cap for a protracted period, possibly as long as a year, and then break through thicker ice in order to carry out a final strike on the USA as it attempted to recover from the effects of a nuclear war.

LOCATING THE SSBNS

Both sides considered it necessary to be aware of the movements of the other side’s SSBNs, first to establish routine patterns and then to detect any variations from the routine – such as, for example, an increase in the number of SSBNs at sea, which might indicate possible preparation for war. The start points for all SSBN missions – their bases – were well known to both sides, and the most vulnerable part of an SSBN’s voyage was its departure from its base.

The bases were closely monitored by satellite and, at least in the case of the Western bases, visually as well, but there were also more covert means of surveillance. Knowledge of the submarines’ operational cycles enabled the sailing and return dates of SSBNs to be predicted with a fair degree of accuracy, and in the early days the other side’s SSNs would wait outside bases to monitor SSBN movements using their on-board sensors. This was countered by giving departing SSBNs an ASW escort of aircraft, surface ships and SSNs, which in its turn was countered by using attack submarines to place sensors on the seabed. The British, for example, built a specialized and very complex ship,
Challenger
, at very considerable expense, specifically to locate and remove such devices from the approaches to the nuclear-submarine base in the Clyde.
^fn5

Once at sea, the SSBNs would make fairly rapid, but careful, transits to their operational area, where they would then cruise at about 3 knots, varying their depth to take maximum advantage of oceanic conditions, to make detection as difficult as possible.

fn1
The specifications of US and Soviet sea-based strategic missiles are given in
Appendix 9
, and of US and Soviet strategic submarines in
Appendix 10
.

fn2
There were, in fact, three sub-groups, with relatively minor differences between them: the Lafayette class (nine boats), the James Madison class (ten boats) and the Benjamin Franklin class (twelve boats).

fn3
In the mid-1990s a Russian agency was marketing the ‘Surf’ system for civil use; this involved a missile being taken to sea in an amphibious ship and then dropped into the sea for a ‘Hydra’-type launch. Using a combination of SS-N-20 and SS-N-23 missiles with new fourth and fifth stages, it would place a 2,400 kg payload into a 200 km near-earth orbit.

fn4
At around the same time, in the early 1950s, the British were working on a similar concept, in which a miniature submarine (known as an ‘X’ craft) delivered a nuclear mine to the entrance of a Soviet harbour. Several ‘X’ craft were built, but the idea was then abandoned.

fn5
Unfortunately, after the ship had undergone a very protracted development period, the Soviet navy changed its surveillance system, making
Challenger
completely redundant.

11

Strategic Bombers

STRATEGIC BOMBERS EXERCISED
a major influence over the first half of the Cold War, principally because in the 1940s and 1950s they were the only practicable means of delivering the very heavy atomic and hydrogen weapons over intercontinental ranges.
^fn1
Allied to this, bombers had played a major role in the recently concluded Second World War, with the Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan giving the appearance of a war-winning strategy. Indeed, the war had been brought to a close by the two USAAF (United States Army Air Force) B-29 bombers which dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There were also bureaucratic reasons for the fierce advocacy of the bomber, however. The US air force finally became independent of the US army in 1947 and was extremely keen to prove itself to be the war-winning arm in the Cold War. In the UK, which found itself facing the reality that it was now only the second most powerful nation in the West, membership of the exclusive ‘nuclear club’ appeared to be the only way to retain superpower status, and, in the short term, bombers were the only feasible way of achieving that. On the Soviet side, the air force realized that it had never produced a bomber force to match those of the USA and UK, and was desperate to rectify this. Thus, from 1945 into the mid-1960s, the strategic bomber armed with nuclear weapons was the symbol of global power.
^fn2

US AIRCRAFT

B-29/B-50

The original atomic bomber – and, after fifty years, still the only aircraft to have dropped atomic bombs operationally – was the piston-engined Boeing
B-29
Superfortress, which entered service in 1943 and was the USA’s frontline bomber in the last year of the war against Japan and, with Strategic Air Command (SAC), in the early years of the Cold War. The early atomic bombs were large and very heavy, and the B-29 carried two, but with a range of 5,250 km it could not reach all parts of the USSR from bases in the United States. Thus, in the early Cold War period it was regularly deployed overseas, particularly in the UK, Okinawa and Guam. The B-29 was also provided to the UK air force from 1950 to 1958 (as the Washington B.1), albeit only as a conventional bomber. The B-29 was replaced in US (but not in British) service by an upgraded and more capable version, the B-50.

B-36

The Convair B-36 was the largest bomber ever to enter service. Its design had started in 1939–40, when it appeared possible that the UK would be overrun by the Germans and there was a perceived requirement to bomb targets in western Europe from bases in North America. Once it became clear that the UK would survive, however, the B-36 was given a lower priority, and it did not enter service until 1948. It was powered by six piston and four turbojet engines, which gave it the unprecedented unrefuelled range of 13,000 km.

B-47

The first major all-jet bomber was the Boeing B-47, which entered service in 1950; by the end of the decade, 1,260 B-47s were in front-line service with twenty-eight SAC bombing wings. At that time the traditional bomber was large, slow, powered by four piston engines, manned by a crew of ten to twelve men, and defended by numerous gun turrets, but the B-47 completely changed all that. It had swept wings and tail, was as fast as contemporary fighters, was powered by six jet engines in neat pods under the wings, carried a crew of three, operated 3,000 m higher than previous types, and was defended only by a single, remotely controlled turret in the tail. The problem was its relatively short range of 5,800 km, which again was partially compensated by forward deployment (e.g. to the UK) and partly by the large-scale introduction of air-to-air refuelling.

B-52

The mainstay of SAC’s bomber force for most of the Cold War was the Boeing B-52, which was designed in the late 1940s, entered service in 1955, and was still in front-line service at the end of the Cold War. When it entered service the B-52 set new standards for strategic bombers in almost every respect, including the carriage of eight nuclear bombs or up to 40,000 kg of conventional bombs over ranges of up to 12,900 km. In all, 744 were built, many of which were rebuilt several times to keep the force up to date. Although the B-52 started its career as a nuclear bomber, it changed from a
high-level
to a low-level role, while from the mid-1980s onwards it became a missile launch platform – a less demanding role and more suited to the venerable age of the airframes.

B-58

The most dramatic bomber to serve with SAC was the tailless, delta-winged Convair B-58, with a Mach 2 speed and 8,250 km range. Air-to-air refuelling enabled the B-58 to undertake long flights (e.g. from Tokyo to London), loudly advertising its wartime capabilities. The aircraft used a unique system in which a large pod under the fuselage housed both the nuclear weapon and the fuel for the outward flight; it was dropped complete, enabling the aircraft to make a very rapid getaway before returning to base on its internal fuel supply. Although generally successful, the B-58 was very expensive to operate, even by US standards, and was retired after just ten years’ service, without replacement.

FB-111

Every development after the B-52 proved to be controversial, and the FB-111 was no exception. The original concept, known as the Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX), was for one basic design which would meet the needs of the US air force, navy and Marines, as well as selling widely to US allies. In the end only the US and Australian air forces bought it, although the UK’s nearly did so, after the cancellation of its own strike bomber, the TSR-2. Almost inevitably, the widely disparate requirements could never be satisfied, although a very effective low-level strategic bomber was eventually produced, with 437 of various marks entering service. FB-111s could carry a maximum of six Short-Range Attack Missiles, each with a 200 kT nuclear warhead, or six gravity nuclear bombs. The greatest significance of the FB-111 was its ability to operate at very low levels at high speeds, and aircraft based in the UK were targeted on heavily defended, large area targets in the western USSR.