The Third World War - The Untold Story (41 page)

In anti-submarine warfare (ASW), the Soviet Navy lagged behind, even in the 1980s. The ships themselves were equipped with sonar; there were helicopters with dipping sonar and fixed-wing aircraft with sonobuoys. But the Soviets had not developed, like the US Navy, arrays of fixed sonars over large areas of the sea bottom, in order to enable hostile submarines to be detected at considerable distances offshore. Furthermore, the Soviet submarines were certainly noisier than those of the US and her allies.

The smaller combatants of the Soviet Navy were, for the most part, fast, missile-armed attack craft. Although readily countered by air attack, these craft were effective in inshore waters, under cover of shore-based fighter protection. Several of the type had proved their value in action in Arab-Israeli and Indo-Pakistani fighting. With the possible exception of the Soviet heavy cruisers of the
Kirov
class, which being nuclear powered, fast, and well-armed might do much damage on independent missions before being brought to book, the surface-ship element of the Soviet naval threat did not unduly alarm the US Navy.

Submarines were a different matter. Leaving aside for the moment the strategic nuclear ballistic missile-armed, nuclear-powered submarines (SSBN), the Soviets had produced three main types of attack, or general purpose, sometimes called ‘fleet’, submarines. One of these types was nuclear powered and armed with torpedoes and missiles, for both anti-surface ship and ASW purposes. The other two types were armed with anti-ship cruise missiles, one being nuclear powered and the other diesel-electric driven. Within each type there were several classes, the most modern of which could run quietly and deep. In addition, the Soviet submarine fleet included a large number of diesel-electric ‘patrol’ submarines, torpedo armed and capable, as an alternative, of laying mines. Unlike the nuclear-powered submarines, the diesel-electric ones were bound to expose an air induction tube above the sea surface when charging the battery, and this could be detected by radar, especially airborne radar. On the other hand, these submarines were so quiet when submerged that they were extremely difficult to detect by passive means, and active sonar had therefore to be used against them. Active sonar, however, could act as a beacon for nuclear-powered submarines, which were able to proceed at high speed from a distance, closing to missile-firing range while still remaining undetected. They were able to operate in the ocean depths anywhere in the world for as long as the food and the weapons lasted, but they could not safely or effectively operate in the shallow water (200 metres or less) which covers the Continental Shelf. This factor apart, there can be no doubt that the Soviet submarine force posed a severe threat to the warships and shipping of the United States and its maritime allies in being probably able to achieve a successful attack, in the face of the best anti-submarine measures which could be taken, at least once in every three attempts, while on average only one submarine would be destroyed in every five that were detected and classified as a submarine contact.

Soviet naval aviation, on the other hand, had by 1985 hardly come of age. The first nuclear-powered, large aircraft carrier had not yet completed her trials. The four 45,000-ton
Kiev-class
aviation ships, however, with their complement of ASW helicopters and V/STOL (vertical/short take-off and landing) fighter-reconnaissance aircraft, were judged to be effective in their role. The smaller helicopter cruisers
Moskva
and
Leningrad
were thought to be no more than fair-weather ships. Soviet shore-based air power demanded much more respect, however. Admiral Gorshkov had been able to persuade the Soviet Defence Council that he must have both long-range reconnaissance to cover the Atlantic, Indian and Western Pacific Oceans, and a strong force of long-range, high-speed bombers armed with air-to-surface anti-shipping missiles. These were the
Bears
and the
Backfires.
Given operational bases strategically placed, NATO and Allied shipping would be at serious risk from this air threat. If bases in North Africa were made available to the Soviet Union, even the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean might be in peril.

An assessment of the Soviet amphibious forces indicated that, despite the well-advertised excellence of their naval infantry, they seemed to lack certain important elements, such as vertical airlift and integral tactical air support. For the intervention role, against light opposition, the force had to be reckoned with, but it could not compare in combat power with the US Marines. Another relatively weak aspect of the Soviet naval forces was in logistic support. There was only a small capacity for under-way replenishment of major fleet units. In peacetime, it was true, forces such as the Fifth
Eskadra,
in the eastern Mediterranean, were maintained for long periods away from their home bases, but they did this mostly at anchor, maintained by a succession of auxiliary supply ships, merchant ships, and tenders. This did not amount to a capability for sustained ocean operations. What it did mean was that if the Soviet Navy managed to achieve a surprise attack, it could inflict a good deal of damage very quickly. There was also evidence that Admiral Gorshkov had established an extremely reliable command and control system which, although highly centralized, had built-in reserves of personnel and resource. To serve the command a comprehensive operational intelligence system had long been established and was kept in constant practice.

As to the morale and efficiency of the Soviet Navy’s officers and men, there were both pluses and minuses. The high command, and flag officers generally, gave the impression of knowing their business. The commanding officers of ships and submarines, also, were good, although it had been noted that many of them retained command for lengthy periods, or on relinquishment of one command were immediately given another, suggesting a shortage of really competent people. A certain reluctance to use initiative seemed also to be common. Perhaps too much was being demanded of the commanding officers. According to the Soviet armed forces regulations the commander of a unit was obliged ‘to direct combat training and political education of his subordinates and to maintain perfect discipline . . .He must know the professional, political, and moral qualities of his subordinates, persistently improve their skills and act as their educator in the field of politics and law’. And, although the principle of unity of command was always stressed, in practice the Party’s organization, as represented by the
Zampolit
(the commander’s deputy for political affairs) was concerned not only with politico-ideological questions, but also with purely military and even technical matters.

The training load for the officers in a Soviet warship was heavy. Most of the enlisted men were conscripts and served for thirty-six months. The training was competitive, in theory. But it was not uncommon for commanding officers to exclude from various drills those officers and enlisted men whose performance might bring down the ship’s score. A surprisingly large proportion of the Soviet warships’ time was spent in harbour too. The standard of combat readiness and weapon-training was not invariably as high as the smartness of the ships might lead one to expect.

To sum up this section, in terms of quality the Soviet Navy was, in itself, a formidable force, but it was dependent upon the proximity of bases - both naval and air - to be capable of matching the US and Allied fleets. Indeed, the outcome of a conflict waged near the Soviet home bases would have been difficult to predict. Fortunately for the Western allies this one was waged far from Soviet home bases.

Admiral Maybury then referred to the quality of the Soviet strategic nuclear ballistic missile force. As would no doubt be recalled, the earlier types of Soviet SSBN were distinctly inferior to the
Polaris
and
Poseidon
boats of the US Navy. But by 1985 the Soviet SSBN force was mainly composed of the
Delta
class, armed with missiles having a range of over 4,000 miles. On patrol in the Barents Sea, or the Sea of Okhotsk, these submarines could range on targets over the entire United States, safe from any counter-measures. Indeed, neither the US nor the Soviet navies were capable of countering their opponent’s SSBN, which retained, accordingly, their unique character as strategic retaliatory systems. Both the British and the French SSBN constituted, in spite of much smaller numbers, formidable second-strike forces. These, too, the Soviets could not counter. They could not ignore them either.

Before considering what is now known of the wartime Soviet deployments, it is as well to look at geography, and its bearing upon the operational concept on which the deployments were based. Geo-politics - ideas of ‘heartland’, ‘rimland’, ‘world ocean’, and so on - are interesting but probably of little practical value in formulating policies. The distribution of usable mineral resources may well determine the political map of the world in the future. But there can be no doubt of the underlying continuity of Russian foreign policy aims.

Tsar Peter the Great in 1725, shortly after his annexation of five Persian provinces and the city of Baku, and just before he died, enjoined his successors thus:

I strongly believe that the State of Russia will be able to take the whole of Europe under its sovereignty . . . you must always expand towards the Baltic and the Black Sea. You must try to approach Istanbul and India as far forward as possible. You must seek to dominate the Black Sea and be the owner of the Baltic. These actions are most important in order to achieve our future aims. You must also do your best to ensure the collapse of Persia as soon as possible and envisage opening a route through the Persian Gulf.*

* Quoted in Captain W. J. Draper (Canadian Forces), Colonel P. Monsutti (Italian Army), Group Captain B. T. Sills (RAF), Colonel M. Y. Tanyel (Turkish Army), ‘In Search of a Western Military Strategy for the 1980s, a Group Study’, in Seaford House Papers 1980 (Royal College of Defence Studies London).

In 1985 Peter the Great, the mystical-absolutist, might have conceded, had he been aware of events, that the dialectical-materialist usurpers in the Kremlin were not doing so badly. That is, until the fateful day of 4 August 1985, when the Soviet armies were launched into the Federal Republic of Germany. Tsar Peter would have been appalled at the disposition on that date of the Soviet Navy. With the most powerful of its fleets based in the remote areas of Murmansk and Kamchatka and the other two main fleets bottled up, one in the Baltic and the other in the Black Sea, how could Soviet naval power be brought effectively to bear in support of a grand design? Surely the decisive surge westward should not have been undertaken until a combination of circumstance, diplomacy and force had delivered into Soviet hands control of the exits from both the Baltic and the Black Sea?

Great emphasis had been placed upon the application of three principles in order to achieve the military aim of the Warsaw Pact, which was the destruction of the armed forces of NATO and its associates. These principles were: surprise, co-ordination of all arms, and concentration of force. Plans had been in existence, constantly updated, ever since Soviet military power had grown sufficient in relation to NATO to confer upon Soviet leaders the option of using it, if favourable circumstances should arise. It was not necessary in the Soviet Navy to risk compromising the contingency plans by any distribution below fleet commander level, and even then the directive was related to a D-day that remained undesignated until D -5. This ensured that no change in the pattern of Soviet naval activities should give NATO early warning of possible attack. On the other hand, every Soviet warship that proceeded outside local areas had to be fully stored for war, and peacetime deployments must not take major units more than five days’ steaming from war stations. Reconnaissance, surveillance and operational intelligence material had to be provided sufficient to support initial war deployments without augmentation, which might reveal unusual activity. Operational command and control of all warships, merchant ships and fishing fleets outside local areas would be assumed on D -1 by the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy in Moscow, where the First Deputy Commander-in-Chief, as Chief of the Main Naval Staff, was ready to assume the control of operations worldwide.