The Cold War: A MILITARY History (33 page)

This was a very large and ambitious exercise, from which the Soviet navy learned many major lessons, one of the most important of which was the falsity of the concept of commanding naval forces at sea from a shore headquarters. Such a concept had been propagated for two reasons: first, because it complied with the general Communist idea of highly centralized power and, second, because it also avoided the complexity and expense of flagships. Once
Okean 70
had proved this concept to be impracticable, ‘flag’ facilities were built into the larger ships,
^fn4
although the Baltic Fleet continued to be commanded from ashore.

The exercise which took place in June 1971 rehearsed a different scenario, with a group of Soviet Northern Fleet ships sailing down into Icelandic waters, where they reversed course and then advanced towards Jan Mayen Island to act as a simulated NATO carrier task group, which was then attacked by the main ‘players’. Again, a concurrent amphibious landing formed part of the exercise.

There were no major naval exercises in 1972, but in a spring 1973 exercise Soviet submarines practised countering a simulated Western task force sailing through the Iceland–UK gap to reinforce NATO’s Northern flank, while a similar exercise in 1974 took place in areas to the east and north of Iceland.
Okean 75
was an extremely large maritime exercise, involving well over 200 ships and submarines together with large numbers of aircraft. The exercise was global in scale, with specific exercise areas including the Norwegian Sea, where simulated convoys were attacked; the northern and central Atlantic, particularly off the west coast of Ireland; the Baltic and Mediterranean seas; and the Indian and Pacific oceans. Overall, the exercise practised all phases of contemporary naval warfare, including the deployment and protection of SSBNs.

In 1976 an exercise started with a concentration of warships in the North
Sea
, following which they transited through the Skagerrak and into the Baltic. Although not an exercise as such, great excitement was caused among Western navies when the new aircraft carrier
Kiev
left the Black Sea and sailed through the Mediterranean before heading northward in a large arc, passing through the Iceland–Faroes gap and thence to Murmansk. NATO ships followed this transit very closely, as it gave them their first opportunity to see this large ship and its V/STOL aircraft.

The following year saw two exercises in European waters, the first of which was held in the area of the North Cape and the central Norwegian Sea. The second was much larger and consisted of two elements, one involving the Northern Fleet in the Barents Sea, while in the other ships sailed from the Baltic, north around the British Isles and then into the central Atlantic. Also in 1977 the Soviet navy suffered the second of its major peacetime surface disasters when the Kashin-class destroyer
Orel
(formerly
Otvazhny)
suffered a major explosion while in the Black Sea, followed by a fire which raged for five hours before the ship sank, taking virtually the entire crew to their deaths.

In 1978 the passage of another Kiev-class carrier enabled an air–sea exercise to take place to the south of the Iceland–Faroes gap. Similar exercises followed in 1979 and 1980. The 1981 exercise involved three groups and took place in the northern part of the Barents Sea.

There were no major naval exercises in 1982, but the following year saw the most ambitious global exercise yet, with concurrent and closely related activities in all the world’s oceans, involving not only warships, but also merchant and fishing vessels. In European waters, three aggressor groups assembled off southern Norway and then sailed northward to simulate an advancing NATO force; they were then intercepted and attacked by the major part of the Northern Fleet.

The major exercise in 1985 followed a similar pattern, with aggressor groups sailing northeastward off the Norwegian coast, to be attacked by a large Soviet defending task group which included
Kirov
, the lead-ship of a new class of battlecruiser,
^fn5
Sovremenny-class anti-surface destroyers and Udaloy-class anti-submarine destroyers, as well as many older ships. There was also substantial air activity, which included the use of Tu-26 Backfire bombers. Although not apparent at the time, this proved to be the zenith of Soviet naval activity, and in the remaining years of the Cold War the number and scale of the exercises steadily diminished.

These major exercises enabled the Soviet navy to rehearse its war plans and to demonstrate its increasing capability to other navies, particularly those in NATO. There were, of course, many smaller exercises, such as those involving amphibious capabilities, which took place on the northern shores of the Kola Peninsula, on the Baltic coast and in the Black Sea. It is noteworthy, however, that the vast majority of the exercises held in European waters, and particularly those held from 1978 onwards, while tactically offensive, were actually strategically defensive in nature, involving the Northern Fleet in defending the north Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea and the area around Jan Mayen Island.

Soviet at-sea time was considerably less than that of the US and other major Western navies. The latter maintained about one-third of their ships at sea at all times, while only about 15 per cent of the Soviet navy was at sea, reducing to 10 per cent for submarines. The Soviets did, however, partially offset this by placing strong emphasis on a high degree of readiness in port and on the ability to get to sea quickly.

OTHER WARSAW PACT NAVIES

The non-Soviet Warsaw Pact nations made only a small contribution to the Warsaw Pact naval capability; those with navies maintained them at a relatively small size, while Czechoslovakia and Hungary had no access to the sea at all. The Bulgarian, East German and Polish navies were closely directed by the Soviet navy and their roles were subordinated to the Black Sea and Baltic fleets respectively. They were supplied with Soviet ships, weapons and technology, but were seldom allowed access to the very latest developments, receiving instead modified ships with downgraded armament and sensors; in particular, they were never supplied with any naval nuclear weapons. As in other spheres, the Romanian navy had an intermittent relationship with the Soviets, but might have joined Warsaw Pact naval operations in war if Ceau
ş
escu had deemed it advantageous to do so. Until 1961 there was also the Albanian navy, but this could have contributed nothing of significance in a war.

Albania

Albania was a close Soviet ally from 1945 onwards and was one of the founder members of the Warsaw Pact, allowing the Soviet navy to construct a greatly valued Mediterranean base at Sazan in the Gulf of Vlorës. In return, it received a number of small Soviet warships, including two Whiskey-class submarines, at favourable prices. A rapid decline in the relationship with the USSR led to a split in December 1961, when the Albanians ejected the Soviet navy from Sazan, taking the opportunity to seize two
Whiskey-class
submarines in the process. Thereafter Albania depended on China for naval equipment, but its naval potential was extremely limited.

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian navy was subject to a ceiling of 7,250 tonnes and 3,500 men under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty. Its first significant military aid from the USSR was a destroyer supplied in 1947, although the vessel concerned had actually been built for the Russian navy in 1917. This was followed by several small frigates and diesel-electric submarines, but the Bulgarian navy was never a significant force in the Black Sea.

East Germany

The East German navy started as a small police marine unit in 1949, becoming the
Seestreitkräfte
(Naval Strike Force) in 1956 and the
Volksmarine
(People’s Navy) in 1960. It originally undertook coastal patrol and minesweeping tasks, but in the late 1970s it assumed amphibious and ASW responsibilities as well, and a naval air division and a regiment of marines were also formed. Numerous warships were supplied by the USSR, but never included any surface ships larger than frigates, nor any submarines at all. An increasing number of warships were designed and constructed by the Peenewerft shipyard at Wolgast, some of which were supplied to the Soviet navy.

The East German navy’s operational role was always subordinated to that of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, and from the late 1970s it contributed, together with the Polish and Soviet navies, to the Baltic Joint Squadron, which was intended to be the Warsaw Pact’s response to NATO’s three standing multinational units.

Poland

Throughout the Second World War the Polish navy had maintained a small force which operated as part of the British navy, with most of the ships and men involved returning to Poland after the war. On the formation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 the Polish navy, small as it was, was the second largest after the Soviet navy – a position it retained until the early 1980s, when it was overtaken in size by East Germany’s
Volksmarine
. Several modernization and enlargement plans were produced, but, although some successes were achieved, full implementation was always frustrated by the weakness of the Polish economy and the higher priority accorded to the army.

Throughout the Cold War, the navy operated at least one destroyer (two between 1958 and 1970), a small number of diesel-electric submarines, and a larger number of amphibious-warfare vessels, patrol craft and minesweepers. The one indigenous shipyard (the Polnocna yard at Gda
ń
sk) constructed warships including the Polnocny-class landing ships, eighty-six of
which
were built: twenty-four for Poland, fifty-one for the USSR, and the remainder for various Soviet-approved export customers.

Romania

The only other Warsaw Pact nation to maintain a sea-going navy was Romania, which followed an erratic development pattern. A tonnage limit of 15,000 tonnes was imposed by the 1947 peace treaty, although the Romanians failed to approach even this comparatively low ceiling for many years. The USSR supplied some ships, and in 1951 it also returned two Romanian destroyers which had been seized by Soviet forces in 1944. The transfer of Soviet ships stopped in 1964 as Romania became more difficult to deal with, and for a while China was the principal supplier of new vessels (all small missile-armed patrol craft) or of designs which were then built in Romanian yards.

By the late 1970s the Romanian navy operated a collection of Soviet- and Chinese-supplied patrol boats and was urgently in need of modernization, but unfortunately for Romania this coincided with President Ceauce
ş
cu’s grandiose dreams, resulting in an over-ambitious construction plan which played a major role in the eventual collapse of his regime. The largest single result was the 5,800 tonne
Muntenia
, a destroyer which was far larger than anything required by the Romanian navy for operational reasons, although, despite its size, the armament was weak and its sensor equipment derisory, while the ship suffered from serious stability problems. A somewhat more successful frigate design was developed, of which six were built. The Romanian navy also had a tradition of operating submarines, operating four small Soviet boats from 1957 to 1967, which were followed by a gap until 1986 when a single Soviet Kilo class diesel-electric submarine was acquired, although it proved too large for Black Sea operations.

fn1
During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), its Pacific Fleet having been virtually eliminated by the Japanese, the Imperial Russian Navy dispatched its Baltic Fleet, commanded by Rozhdestvensky, to the Pacific. It left its home ports in October 1904 and sailed via the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and then across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Near the end of a desperate voyage, on 27 May 1905 the Russians met the Japanese fleet, commanded by Admiral Togo Heihachiro, at Tsu-shima, where they were decisively defeated.

fn2
Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Georgiyevich Gorshkov was commander-in-chief of the Soviet navy from January 1956 to December 1985.

fn3
The second British battleship was retained by the Soviet navy. It was broken up at Sevastopol in 1957.

fn4
‘Flag’ facilities are the command, control and communications facilities and the additional working and living accommodation necessary to enable a ship to embark an admiral and his staff and to serve as the flagship of a group.

fn5
The term ‘battlecruiser’ dated back to the early years of the twentieth century, when battleships optimized firepower and protection at the expense of speed, while the equally large battlecruisers had firepower equal to that of a battleship, but achieved rather greater speed at the expense of protection. The term was resurrected in the West as being the only appropriate designation for the Kirov class.

17

Nuclear-Powered Attack Submarines

DESPITE THE SUCCESS
of diesel-electric submarines during the first half of the twentieth century, it was clear that they suffered from an inherent weakness, in that there was an inescapable requirement for the submarine to surface regularly in order to recharge its batteries. During the First World War and the early days of the Second this was normally done at night, but the introduction of radar, initially aboard ships but later aboard aircraft, rendered surfaced boats increasingly vulnerable. As a result, the German navy developed the snorkel tube, which enabled the submarine to cruise at periscope depth while simultaneously recharging its batteries and clearing the foul air inside the submarine.
^fn1

This was, however, only a palliative, and in the 1930s forward thinkers in the Soviet Union
^fn2
and Germany saw that what was really required was a submarine which could spend protracted periods underwater without having to approach the surface at all. In other words, they needed some form of air-independent propulsion (AIP) system. The US and British navies came to the same conclusion during the war, and both realized that nuclear propulsion would offer a very effective solution, although the potential costs were extremely high at the time, and the small amounts of plutonium then available were earmarked for bomb programmes. After the war, the Soviet navy examined a possible alternative to nuclear propulsion, the hydrogen-peroxide system developed in Germany by Dr Helmuth Walter, and developed submarines to test the system, but, having experienced its inherently
dangerous
nature, they abandoned it and, like the Americans, turned to nuclear propulsion.