The Future Of The Soviet Navy

An Assessment To The Year 2000

Bruce W. Watson, Peter M Dunn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000301700
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The efforts of the Soviet Union since the mid-1950s to develop naval power have produced one of the strongest navies in the world, but this achievement has not been without serious costs. The construction of increasingly complex submarines, ships, and aircraft has required greater investment of resources and manpower. This volume addresses whether the Soviet Union will continue naval expansion and what directions technological development will take in the future. In particular, the contributors consider trends in submarine, aircraft carrier, and surface combatant systems and examine what implications these developments have for U.S. defense planning over the next two decades.

1
Future Trends in Soviet Submarine Development

John Jordan

The submarine fleet continues to be the major striking arm of the Soviet Navy. Three basic missions stand out as being of primary importance: fulfilling a land attack mission, denying Soviet waters to hostile surface and submarine forces, and conducting reconnaissance and strike missions against surface shipping on the high seas. The relative importance of these missions has been altered since the 1950s, either to match U.S. technological developments, to take advantage of developments in Soviet technology, or to counter changes in the strategic posture of the West. In some cases it has been the possibilities opened up by technological advances which have prompted changes in the strategic posture of both sides. In others, it has been the desire for a more advantageous strategic position that has provided the impetus for technological advance. The unique Soviet geostrategic situation—that of a continental landpower with limited access to the high seas—has ensured that the problems which the Soviet Navy has had to solve in order to secure a balance in maritime capabilities have been very different from those faced by the U.S. Navy over the same period. These very different problems have, as one might expect, engendered very different solutions, hence the disparities in numbers, types, and missions between the Soviet and U.S. submarine fleets.

A HISTORY OF SOVIET SUBMARINE DEVELOPMENT

The Postwar Period

In the immediate postwar period the Soviet Navy’s major concern was to protect Soviet local waters against incursions by Western carrier task forces and amphibious fleets. Such concerns were traditional, and the solutions adopted to secure the approaches to Soviet territory continued to be based largely on the theories of the “Young School” of the 1920s, which advocated large numbers of inexpensive, short-range craft such as torpedo boats and coastal submarines which would combine with land-based aircraft to form an impenetrable barrier around Soviet shores. There was, during the late 1940s and the early 1950s, a brief flirtation with the idea of constructing a large surface fleet which might contest the open oceans on equal terms with the Western navies, but this was short-lived, and the policies instituted under Khrushchev in the late 1950s saw a return to traditional theories of maritime defense.

The principal defensive weapon during this period was the submarine. Some 230 Whiskey-class boats were completed between 1951 and 1958, plus about thirty-two of the large ocean-going Zulus, and about thirty small Quebecs for operations in coastal waters. Although influenced by the German Type XXI, the design of the Whiskey was that of a classical Soviet medium-range type, similar in size and mission to the wartime S-class. The apparent intention was that the Whiskey would be employed in large numbers in the maritime approaches to the Soviet Union. Long-range reconnaissance, to enable groups of Whiskeys to be vectored into position for interception of hostile surface forces, would be performed by a combination of land-based bombers and Zulu-class submarines, target information being coordinated at a central command post ashore. The important port complexes in the Baltic and the Black Sea would be protected by the small Quebec-class coastal boats.

This “layered” system of defense, and the importance of coordinating all forces through a centralized command and control system continue to play vital parts in Soviet submarine operations of today, even though the techniques have been refined and extended.

The Missile Era

The “Young School” of the 1920s believed in technology. They felt that the Soviet Navy should be a “revolutionary” navy, and should not be content to ape the essentially conservative values of the imperial powers. Nikita Khrushchev held similar views, and promoted them very forcefully during the great Soviet defense debates which took place following the death of Stalin. From the outset, Khrushchev saw the revolutionary potential of the guided missile in naval warfare. He was also anxious that the Soviet Navy take full advantage of the dramatic increase in capabilities offered by nuclear propulsion in submarines.

As soon as the war ended, the Soviets began developmental programs employing the technology of the German VI and V2 rockets. They revived German wartime experiments in towing V2 missile containers behind a submarine during the early 1950s, and in 1954, test firings of a navy version of the Shaddock cruise missile, the SS-N-3C, reportedly took place. The Soviets did not, however, accord to these programs the degree of urgency one might have expected, possibly because they were preoccupied with building a conventional surface fleet of cruisers and destroyers.

As regards submarine propulsion, Soviet attention in the immediate postwar period was focused on German experiments with closed-cycle machinery. Early Soviet Zulu-class boats are reported to have had Walter turbines, and it is thought that the Quebec-class was originally powered by a Kreislauf closed-cycle diesel. The British Royal Navy also experimented with non-nuclear closed-cycle propulsion during this period, apparently with equal lack of success.

Khrushchev felt that the Soviet Navy had slipped badly behind the U.S. Navy both in the fields of effective missile systems and nuclear propulsion. The U.S. Navy had the Regulus I nuclear land-attack missile in service by 1954, and commissioned the world’s first nuclear-powered attack sumbarine, the USS Nautilus, in the same year. Khrushchev undoubtedly saw a fundamental Irony in the Soviet failure to accord this new technology the same degree of priority that it had been given in the United States, when the development of guided missiles and nuclear propulsion ought to be working in favor of the Soviet Navy. Khrushchev was convinced that a combination of the two would render the aircraft carrier obsolete, thereby undermining the very foundations of U.S. seapower He therefore demanded that crash development programs be instituted, to be financed by cuts in current naval construction. The major effect of these policy changes on the submarine program was the curtailment of the construction of the Whiskey’s conventional successor, the Romeo, while a thorough reassessment was made of the types and numbers of submarines needed to perform Soviet missions in the light of the changed tactical concepts which would result from adopting the new technology.

The New Generation

The first fruits of the new program were in evidence by 1960. Prototype Zulu V-class ballistic missile-equipped submarine conversions were quickly followed by Golf-class submarines armed with three SS-N-4 Sark nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles (replaced from 1963 onwards by the SS-N-5 Serb), and subsequently by the similar, but nuclear-powered submarines of the Hotel-class. Cruise missile conversions of the Whiskey-class boats also began to enter service, the Single Cylinder and Twin Cylinder prototypes being succeeded by the reconstructed Whiskey Long Bin, which carried four SS-N-3 nuclear land-attack missiles in an enlarged sail. As with the ballistic missile submarines, a nuclear-powered cruise missile variant, the Echo I, was simultaneously put into production. Finally, construction of the Foxtrot, a large conventional torpedo-armed submarine designed as a successor to the Zulu, was implemented, this particular program being complemented by the prototype Soviet nuclear-powered boats of the November-class.

The new programs marked a dramatic change of emphasis in Soviet submarine missions. Previously, it had been envisaged that the bulk of the submarine fleet would be deployed in Soviet waters, with only the larger Zulu-class boats operating outside the defensive zone on reconnaissance missions. The new missile submarines, however, were all large boats designed for long-range deployments. They were, moreover, intended to employ their missiles not against surface ships, but against key military targets on a hostile landmass. The ability of submarines to operate close to an enemy shoreline with a good chance of remaining undetected presented a threat of surprise attack, with minimal warning times. Moreover, land-based ballistic missiles with sufficient range to strike directly at the United States were still at an early stage of development, making the submarine option even more attractive.

A further significant feature of the new policy was the expansion in the construction of large reconnaissance/torpedo-attack submarines, which contrasted markedly with the drastic curtailment of the medium-range submarine program. This policy change reveals a new emphasis on long-range reconnaissance operations, to be performed by a combination of large torpedo-armed submarines and large land-based maritime bombers. It is reported that by the mid-1950s the Soviets had developed a nuclear-tipped torpedo, which could be employed both against shore installations and against a carrier task force, and the large reconnaissance submarines would have been the natural vehicles for deploying such a weapon.

The defensive mission in Soviet waters continued to be of vital importance, but a substantial part of that mission would now be performed by fast patrol boats armed with horizon-range SS-N-2 Styx antiship missiles, backed up by larger rocket cruisers armed with the SS-N-3b missile and by land-based bombers.

In spite of the degree of urgency accorded to the building of nuclear-powered submarines, the Soviet capacity for such construction was necessarily limited. Unlike the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine program of the 1950s, the Soviet program was begun in great haste, with inadequate time for testing and experimentation. The first of the November-class torpedo-attack submarines was laid down probably in 1955, and ballistic missile (Hotel) and cruise missile (Echo I) types were begun within the next two years, before the first nuclear-powered attack submarines had been completed. Some thirty nuclear boats were completed within five years, all of which used the same reactor. The reactor itself was large and heavy by contemporary U.S. Navy standards, and the pumps and gearing of these early Soviet boats were particularly noisy. Only two Soviet shipyards (Severodvinsk in the Arctic, and Komsomolsk in the Far East) were involved in the building program, and the problems of creating the necessary shipyard resources, and of training an adequate number of naval personnel to maintain and operate the machinery, must have been immense. One consequence was the large number of breakdowns which affected Soviet nuclear submarines while on patrol during the 1960s and 1970s.

Faced with the need to build large numbers of submarines to perform the revised set of missions, the Soviets were compelled to build nuclear- and diesel-powered boats in parallel, and this policy was to continue throughout the next two decades. There was also little differentiation in overall size and general configuration, in spite of the very different missions for which the new types were designed. The November-class submarines, for example, were far larger than their U.S. Navy counterparts of the Skate and Skipjack classes, and were consequently slower and less maneuverable.

The Revival of the Antiship Mission

A further major review of Soviet defense strategy which had important consequences for Soviet submarine development and construction took place in 1959–60. A new arm of the Soviet Armed Forces, the Strategic Rocket Forces, was created and massive resources were concentrated on new land-based ICBM programs. The development of the intercontinental ballistic missile appeared, for a time at least, to make the submarine-launched land-attack missile redundant, and the Soviet cruise and ballistic missile submarine programs were drastically curtailed. The last units of the Golf- and Hotel-classes were completed in 1962–63, and no Soviet ballistic missile submarines appeared in the next five years. Likewise, the Whiskey Long Bin program of cruise missile conversions was cut back to only seven units out of an estimated seventy-two originally projected, and construction of the nuclear-powered Echo I-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine program was suspended after only five had been laid down. The Whiskey conversions generally remained in Soviet waters after this time, presumably with missions in support of Soviet Army operations, and in the early 1970s the five Echo I-class submarines had their missiles removed and reverted to nuclear-powered attack submarine status.

Fortunately for the Soviet submarine arm the discrediting of the land-attack mission occurred at a time when the threat to Soviet territory from the U.S. Navy carrier task forces was increasing. Seven new super-carriers, including the nuclear-powered Enterprise, were completed or were fitting out, and more were projected. The Soviets were therefore able to transfer their growing knowledge in submarine-launched cruise missile operations from the land-attack mission to the antiship mission. The Echo was redesigned to carry eight Shaddock missiles of a new antiship variant, the SS-N-3a, and a large radar combination, designated Front Door/Front Piece, was accommodated behind a revolving panel at the forward end of the sail to provide missile tracking. A new diesel-powered cruise missile submarine (SSG), the Juliett, armed with four SS-N-3a missiles, was designed to provide a conventionally-powered complement to the Echo II. While the Echo would go in pursuit of carrier task forces, the Juliett, which was considerably slower and had limited endurance, would be deployed closer to home in defense of Soviet territory. The Echos were distributed evenly between the Pacific and Northern fleets, while most of the Julietts were allocated to the Pacific. In the event of war, the latter would probably be deployed in patrol lines across the Norwegian Sea to intercept U.S. Navy carrier battle groups. From the early 1970s they were also deployed to the Mediterranean, where they combined with cruisers and destroyers to form missile groups tasked with shadowing the carriers of the U.S. Sixth Fleet.

The Generation of ’67

The year 1967–68 saw the entry into service of a second generation of Soviet nuclear submarines, and provided clear evidence of a further major shift in Soviet maritime strategy.

The nuclear-powered ballistic missile-equipped submarine program was revived in the form of the Yankee-class. Thirty-four units were to be completed in only seven years, the Yankee being succeeded in 1972 by the Delta with its 4,200-nautical m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• About the Book and Editors
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• List of Maps
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. FUTURE TRENDS IN SOVIET SUBMARINE DEVELOPMENT
• 2. A CARRIER FOR THE SOVIET NAVY
• 3. SOVIET SURFACE COMBATANT DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS IN THE 1980s AND 1990s
• 4. SMALL SOVIET NAVAL COMBATANTS: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
• 5. SOVIET AMPHIBIOUS FORCES AND OPERATIONS
• 6. SOVIET NAVAL MINE WARFARE FORCES
• 7. THE EVOLUTION OF SOVIET NAVAL STRATEGY
• Appendix: Alphabetical List of Soviet Ship Type Designators
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index