Cold War Anti-Submarine Warfare

We have only limited evidence of the Soviets’ Cold War naval thinking or planning, so what follows is necessarily somewhat speculative. We know that before World War II, a defense-minded Soviet “young school” had argued against an “old school” that wanted the Soviet Union to build a battle fleet (or fleets) to contend for sea control, at the least in contiguous seas. In the 1930s Stalin chose large ships over submarines--but he also approved a very large submarine-building program, including construction of the Gorkiy submarine yard.

Stalin approved the initial postwar Soviet building program in September 1945. A Soviet account of the crucial meeting gives little sense of what (if any) naval strategy he had in mind.^[i] The Soviets had had the world’s most numerous submarine fleet in 1939, and Stalin may simply have envisaged replacing it.^[ii] Much of the prewar fleet consisted of small (M-class) submarines intended mainly for the Far East to counter the Imperial Japanese Navy.^[iii] Stalin’s rebuilt submarine fleet incorporated the new technology the Soviets had captured from the Germans, which promised to revolutionize submarine warfare and make Western ASW fleets largely obsolete.^[iv] Stalin stated that he wanted first to build a defensive fleet and then a dominant oceanic fleet. Some analysts have suggested that the numerous new W-class medium submarines were primarily defensive, the larger Z-class submarines being the only Soviet submarines considered suitable for an anti-shipping offensive.

A successful open-ocean submarine campaign required some means of ocean surveillance coupled with communication with the submarines. It is difficult to be sure of the intent of the observed Soviet developments. For example, the Soviets built many large HF/DF arrays (Krugs), but whether they were intended primarily to track Western strike groups or Western convoys (or, more likely, both) could never be established.

It appears that after Stalin died, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the new defense minister, decided that in a European war the Soviet submarine force would interdict Western shipping.[v] Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, initially supported Zhukov.[vi] Soviet naval chief ADM Nikolai Kuznetzov was excluded from a fall 1955 meeting at Sevastopol that set the future course of Soviet naval development. Khrushchev declared that for the future, submarines and shore-based naval aviation should be the basis of the navy. Zhukov agreed and emphasized attacks against SLOCs (sea lines of communication). The conference decided that naval nuclear weapons were to be adopted and that the main role of the navy would be to disrupt enemy SLOCs. Having recently witnessed the destruction of the old cruiser Krasny Kavkaz by air-launched guided missiles, Khrushchev concluded that surface ships were doomed. Kuznetzov was soon removed from office and replaced by Admiral Gorshkov, who initially agreed with Khrushchev but managed to convince him to allow a few surface ships to be built. In 1957 ADM Vladimir Andreyev explained the wartime role of Soviet submarines as SLOC interdiction.[vii] The numbers envisaged were never reached, perhaps because Soviet policy changed radically within a few years.

Khrushchev later wrote that he could not sleep after seeing film of the first Soviet hydrogen-bomb test. Then he realized that the bomb would deter the West; the global war previously considered inevitable might never happen. Like the Americans and the British, he understood that the East-West conflict would shift to the Third World. To make sure that happened, he would emphasize nuclear/missile forces over conventional ones. Khrushchev proclaimed a Revolution in Military Affairs emphasizing nuclear weapons and missiles--and nuclear deterrence. He feared that any direct conflict could escalate uncontrollably. However, he had to deal with China’s attempt to take over the world communist movement. He supported the North Vietnamese in 1959 only because they shrewdly threatened to support the Chinese in their ongoing fight with the Soviets if he did not.

Given Khrushchev’s new emphasis on nuclear weapons and missiles, the large, expensive army in Eastern Europe could be cut back (perhaps also a necessary reaction to the demographic echoes of World War II and the prewar purges). To enforce his changes, Khrushchev suspended the 1956–60 Five-Year Plan and introduced a Seven-Year Plan (1959–65). In its original form, the Seven-Year Plan called for construction of no fewer than 421 nuclear submarines and 132 diesel submarines, figures never actually approached.[viii]

Westerners generally attribute Khrushchev’s fall in 1964 to the failure of his attempt to place strategic missiles in Cuba, but it seems likelier that he fell afoul of those who had been hurt by his disruption of economic (i.e., military) planning. In the Soviet system, industry was tied to politics. Industry managers gained their positions for political reasons. They enjoyed valuable bonuses based on how much they produced. The drastic change Khrushchev envisioned would inevitably cut production, hence their bonuses. Thus, any attempt to change production goals had political implications. Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev, proclaimed the “stability of cadres,” which reassured factory managers that they need not worry about their jobs or sudden changes in their production quotas.[ix] Several Soviet industrial experts said after the end of the Cold War that the Soviet military industrial base became self-sustaining, and justifications for programs became irrelevant. One Russian naval historian explained Admiral Gorshkov’s expansion of the Soviet fleet in just this way, arguing that anyone in his position would have achieved much the same results.[x]

The character of the Soviet economy was little understood in the West. It was relatively sluggish, so that the lag between a decision--to design quieter submarines, for example--and its implementation might take a surprisingly long time. Too, the Soviet system was poorly adapted to maintain or modernize equipment.[xi] One of the great surprises of post–Cold War Russia was that vital systems still in service, such as ASW aircraft, had never been updated, as would have been standard practice in the West. The rigidity enforced by industrial planning probably explains how slow the Soviets were to silence their submarines in the 1970s.

Khrushchev’s insistence on the primacy of nuclear weapons survived, however, to the point where the Soviets were generally concerned that crises such as the 1973 Middle East War not be allowed to escalate to the nuclear level. Khrushchev’s logic set the character of the oceanic part of the Soviet navy. If war came, Western nuclear forces, including strike carriers, would be the primary targets. It took time for the change to be understood in the West. Western intelligence gained an idea of what was happening when COL Oleg Penkovskiy provided copies of articles in the Top Secret version of the Soviet official publication Voenny Mysl’ (Military Thought). The journal’s editors raised vital topics connected with Khrushchev’s revolution in turn, inviting articles by highly placed authors before debate was closed. Naval articles (translations of which are now declassified) made it clear that the new priority targets were nuclear-armed strike carriers. One article pointed to the need for good timing, so that missiles bombers fired at the carriers would not obliterate submarines making torpedo attacks. Penkovskiy’s arrest in 1963 cut off Westerners’ knowledge of the further development of Soviet naval thinking.

The cost of the anticarrier force and the nuclear submarine land-attack force was enormous. Construction of submarines suited to an antishipping campaign declined, but previous programs had already produced large numbers of submarines that seemed well suited to just such a campaign.

After the United States deployed Polaris submarines, the Soviets made efforts to hunt them. That proved both extremely expensive and, apparently, ineffective. The Polaris hunt was also the first role really appreciated by the political leadership. That is why so many Soviet ships and other naval projects were given ASW designations.

As the Soviets developed their own force of strategic submarines armed with long-range weapons, they came to see them as an essential strategic reserve. This idea was apparently first mooted in public by the creator of the modern Soviet navy, ADM Sergei Gorshkov, in his 1973 book. The protection of that strategic reserve helped justify investment in the Soviet navy; Gorshkov explained that he needed his surface fleet to maintain the “combat stability” of his submarines. Presumably much the same argument applied to Soviet naval air strike forces.

Sensitive intelligence indicating the extent of the resources the Soviets thought would be needed to protect their SSBNs during a major war was a great surprise for the U.S. Navy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Presumably the Soviets were aware of U.S. and British success in trailing their SSBNs. They could not expect their SSBNs to survive in the open sea, so the submarines would instead shelter in protected bastions in the White Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. This in itself was not a surprise; the concentration of SSBNs in the bastions had been observed. What seems to have been shocking was the extent to which the bastions would be protected. It seemed that bastion protection would absorb so much of the Soviet fleet as to preclude other operations, such as attacks on the transatlantic SLOCs. This revelation did not, of course, predict what the Soviets might do in a local war, for example in the Mediterranean; but it did indicate that continuing pressure on the bastions would likely keep the Soviets from using their fleet in any more effective way in the event of a protracted NATO war.

Threats to the bastions included U.S. carrier strike forces. Dealing with them could justify local offensive action out to a considerable distance. Soviet naval doctrine of the 1970s envisaged sufficient sea control to keep Western naval forces far from the Soviet coast. That tallied with their interest in precluding Western attacks, particularly nuclear ones. By the early 1980s the Soviets’ goal was to maintain sea control or sea denial out to 2,000 km (about 1,080 nm).[xii] Such control would have interdicted SLOCs connecting the United States to Europe and to the Far East. It seemed likely that the Soviets would feel compelled to extend the sea denial boundary out to 3,000 km as the United States put Tomahawk cruise missiles in service. Although the Soviets seem not to have been interested in interdicting the SLOCs per se, exerting sea control and sea denial over the areas of interest would likely have involved them in attacks on SLOC shipping.
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[i] The Soviet account of the meeting mentions a Soviet naval staff study of the naval lessons of the war, but unfortunately no copy of this study has ever surfaced in the West.

[ii] According to Juergen Rowher and Mikhail S. Monakov, Stalin’s Ocean-Going Fleet (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 93, in August 1939 the Soviets had in commission (and under construction) 27 (19) large submarines, 77 (38) medium submarines, and 59 (17) small submarines, a total of 163 submarines in commission and another 74 laid down. At that time the planned 1947 fleet would have included 88 large submarines, 229 medium submarines, and 123 small submarines (plus 2 experimental boats), a total of 440 submarines. Stalin rejected proposals for various specialized submarines in 1945, and the 10-year program he approved on 27 November 1945 included 40 large, 204 medium, and 123 small submarines (Rowher and Monakov, 185). The latter were mostly updated M class plus 30 closed-cycle Quebec (Project 615) class. By 1955, the Soviets had actually completed 6 large, 151 medium, and 66 small submarines. According to Natalia I. Yegorova in “Stalin’s Conception of Maritime Power: Revelations from the Russian Archives” Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 2 (April 2005), submarine priority was increased in 1952 (she cites an April 1952 resolution by the Council of Ministers), the number of large and medium submarines envisaged in the Ten-Year Plan being increased from the 179 envisaged in a 5 February resolution to 277. She states that the submarine fleet was given the greatest attention at this time. The amphibious ship program was apparently cut to compensate. Yegorova, who worked at the Center for Cold War Studies of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, based her account on documents from the Russian State Archive of the Economy, which included holdings of the State Planning Committee and the Soviet Ministry of Finance.

[iii] It appears that the M class was conceived to provide the maximum number of torpedo tubes at a fixed cost; boats were built in sections that could be transported by rail.

[iv] According to V. P. Kuzin and V. I. Nikol’skiy, The Soviet Navy 1945–1991 (St. Petersburg: Historical Naval Society), Stalin was unimpressed by the potential of submarine attacks on shipping. He opposed large submarines and attempts to increase their numbers. He seems to have envisaged two stages of naval development: a first ten-year program to develop a fleet to dominate waters close to the Soviet Union, and a second ten-year program to develop a truly oceanic navy. Stalin talked about structuring the initial program to train cadres for the oceanic navy. Soviet building plans are described in A. N. Sokolov, “Our Ambitious Plans: Soviet Shipbuilding Plans of the Post-war Decades,” Warship International no. 3 (2010): 229–39, and no. 4. According to Sokolov, Stalin wanted to be ready for an attack by the capitalist West in a decade, which mirrors the British “year of maximum danger” idea. The March 1945 plan was unrealistically large; on 27 September 1945 Stalin chaired a conference intended to cut it to manageable proportions. The amended program was ratified by a 27 November 1945 decree. According to Sokolov’s table, which probably reflects the original approved plan, it provided for 40 Project 611s (later adjusted to 30), 204 Project 613s (not listed as adjusted), and 123 small Project 612 submarines, later dropped in favor of fewer Q class (Project 615). These figures did not include a prototype closed-cycle submarine (Project 95, a prewar project) or the completion of 57 M-class coastal submarines, many of them begun before the war. The new designs for medium (Project 613 Whiskey) and large (Project 611 Zulu) submarines apparently took longer than expected to complete. No large submarines were completed during the first plan period, and only six in the second. Later adjustment seems to have replaced some of the large submarines with medium ones.

[v] According to Kuzin and Nikol’skiy, projected totals were 350 Whiskeys, 160 Foxtrots, and 560 Romeos. These figures for planned submarine production roughly match the 1,000-submarine figure. Kuzin and Nikol’skiy are credible because they were former naval officers, presumably with access to planning documents. It is not clear why their figures diverge from Sokolov’s, but presumably ideas changed drastically from 1957 onward. Of the types they list, Foxtrots (Project 641) were successors to Zulus, and Romeos (Project 633) were updated Whiskeys. Note, however, that the mass-production Romeo had twice the rated stores endurance of a Whiskey--60 rather than 30 days--although rated range was similar. They criticize Zhukov as impractical and ignorant of naval practicalities. To sink the necessary more than 2 million tons per month, “by the most modest calculation” the Soviets would have required about 1,000 submarines and monthly production of 15,000 torpedoes. The Soviets abandoned production of short-range submarines altogether in the late 1950s, selling the Romeo tooling to the Chinese (who were also given Whiskeys). The Chinese Type 033 is their version of the Project 633 Romeo. By 1971 the U.S. Navy accepted that Whiskey was essentially a coast-defense submarine. A declassified collection of documents used for a Naval War College ASW course in 1972–73 included a September 1971 CIA paper on the evolution and operations of the Soviet attack submarine force (SR-IM 71-11-8), presumably incorporating U.S. Navy input. It credited a Whiskey with 20 days’ endurance on station per patrol at a radius of 1,200 nm, compared with a similar period on patrol for a Zulu at a distance of 2,400 nm. Under optimum conditions a Whiskey could spend about 10 days on a patrol station 1,800 nm from its base. In the CIA view, a Whiskey was better able to defend the sea approaches to the USSR and interdict naval vessels in the Norwegian Sea. Of submarines built during the initial Soviet building program, only the Zulus were suited to reach U.S. SLOCs to Europe and conduct lengthy operations. The CIA account mentions the 1,000-submarine goal of the 1950s. According to this paper, in the late 1950s the Soviets recognized a more serious threat in the form of U.S. carriers capable of launching nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union. In the CIA’s view, the Soviet Union developed cruise missile submarines to counter the carriers, while torpedo submarines were intended for interdiction. However, Soviet writings about attacks on carriers envisaged coordinated missile and torpedo attacks.

[vi] Sergei Chernyavskii, “The Era of Gorshkov: Triumph and Contradictions,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 2 (April 2005), special issue The Cold War at Sea. Chernyavskii saw Zhukov, with Khrushchev’s support, reacting against the attempt by Kuznetzov to build a powerful balanced fleet. According to Chernyavskii, Kuznetzov proposed a 10-year program (1955–64) to build 9 aircraft carriers, 21 cruisers, 118 destroyers, and 324 large submarines, to form 3 or 4 surface squadrons. Kuznetzov was not invited to a government meeting held at Sevastopol in fall 1955 to determine the future of the Soviet navy. Chernyavskii worked for the Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg, in effect the Soviet naval archive. He doubted that Gorshkov had any particular long-range plan. Initially he charmed Khrushchev (and thereby replaced Kuznetzov) by acceding to his view that surface ships were obsolete. He then seized an opportunity presented by Brezhnev to build his desired fleet. Historians of the Soviet Union have pointed out that Soviet-era politics was personal. Views expressed were inevitably tactical. Those espousing them could easily shift to views that had proved fatal for their failed opponents. One might see Gorshkov’s replacement of Kuznetzov in this light.

[vii] Andreyev was quoted at the 1959 U.S. Undersea Warfare Conference: “The United States is the smithy [foundry] of war. . . . Overseas transport of weapons to allies and providing the overseas requirements of the U.S. Army and Air Force will be of paramount importance. If Allied sea routes are severed or disturbed, it will unavoidably lead to the critical weakening of the military participants of the aggressive North Atlantic bloc.” No context for Andreyev’s remarks was given.

[viii] Nikolai Simonov, Voenno-promyshlenniy complex SSSR v 1920–1950-e gody (Moscow: Rosspen, 1996), translated as Military-Industrial Complex of the USSR 1920–1950s by Steve Zaloga. The naval shipbuilding plan is tabulated on page 299. Other warships were 12 light cruisers, 10 missile ships, 22 destroyers, 4 air warfare ships, 10 radar pickets, and 94 ASW ships. None of these figures was approached. Another table shows projected production to meet the goals, including 18 reactors in 1958 and 134 in 1968. Sokolov gives much smaller numbers in Warship International no. 3 (2010): for the 1959–65 program he lists 20 Novembers (13 were actually built), the single liquid-metal version of that class (Project 645), 24 Romeos (20 built), 32 improved Romeos (Project 654, none built), 22 Project 629M (SSBN, none built), an unknown number of Project 658s (SSBN; he does not give numbers built), 10 Whiskey Long Bin (conversions: 6 actually done), 6 Echo I (5 built), 30 Echo II (29 built), 48 Juliett (16 built), 1 P627A (November version carrying long-range cruise missile, unbuilt), 4 Project 653 (nuclear powered submarines with two long-range cruise missiles each, unbuilt), 12 transport submarines (Project 664, none built), 7 nuclear transport submarines (Project 681, not built), 20 nuclear submarine tankers (Project 681, not built), and 30 A-658 (Project 658 with D-7 missile, not built). This would amount to 240 submarines. Sokolov also lists some studies without planned building quantities: Project 654 (a multipurpose submarine), Project 663 (a 1959 midget submarine armed with torpedoes), Project 673 (a study with an Albacore hull form), Project 683 (a modified Juliett), and Project 688 (a nuclear submarine carrying P-120 or P-500 missiles). Sokolov does not list any of the next-generation submarines, such as the mass-production Project 670 or the very fast Project 661 (Papa), presumably because they would have been completed after 1965.

[ix] Brezhnev apparently saw Khrushchev’s fall (which he had engineered) as proof that it was far too dangerous to tamper with the core military element of the Soviet economy. He therefore accepted continued and even uncontrolled growth of the military sector--including the naval sector--to the point that it nearly collapsed in the 1980s, forcing project cancellations before the Soviet Union itself collapsed. Among other things, after Khrushchev’s fall the Soviet army was rebuilt.

[x] Chernyavskii, “The Era of Gorshkov,” 281–308.

[xi] Planning included not only construction but also planned refits. Later Soviet practice was to plan a mid-life refit (to bring it back to zero-hours condition) for a ship or submarine, and also to provide spares for onboard repair. This planning naturally omitted major changes during the mid-life refit, which could not have been planned in advance.

[xii] According to the declassified NIE 11-15-82, “Soviet Naval Strategy and Programs through the 1990s,” based on information available as of 19 October 1982, the primary Soviet navy tasks would remain to protect Soviet ballistic missile submarines and to attack Western carriers and ballistic missile submarines. “Accomplishment of these tasks would entail attempts to control all or portions of the Kara, Barents, and northern Norwegian and Greenland Seas, the Seas of Japan and of Okhotsk, and the Northwest Pacific Basin, and to conduct sea denial operations beyond those areas to about 2,000 km from Soviet territory.” The Soviet navy would also support ground operations in peripheral areas such as Norway, and it might conduct some SLOC interdiction. Soviet naval strategy would be unchanged, but the need to counter Western units armed with the new Tomahawk cruise missile would drive the Soviets to expand sea control operations, possibly out to 3,000 km from Soviet territory.