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The next leg of the Soviets’ race to compete Wth the U. S. Navy will see them develop- ,flg carrier battle groups that look like °urs, albeit with a different mission.
Many obstacles face scholars and the public in attempting to assess Soviet military and naval capabilities. Because of Soviet secretiveness, we g»t depend on official information furnished by Free ^orld governments, whose understanding is not only imPerfect but cautious, tempered as it is to ensure that any e^ors occur on the high side. The security of sources and 0 the methods of collecting information also must take Precedence over the public’s “right to know.” When So- J'let Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovskiy told the nited Nations Conference on Disarmament last October at the Soviet Navy possessed 1,380 warships, including °Ur “carriers,” 376 submarines, and 97 ships in the <'riJiser, destroyer, and frigate categories, and that it had >142 aircraft and 12,000 “marines,” his figures, there- ,?re> could not be reconciled with those published in the west.
Petrovskiy’s figures probably included only units that re actually operational. Soviet concepts of what consumes reserve equipment are very different from the West- £rn understanding, and many of the ships, craft, and air- raft the West counts as part of the Soviet Navy are etually out of service in reserve. In those “us versus j. ern ’ tables so prevalent in the weekly news magazines, °r example, one can find the latest nuclear-powered . Utiser being equated to a worn out SAwryy-class destroyer the “major surface combatants” category, or a three- >tecade-old November counted as equal to an Akula in the mtack submarine” total.
^ Adding to the difficulty of realistically “counting the ^e3ns ’ is the Soviet propensity to retain obsolete ships other equipment for far longer than would be the case P the West.
In October 1988, two Kanin-class guided-missile de-
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stroyers left the Northern Fleet under tow for scrapping in Spain (one came to grief on a Norwegian islet and did^not complete the journey). Although the ships were completed in 1960 and 1961 and modernized, along with their sisters, between 1968 and 1974, the Kanins had obviously been out of service for many years. This raises speculation as to how many ships of the even older Soviet naval ship classes are genuinely operational or could even be reactivated. In March 1989, for example, Western sources reported that the Soviets had sold 17 superannuated submarines abroad for scrapping, were seeking bidders to scrap 60 more, and had plans to scrap perhaps hundreds of obsolete naval vessels in the immediate future.
Even if we reject Petrovskiy’s figures, it is clear that the size of the Soviet fleet—both in numbers and tonnage— has been shrinking. In the 1988 edition of the U. S. Department of Defense’s Soviet Military Power, the point where expansion became reduction is placed in 1984.
The ships and craft built for the Soviet Navy during the last decade or so, however, have been far larger and more complex than the units they have been replacing. Greater complexity in the face of greater threat begets greater size and a greater drain on Soviet resources—a trend wholly familiar to Western naval planners. For example, the 220- ton Osa raketnyy kater (guided-missile patrol boat) introduced in 1958 is being supplanted by far smaller numbers of 540-ton Tarantuls, whose virtually identical principal payload—four antiship missiles—must be defended by a far more complex and expensive array of weapons and sensors than their predecessors carried in order to achieve an acceptable chance of mission success against improved Western defenses.
In 1987, the Soviet Navy launched only five submarines, of which three were nuclear powered and one was an experimental, noncombatant diesel boat. Major surface ship deliveries during 1987 included only two of what we would call “destroyers,” while one “frigate” was completed—for the KGB. In 1988, again only five submarines were launched for the Soviet Navy, one of them diesel powered, and the fourth and last of the 43,000-ton Kiev- class “aircraft-carrying cruisers” was delivered, as were the third 28,000-ton Kirov “missile cruiser,” the usual two destroyers, and a KGB frigate. In other categories, however, such as small combatants, the delivery numbers
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established facts (especially when the facts must remai^ classified to protect the means of obtaining them), ^ must also continue to endure the fantasists who attempt o portray, say, the towed array pods on some modern Sovie submarine classes as being magnetohydrodynamic propu sors a la The Hunt for Red October. ,
The Soviet Union is very good at some aspects of nav technology and not so good at others. Excellent S°v'ie
Driven by its need for hard currency foreign exchange, the Soviet Union is selling naval units such as this Kilo- class submarine to India—even when such sales cut deliveries to the Soviet Navy.
are down, while there have been no deliveries of seagoing mine countermeasures ships for at least six years and no significant new replenishment vessel has been completed for a decade.
Part of the reason for fewer deliveries to the Soviet Navy has been the upswing in the construction of major warships, submarines, small combatants, and mine countermeasures units for foreign customers, in particular India, whose priorities seem almost to take precedence over those of the Soviet Navy at the Soviet Ministry of Shipbuilding. The need for hard currency foreign exchange, and the need to extend foreign dependence on the Soviet military logistics infrastructure, may outweigh the need to rejuvenate the aging Soviet Navy.
At the same time that the Soviet Navy s numbers are inexorably declining, there is no doubt whatever that the capabilities of individual ships, submarines, and aircraft are increasing. Perhaps even more important, the surveillance, command, control, and communications network that would be used to manipulate the Soviet Union’s naval assets in wartime is also improving.
The trick for the Soviet Union has been, and will continue to be, to ensure that its side of the “correlation of forces’’ equation results in at least a retention—within its current and planned operational context—of equality or superiority to the fleets of its perceived enemies. That will be no small feat to accomplish, especially during a period of apparent overall Soviet military retrenchment, increasing resource and manpower constraints, growing demands for force modernization from other more senior branches of the Soviet armed forces in the face of Western developments, and the geometrical progression in the complexity and cost of modem naval weapon systems.
The seemingly spectacular examples of Soviet naval technology we have seen in recent years have led to the assumption not only that the technology all works but that all aspects of Soviet development are similarly advanced. Thus, we continue to witness great hullabaloo about the impressive maximum speed and depth the Alfa-class submarines have achieved; we have reached the point of delaying major U. S. naval weapons to counter a capability that is found in only a tiny percentage of the Soviet submarine force and that is, in any case, not the major tactical factor in modern submarine warfare. Since irresponsible speculation often sells better than reasonable analysis or
surface-to-air missiles and superb naval guns are coup e to fairly primitive acquisition and guidance systems. 0 viet research and development in hydrodynamics has resulted not only in the speed-optimized hull forms for su marines such as the Alfa and Akula, but also in innovah forms for conventional surface ship hulls, and a wil ness to experiment with advanced concepts such as Ekranoplan, or WIG (wing-in-ground effect), craft. The are also innovative Soviet propulsion systems d|W1^r ships like the Kirov (had the ship been built in the e* ’ however, she could have as much capability on per*JaP half the displacement). The Soviet Union is woefully e cient in computer technology, and that crucial deficiea must have a deleterious effect on the design and opera j of the Soviet Navy. The Soviets also have a eontinri* - inability to make things small; simplicity and dura > take precedence over performance. . e
No doubt ships such as the Kirov are impressive to eye, but there is not yet a single ship in the Soviet a with the surveillance and control capabilities of an Aeg cruiser, or anything approaching the massed firepower a U. S. Navy aircraft carrier. The combined fixed-Wi aircraft complements of all four A'/cv-class “aircraftca ^ ers’’ do not add up to that of a single U. S. nuclear airc ^ carrier—and, of course, the Yak-38 Forger is har y match for a Sea Harrier, let alone an F-14 or an F/A ^ But this very discussion perpetuates another proble g comparing Soviet naval power with that of the West- ^ tendency to discuss relative fleet strengths as if the had the same missions. That is not the case, and the So ^ Navy can be considered a “balanced fleet’’ for the P poses of the Kremlin where, particularly to U. S. eye*'nj might appear deficient in afloat support resources heavy in coastal combatants. In addition to its mi1t duties, the Soviet Navy is responsible for such cc^ guard” functions as aids-to-navigation maintenan^’ search-and-rescue, and salvage. The police functions ^ mally assigned to coast guards elsewhere are carr>et. by the separately subordinated KGB Border Guard ^ .. The U. S. Navy must operate far from home waters J11^ not equipped to act as a coastal defense fleet; the Navy, in time of war, is really intended to be a sea extension of the Soviet land defenses.
The following “single-point” projection for the >
1990 and 2010 must be defined as one in which the Soviet Navy continues to receive about the same absolute and
relative allocation of resources as is now the case.
In an era of billion dollar S’eawo/f-class submarines, the effort to keep up between the Joneses and the Ivanovs will be enormously expensive for both sides. It will, however, be utterly necessary for the maintenance of sea power, for the submarine is the one naval platform with a reasonably assured chance of survival in the three-dimensional, undersea/surface/air-space warfare environment of the 21st century.
The Soviets’ strategic ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) force will number about 62 units in 1990 and will jjonsist of not more than six operational Typhoons, eight Belta-IVs, and 36 earlier Delta variants; at most a dozen Yankees will still be in SSBN configuration and assigned to the theater attack role being vacated by the Golfs. According to the public testimony of the Director of Naval Intelligence, no Typhoons were launched in 1987 or 1988.
By 2010, the Typhoons and perhaps eight to ten Delta- *Vs will have been joined by sufficient numbers of a new class introduced in the early 1990s to ensure the continuity °f the submarine-launched ballistic-missile deterrent. Any snrviving earlier Deltas will have devolved to subsidiary
uties. At the same time, the buildup in facilities, com- and systems, and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) capabil- les wiH have made the force more secure than it is today. Barring a verifiable sea-launched strategic cruise mis- ,*e limitation treaty, the Soviets will probably further ^evelop the capability inherent in the SS-NX-24 long- Cnge weapon, whose long-expected production launch Patform submarine has yet to appear. U. S. intelligence as publicly adjudged the SS-N-21 to be a theater attack , eapon, although it is roughly the size of the U. S. Toma- ‘jvvk missile. In the near term, it is likely that we shall see , ditional Yankees converted to the “Yankee Notch” SS- '21 launching configuration revealed in 1987. The SS-
N-21 displaces other torpedo tube-launched weapons, and, because the Soviet submarine force has so many other different types of weapons to carry at once, devoting significant capacity to the theater-attack cruise missile is not an attractive option for the current nuclear attack submarine (SSN) force. For the future, however, an increase in the number of launch tubes, installation of external vertical launch tubes, or provision of an enlarged reload capacity in new classes is a strong possibility.
The dedicated short-range antiship missile-launching submarines of the Charlie series were a dead-end line of development that the Soviets will be unlikely to replace; the Soviet submarine force has yet to receive a torpedo tube-launched antiship missile like the Sub-Harpoon, but, with its long-range, large-diameter, wake-homing torpedoes, it may not consider such a weapon necessary or desirable.
The submarine cruisers of the Oscar class, with their large, 250-mile-plus ranged “strategic” (meaning, in Soviet terms, that they are intended for use against strategically significant targets such as carrier battle groups) SS-N-19 missiles are a viable weapon system in the Soviet context. We can expect the Soviets to continue constructing these as a counter to carrier battle groups and other major concentrations of naval forces.
Perhaps the real successor to the Echo-II/Oscar series will be the above-mentioned SS-NX-24—carrying submarine, with the weapon usable against land or sea targets. Because of the large number of bulky missiles that it must carry to perform its “strategic defense” role, the production rate for the Oscar series has been slow, only about one submarine every year and a half. Successor design submarines, however, will be able to take far better advantage than the Oscar of future space surveillance resources for targeting their weapons, and, if their weapons are reduced in size or employ “stealth” concepts, the Oscar/Oscar-
successor force will be a formidable threat.
NATO SSNs now well outnumber the modem Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarine force, which is adding new units to its force at the rate of only two to three a year. By 1990, the Novembers and Echos will have had approximately 30 years’ service and will no longer be a significant threat. That will leave the Victor-I and later classes totaling fewer than 60 units, with one or more of the undoubtedly noisy Yankee SSN conversions doing little to enhance the threat. By 2010, the 20 newest Victor-Ills will be the oldest boats, with Akula, Sierra, and their successor designs bringing the total SSN force to between 65 and 80 units. Thus, the first-line quiet and deep-diving attack submarine force could not only be more numerous than at present (while NATO’s totals are likely to decline), it will also be significantly quieter and more combatworthy.
The Soviet diesel submarine order of battle is rapidly declining and is currently being renewed at the token rate of only one Kilo per year. By next year, there should be only about 70 diesel attack submarines left in operation; by 2010, even with the probable introduction of new classes, a force of a dozen such ships in each of the four fleets is likely to suffice.
Unannounced and undetected submarines are worthless for projecting naval presence. The diminishing survivability of surface warfare units, however, in the face of the almost certain development of near-constant space surveillance of the oceans, is a trend that must be dealt with and that will cost dearly to counter.
In the Soviet Navy, the surface forces have as their primary responsibilities the defense of the homeland and the protection of the ballistic-missile submarine component of the strategic deterrent. The current hardware and operational trends all indicate that the Soviets realize that accomplishing those missions requires a massive investment in equipment and the development of the means for close cooperation between land- and sea-based aviation, the surface forces, and the submarine fleet (and, in the future, space-based forces as well).
According to the recent Soviet book, The Navy, Its Role, Prospects for Development, and Employment (See excerpt and analysis in the May 1989 Proceedings), in coming years the Soviet Navy will also have to take on the mission of countering strategic cruise missiles—again, an expensive and complex undertaking. While the mission will be aided by high-performance aircraft, airborne early warning aircraft, space-based detection systems, and new weapons that will probably include, by 2010, an operational directed-energy or laser weapon system, it will have to be accomplished with fewer individual platform resources than are now available.
In 1990 Soviet sea-based aviation will receive its first true aircraft carrier, although, without catapults, the
Tbilisi will be sorely handicapped in operating high- performance fixed-wing aircraft. Later carriers should join the fleet at roughly three-year intervals and, with the announcement last year that a navalized Su-27 Flanker variant is being readied, will probably have the long- delayed catapults. .
Equipped with the Su-27 (or, at least, capable of servicing and relaunching land-based squadrons), the reportedly delayed Yak-41 (a Forger successor), and a sizable he j' copter complement, the Soviet carriers will have as their wartime role not the projection of power but the seawar extension of Soviet air defenses and the protection of the strategic submarine fleet. By 2010, the carrier force, 1 one includes the by-then aged Kiev and her later three sisters, might number ten to 12 ships—five or six each i° the Northern and Pacific Ocean fleets.
The Soviets’ massive investment in these enormoji ships will affect the size of the rest of the surface fleet- 1 protect the carriers, the Soviet Navy will almost inevitab y evolve a “carrier battle group” structure in which tn smaller ships escort the larger ones. Today, most Sovj^ surface ships are still intended to defend themselves in pendently against air attack. The need to build ever m°r sophisticated escorts will drive their sizes upward and t numbers that can be acquired downward.
Petrovskiy’s total of 97 “cruisers, destroyers, and mg ates’ ’ appears to include everything from the two MosD ^ class ASW cruisers, the surviving handful of operation Sverdlov-c\ass conventional gun cruisers, the “missl cruisers” of the Kirov, Slava, Kresta-I, and Kyn classes; the 46 or so “large antisubmarine ships” of ^ Kara, Kresta-II, Udaloy, Kashin series, and KarU. classes; perhaps two of the only “large missile sh*P class, the modified Kildins; the 27 destroyers of the So remennyy, Kotlin series, and, just possibly, classes; and, presumably, the 32 large “guard ships the Krivak-I and -II classes. . .
This accounting provides for 115 ships, while elimtn ing the Krivaks results in too few; the Deputy F°re1^ Minister may not have been counting ships in long-te refit—or there may be far fewer of the older ships o older classes left operational than we think. g
Since 1980, the Soviet Navy has received, in U- Navy terminology, an average of one “cruiser ^ other year and two “destroyers” a year. “Frigate” del . eries stopped with the last Krivak-II in 1982 (subsequ Krivak-IIIs, for the KGB Border Guard, have been dc^ ered at the rate of one per year). During that same perl _s’ by way of comparison, the U. S. Navy alone conlI|1^g sioned four battleships, 11 cruisers, ten destroyers, an frigates.
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. For the immediate future, there is little prospect for an increase in the production rate of Soviet Navy major surface combatants, although the U. S. Director of Naval intelligence stated in his February 1989 congressional testimony that the prototype for a new frigate class was then under construction and was expected to begin trials during 1989. Of the current construction classes, the Kirov appears capable of performing an escort role for carriers, although that was probably not the original intent for the esign, while the Slava, a 12,000-ton general-purpose .ip whh the SA-N-6 missile system, is nonetheless hand- leapped by being equipped primarily with weapons and ^ensor systems first introduced in the mid-1970s. The daloy is primarily an antisubmarine vessel, while the ovremennyy, a true general-purpose destroyer, has only a limited, essentially self-defense, ASW capability and, smce its design is based on that of the Kresta series, represents basic platform and propulsion technologies introduced well over a quarter century ago.
Thus, the stage is set for a new series of major surface combatants if the Soviets intend, as it appears that they do, u be able to maintain against the contemporary threat an a Hity to continue to operate at will in the contiguous wa- ers they consider vital to their national defense. Because 0 size, cost, and shipyard capacity constraints (including a continuing export program), however, it does not seem Pmbable that, with the likely exception of the new “frigate” program, production rates will rise.
The development of the Soviet carrier battle group, al- hough its mission will be different from that of its American counterpart, will inevitably transform the composition 0 the Soviets’ surface fleet force into one more closely analogous to that of the U. S. Navy. What we have not Seen for more than a decade, however, is any program for dew ships that would provide underway support for ex- ended out-of-area wartime operations for such a fleet, hat glaring lack (from our perspective) adds support for e growing consensus that the Soviet surface fleet (and,
,° a lesser extent, the submarine fleet with which it is 'ntended to cooperate closely) will not venture any great 'stance from the homeland in time of war.
The Soviet surface fleets will also not venture far be- 7nnd the limits of land-based aviation support, although,
? c°urse, those limits are being expanded through the Production of longer-ranged, more capable interceptors, ew and more capacious aerial refuellers, and AWACs- ype aircraft—all operating under the control of a greatly "hanced communications, command, control, and intelli- §ence network.
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Short-seas patrol and ASW types like the Grisha, ^°astal patrol types like Pauk, and the whole family of _jfagoing coastal defense antiship missile craft like the arantul will almost certainly continue to be built for oper- '°ns in Northern Fleet home waters, the Baltic, the d rCk Sea, the Sea of Japan, and elsewhere. There is a ^finite, long-term Soviet Navy layered coastal defense 'ndset, and there is no reason for such forces to disap- ear, at least not by 2010. Indeed, current research-and- ^Cvelopment programs, like the SS-N-22-toting Utka Ek- ar,oplan, are an indication that coastal defense will continue to be a major—and resource-consuming—Soviet Navy mission.
Although the Soviet Navy is perhaps the most mine warfare conscious of any of the major fleets, there have been few recent platform or capability developments that match Western European technology. Although it is possible that, based on the lack of progress in the development and production of new mines within NATO, the Soviets have reallocated resources elsewhere, it is far more likely that the 1990s will bring a new generation of mine countermeasures platforms, including a truly capable aerial mine countermeasures helicopter, to maintain or exceed the current capability.
Petrovskiy and the U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) disagree by a third on the size of the Soviet Naval Infantry (he said 12,000; DoD says 18,000), but it cannot be disputed that the Soviet amphibious warfare capability has been greatly enhanced in recent years and will continue to improve in the years ahead. The introduction of sizable numbers of large air-cushion vehicles and Ekranoplans for the delivery of shock forces will enhance the already formidable Soviet ability to mount an amphibious assault within relatively short distances of the homeland. There does not, however, seem to be any doctrinal or hardware trend to indicate that the Soviet Navy is headed toward an ability to project power ashore during a general global war beyond the limits of the defensive perimeter established by the sea/land/air-space shield around the Soviet Union.
As to the trends in the auxiliary forces, the Soviet Navy has continued to renew the auxiliaries over the years. Because of the greater number of roles and missions assigned to such organizations as the Naval Salvage and Rescue Service, the Hydrographic Service, and the Naval Auxiliary Service than are generally assigned to Western “navies,” the Soviets will continue to build what appear to us to be large numbers of ships in large numbers of diverse classes.
Those who hope to analyze and project the current and future capabilities and intentions of the Soviet Navy must do so from within as complete and thorough as possible a Soviet historical, cultural, social, and economic framework. Our official (and unofficial) efforts to understand Soviet military power should be couched within an overall understanding of the Soviet Union’s past and likely future and not tied to narrow “bean-counting” exercises or to mirror-imaged technological feasibilities.
Finally, it must be remembered that a military force with a strong doctrinal foundation and a clear view of its mission has distinct advantages over an opposing force that has concentrated on technology for technology’s sake or on acquisition over strategy. Whatever the Soviet Navy may lack in platform sophistication, now and in the future, it may make up for in operational organization and planning and in clarity of operational strategy and doctrine.
A longer version of this paper was presented at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, England, in February 1989; the college’s permission for this excerpt is gratefully acknowledged.
A. D. Baker III is the editor of the biennial Combat Fleets of the World, published by the U. S. Naval Institute.