Russian and USA Navy Today

Theories that at-sea naval assets would be quickly destroyed in a nuclear war are pure lunacy. Usually they spew from the mouths of those who treasure all the land based assets they can imagine, and view naval assets as a threat to their ricebowl. At sea naval assets are, quite simply, the most survivable military assets in the world, either in a nuclear or conventional war. Air bases don't move. Ground units have to contend with terrain, limited endurance without resupply, and relatively limited movement options. (unless you're playing in a wide open desert) Navies in the open ocean have to be located and tracked before they can even be engaged, and even then they will have defence networks to rival or outstrip the best land based defences imaginable. All in a wide open killing feild with one REALLY big moat.

Originally posted by Travellar
Theories that at-sea naval assets would be quickly destroyed in a nuclear war are pure lunacy.

Well mabye you should take up the argument with the admirals who suggested that it would happen.

Usually they spew from the mouths of those who treasure all the land based assets they can imagine, and view naval assets as a threat to their ricebowl.

Well these guys are Navy people so one has to wonder what their motives would be....

At sea naval assets are, quite simply, the most survivable military assets in the world, either in a nuclear or conventional war.

I do not agree as the only thing you have going for you on the open see is speed, space and bad weather. With the main threat being the SU back in the day one has to wonder if this would have been any help in the late 70's and 80's considering Russian satellites that were dedicated to tracking American surface forces.

Air bases don't move. Ground units have to contend with terrain, limited endurance without resupply, and relatively limited movement options.

You can at the very least construct large underground hangers and the like and do your best to spread out and dig in your ground units. These are things that are not possible at sea where being seen means that you will most likely be destroyed ( especially in case of nuclear exchange).

(unless you're playing in a wide open desert) Navies in the open ocean have to be located and tracked before they can even be engaged, and even then they will have defence networks to rival or outstrip the best land based defences imaginable.

Under the ocean that might be true but if's on the surface i am not so sure.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarXYou can at the very least construct large underground hangers and the like and do your best to spread out and dig in your ground units. These are things that are not possible at sea where being seen means that you will most likely be destroyed ( especially in case of nuclear exchange).

(unless you're playing in a wide open desert) Navies in the open ocean have to be located and tracked before they can even be engaged, and even then they will have defence networks to rival or outstrip the best land based defences imaginable.

Under the ocean that might be true but if's on the surface i am not so sure.

Stellar

You can spread assets out at sea far wider than land based operations will ever allow. As for digging in or constructing large underground hangers, these really amount to little more than the naval equivilent of an extra armor belt. Any bunker in the world can be penetrated, and runways can be targeted. EVen with the best satalite imaging and locating equipment available today, let alone 25 years ago, locating and identifying surface ships is much more of a "maybe" or "hopefully" than a certainty.

While no unit is invulnerable, (including ballistic missile subs lying quietly in wait for the second salvo or peace talks), no amount of digging in will save you from an enemy willing to use nuclear weapons to remove you. Yes, even Cheyane mountain could be destroyed, if the Soviet Union would ever have decided to put a nuke through the front door.

Originally posted by Travellar
You can spread assets out at sea far wider than land based operations will ever allow.

True today for the USN. Would not have been a good strategy during the cold war when the the USSR comanded strong naval assets.

As for digging in or constructing large underground hangers, these really amount to little more than the naval equivilent of an extra armor belt. Any bunker in the world can be penetrated, and runways can be targeted.

Well this is probably true if you know about the target and if your willing to expend the numerous nuclear weapons that it would require to penetrate the command facilities that the USSR prepared over the years. The moment you must do groun penetration you give up air blast and thus massively reduce the effectiveness of the warhead against infrastructure.

EVen with the best satalite imaging and locating equipment available today, let alone 25 years ago, locating and identifying surface ships is much more of a "maybe" or "hopefully" than a certainty.

Well the USSR did deploy Sat's specifically for the tracking of US naval assets and the DIA were clearly worried about the impact near constant tracking would have on the survivability of US naval assets.

While no unit is invulnerable, (including ballistic missile subs lying quietly in wait for the second salvo or peace talks), no amount of digging in will save you from an enemy willing to use nuclear weapons to remove you.

Well according to what we do know about nuclear weapons that statement is not accurate. If you are willing to dig deep enough and reinforce the structure enough it will become massively expensive for the enemy to dig you out, if not impossible, even if he is willing to send the dozens of nuclear warheads required. Given the limited ICBM arsenal of the USA it probably would not have been a good idea to try given the extent of the nuclear shelters available to the USSR.

The vast Soviet network of shelters and command facilities, under construction for four decades, was recently described in detail by Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.The shelters are designed to house the entire Politburo, the Central Committee, and the key leadership of the Ministryof Defense and the KGB. Some are located hundreds of yards beneath the surface, and are connected by secret subway lines,tunnels, and sophisticated communications systems. "These facilities contradict in steel and concrete Soviet protestations that they share President Reagan's view that nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought,"Carlucci said (Ariwna Republic, April 3, 1988). These
facilities reveal that they are preparing themselves for just the opposite." The shelters are also protected against chemical warfare agents, and stocked with sufficient supplies to allow the leadership to survive and wage war for months.In contrast, the limited US shelter system begun in the 1950s has mostly been abandoned."To have something comparable, we'd have to have facilities where we could put every governor, mayor, every Cabinet official, and our whole command structure underground with subways running here and there," Carlucci said. "There's just no comparison between the two."

www.oism.org...

Yes, even Cheyane mountain could be destroyed, if the Soviet Union would ever have decided to put a nuke through the front door.

Well that complex was designed and built for a limited threat with limited accuracy and comparing that to the shelters built by the USSR is not accurate or well informed to argue that that complex is some kind of standard for effective defense against nuclear attack. Please do some reading before assuming i did not.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX
Well that complex was designed and built for a limited threat with limited accuracy and comparing that to the shelters built by the USSR is not accurate or well informed to argue that that complex is some kind of standard for effective defense against nuclear attack. Please do some reading before assuming i did not.

Stellar

Hmm, do you actually ahve any information on the construction of these SOviet " super bunkers " . I would just like to know how you can comare tehm to Cheyenne Mountain, if in fact you don't know anything about their construction ie. depteh underground etc.
All the information you have posted reguarding this Soviet bunker system has been incredibly cague US intelligence reports in the 1980's - of which a vast majority have been shown to be inaccurate.

Russia has some nicer ships but the majority are warping and rusting up at the Atomplot shipyard in Murmansk. The Typhoon class is an extremly big and hard to kill boomer, Akulas are newer and somewhat nicer,but as someone has already said we are continually taking apart old ships and making existing ones better or making new ones, while Russia is still playing with Kilos and what-not.

Originally posted by rogue1
Hmm, do you actually ahve any information on the construction of these SOviet " super bunkers " . I would just like to know how you can comare tehm to Cheyenne Mountain, if in fact you don't know anything about their construction ie. depteh underground etc.

Well lucky for me i do not have to as there are people who get paid to investigate these things.

Yamantau
SENSE OF CONGRESS ON NEED FOR RUSSIAN OPENNESS ON THE YAMANTAU MOUNTAIN PROJECT.
A Huge Anthill?
The Cold War with Russia is not over.
Moscow builds bunkers against nuclear attack
Assessing the International Response to the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator

The vast Soviet network of shelters and command facilities, under construction for four decades, was recently described in detail by Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.The shelters are designed to house the entire Politburo, the Central Committee, and the key leadership of the Ministryof Defense and the KGB. Some are located hundreds of yards beneath the surface, and are connected by secret subway lines,tunnels, and sophisticated communications systems. "These facilities contradict in steel and concrete Soviet protestations that they share President Reagan's view that nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought,"Carlucci said (Ariwna Republic, April 3, 1988). These
facilities reveal that they are preparing themselves for just the opposite." The shelters are also protected against chemical warfare agents, and stocked with sufficient supplies to allow the leadership to survive and wage war for months.In contrast, the limited US shelter system begun in the 1950s has mostly been abandoned."To have something comparable, we'd have to have facilities where we could put every governor, mayor, every Cabinet official, and our whole command structure underground with subways running here and there," Carlucci said. "There's just no comparison between the two."

www.oism.org...

The Soviet Civil Defense program was the largest and most comprehensive war survival program of any country during the Cold War, involving 30 million Soviet civilians and 70% of the industrial work force, for a total cost of approximately $1 billion per year. The relatively high amount of time, money, and manpower devoted to Civil Defense showed its importance in the eyes of Soviet political and military leaders. The program was given equal status with other parts of the armed forces. "Civil Defense," therefore, "had a central place in Moscow's strategic thinking and constituted a major element in its military preparedness effort.

www.piedmontcommunities.us...=page&gid=01303001151018293682662999

Retired Air Force General G. J. Keegan, Jr (General Keegan became assistant chief of staff, Intelligence, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, in March 1972. ) . said: "The Soviets have deployed and developed the most intensive system of nuclear shelter for its military leadership, its civilian leadership, its industrial factory workers, and its civilian population ever deployed or built in history." New housing construction included mandatory underground shelters. They have built 1,575 huge underground command posts, each the size of the White House, embedded in the earth up to 400 feet deep, and covered by 75 feet of reinforced concrete. They have protected water, power generators, and communications systems. The Pentagon estimated that each post cost about $500 million. In the event of a nuclear exchange, it is believed that a large part of the Russian population would survive.

Will try find the original source of the last claim as i am not currently finding the one i want.

All the information you have posted reguarding this Soviet bunker system has been incredibly cague US intelligence reports in the 1980's - of which a vast majority have been shown to be inaccurate.

And why have you chosen not to believe the DIA? You have not proven that this specific claim is not true and have as a matter of fact not proven that any large number of DIA reports were not in fact true.

It's just bluster and it will NOT work on me if you have not noticed as much by now.

Stellar

Thanks for the Yamanto link, I'll read the rest of the article later when I have more time.

I still stand by my earlier position though that static positions are always more vulnerable than mobile assets. And that even at thier hieght, the Soviet Union did not have enough satilites in orbit to do 24/7 surveilance of open ocean. Looking at something like Norfolk once a day is pretty easy to figure out what ships are inport/underway, but finding those underway isn't easy.

Originally posted by Travellar
Thanks for the Yamanto link, I'll read the rest of the article later when I have more time.

It really begs alot of questions of where the money for such projects( and their still deploying ever more dangerous mobile strategic missile) come from when their holding out their hands to American to send them funds to "disarm" their older nuclear weapons. It really just comes down to one big con job if you ask me

I still stand by my earlier position though that static positions are always more vulnerable than mobile assets.

I guess i should make it clear that i never tried to disagree entirely with that statement. I just have some reservations but in the main you statement is accurate.

And that even at thier hieght, the Soviet Union did not have enough satilites in orbit to do 24/7 surveilance of open ocean. Looking at something like Norfolk once a day is pretty easy to figure out what ships are inport/underway, but finding those underway isn't easy.

And with this i can not disagree either. I suspect that the SU did not do their 100 odd launches per year just for kicks and that they in fact had many more spy satellites than they ever admitted to having. That being said it would be hard for me to prove exactly what capability they had and if it could ever be enough.

Since i like quotes here is why i think what i do.

At that time, we were not ready for war. Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, former Navy Chief of Operations, said at the Australian Naval Institute
Seminar in February, 1979: “It is the professional judgment of senior officials in the United States that our Navy has only a 35% probability
of winning a conventional naval war against the Soviet Union. Our military knows this, and so does theirs. About the only people who do not
know it are the general public in the United States and Australia. Nor do they know that a nuclear exchange in 1981 on present trends would
result in about 160 million dead in the United States.”

One enemy diesel submarine lucky enough to get one torpedo hit on a CVN (nuclear powered aircraft carrier) or an AEGIS cruiser could easily
turn US resolve and have a huge impact on a conflict… the challenge of finding and destroying a diesel submarine in littoral waters can be
nearly impossible… In general…a diesel submarine operating on battery power is quieter, slower, and operating more shallow than a nuclear
submarine.”
- Lieutenant Commander Christopher J. Kelly, US Navy

“Our ASW capabilities can best be described as poor or weak…” – Vice Admiral John Grossenbacher, US Navy, 2002

"ASW officers and enlisted men are more often treated like the Rodney Dangerfields of the air wing. They get no respect…” – George C. Wilson,
onboard the USS John F. Kennedy

It is also well known that the cantankerous Late Admiral Hyman Rickover, US Navy (Retired) did not think much of his own carrier-centered
navy. When asked in 1982 about how long the American carriers would survive in an actual war, he curtly constated that they would be finished
in approximately 48 hours. Former President Jimmy Carter, a former US Navy officer, and Annapolis graduate, was also none too keen on the big
carrier Navy, either. Vistica mentioned that Carter did not want any more new carriers, and for the existing fleet to be cut dramatically.

Captain John Byron, US Navy (Retired) also intimated in the early 1980s that American nuclear submarines had little difficulty operating against carriers. “Operating against a carrier is too easy,” he quipped. “The
carrier’s ASW protection often resembles Swiss cheese.” In a 1985 exercise in the Pacific, this was confirmed when one US nuclear submarine
sank two aircraft carriers and eight other ships, and as per standard operating procedure, these painful results "were never publicly
disclosed."

“Even in the open ocean NATO fleet exercises demonstrate, time and again, that a proportion of SSKS (diesel subs) will get through the
screen.” - Commander Richard Compton-Hall, Royal Navy

U.S. Navy exercises with diesel submarines since the mid-1990s have often proved humbling.” – John Benedict, National Security Analysis Dept.

It really goes on and on but i am sure you get the gist. I do not believe nuclear tipped weapons is even mentioned so one has to assume that in a nuclear exchange both the Russian and American surface forces would mostly likely quickly dissapear under the water. Since the US were so heavily outnumbered by the Soviet submarine arm resupplying Europe would not have been possible.

Stellar

[edit on 5-3-2006 by StellarX]

As for Admiral Zumwalt's comments, I have 2 explinations.
First, the conspiricy theory:
He liked his upcoming AEGIS program. He WANTED his upcoming AEGIS program. And he had to cast a dire prophecy of the future of the U.S.Navy without his AEGIS program.

Actually, I just did a remarkable job of blending the two theories together. The first was "it was all lies to get congress to buy into an expensive new program", and the second was "Admiral Zumwalt wanted to change the navy". The second is more strongly borne out by history than the first, as he spent his entire time as CNO making radical changes to bring the navy up to speed from where it stood beforehand.

Now, onto the subject of submarine and anti-submarine warfare. No nation in it's right mind that isn't landlocked should ever feel it's ASW capability is adaquate. In fact, it would be accurate to say that no navy in the world really has an adaquate ASW capability.

That said, the most dangerous game imaginable was carried out throughout the cold war, with US and Soviet subs constantly playing cat and mouse, tracking, chasing, and avoiding eachother throughout the world's oceans. In the event of a full-scale war breaking out, I am guessing many of the subs of either side would have been quickly lost to thier counterparts tracking them. Where ASW would have gone from there is anyone's guess, as there are just too many factors to consider. Quality of subs, countermeasures, torpedos, tactics, crews, the particular stages of deployment war finds them in, the numbers of each side's subs at sea that day, and most importantly, luck.

Now, where are my remote controlled sharks? I'll show you some sub tracking!

[edit on 5-3-2006 by Travellar]

the waters here in the puget sound have had frequent visits by russian subs. there's even an urban ledgend about a couple of guys out fishing and spotting a sub on their fish finder, exclaiming" i didn't know that could spot a sub"

in the modern us navey their isnt a sub in the world they cant track, what with the sosus net and the advacncements in sonar technologies.

those whales and dolphin problems (ruptured ear drums and etc.) are a result of the navy testing the advanced sonar equipment.

even though the cold war maybe over the DOD is still reasearching like it never ended. the only thing slowing them down is the budget cutters in DC

Originally posted by Travellar
As for Admiral Zumwalt's comments, I have 2 explinations.
First, the conspiricy theory:

Why are you trying to come up with explanation?

He liked his upcoming AEGIS program. He WANTED his upcoming AEGIS program. And he had to cast a dire prophecy of the future of the U.S.Navy without his AEGIS program.

Aegis is designed to protect aircraft carrier task groups and Zumwalt had a vision of a high speed US navy ( three times as fast as the current fleet) which would have depended on speed and stealth and not on trying to swim longer than the USSR would have made it rain. Basically he knew that the current US navy were not designed to fight a war against the USSR and keep the sea lanes to Europe open.

Actually, I just did a remarkable job of blending the two theories together. The first was "it was all lies to get congress to buy into an expensive new program", and the second was "Admiral Zumwalt wanted to change the navy".

Well i don't think your summary is particularly accurate but your at least right in stating that he wanted to radically change the navy as it was then.

The second is more strongly borne out by history than the first, as he spent his entire time as CNO making radical changes to bring the navy up to speed from where it stood beforehand.

He did not in fact manage much in his run as CNO as the navy not only stuck to it's guns but bought systems outdated before deployment.

Now, onto the subject of submarine and anti-submarine warfare. No nation in it's right mind that isn't landlocked should ever feel it's ASW capability is adaquate.

That is not what is being said. Compared to Canadian and RN ASW ships the US navy is tremendously lacking. Against the massive submarine threat of the USSR this would have been a fatal mistake imo.

In fact, it would be accurate to say that no navy in the world really has an adaquate ASW capability.

If you want to make such a vague self interested claim i really can't stop you. What is the purpose of making ASW sound impossible just to obscure the fact that the USA never properly prepared to fight submarines?

That said, the most dangerous game imaginable was carried out throughout the cold war, with US and Soviet subs constantly playing cat and mouse, tracking, chasing, and avoiding eachother throughout the world's oceans.

Which is mostly propaganda as submarines are not in fact all that good of keeping track of each other in anything other than near perfect conditions and short ranges.

In the event of a full-scale war breaking out, I am guessing many of the subs of either side would have been quickly lost to thier counterparts tracking them.

Not so much no. The USSR specialized in massive deployments of dozens submarines are a time which would have likely been good enough to overwhelm US picket submarines. Keeping track of the USSR's ballistic missile boats would have been a very hard task considering the fact that most operated in Russian territorial waters under extensive surface ASW forces. Soviet diesel submarines would operating in coastal waters would have been ideal in silently lurking waiting for American hunter killers to betray their presence.

Where ASW would have gone from there is anyone's guess, as there are just too many factors to consider. Quality of subs, countermeasures, torpedos, tactics, crews, the particular stages of deployment war finds them in, the numbers of each side's subs at sea that day, and most importantly, luck.

War is it's own kind of unpredictable. Much as we can talk about capabilities on both sides it's hard to speculate what critical ideas and systems would have failed at what times and on which side....

Stellar