naval warfare 3rd WW, battle for the Arctic (Cold war period)

[Perun]

The rise of the Soviet Navy, a re-visited Western view

https://kkrva.se/hot/2013:3/dyndal_the_rise.pdf

[Perun]

Rethinking the Soviet Navy

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44635904

[Perun]

The Soviet Anti-Sloc Debate in Open Literature

ADA155847

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA155847

 

[BansheeOne]

Random question - did the Soviets or any other Arctic neighbors ever reinforce their regular surface combatants for ice operations? Of course there were armed icebreakers, and there's Russia's Project 23550 now; but I'm thinking of strengthening the hulls of frigates, destroyers or cruisers without the penalties of giving them an outright icebreaker shape.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I dont believe they ever gave them an icebreaker shape, in fact most of the Soviet surface warships had elegant clipper style bows. But I do think I read they had a slightly thicker hull to deal with loose ice.

[Perun]

Pr. 862 (Moma class) was light ice breaker. Combat ships was not constructed as ice breakers and many of them had bulbous bow. But I dont know how thick was bow plates.

[Perun]

Project Boresight 
 

Objective - The following account of Project Boresight has been paraphrased by the web master and also shortened considerably from the original account found in a web document at Tripod.com. The intent is to highlight some technical characteristics of Project Boresight and how it affected the Soviet submarine crisis and the  Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.

 In November, 1960, the monitoring station at a USAF base in Karamursel, Turkey started noticing that all HF transmissions from Soviet submarines had ceased.   The primary function at Karamursel was to monitor, by means of massive antenna arrays, any electronic emissions from the Soviet Union as well as any transmissions from Soviet fleet units, surface or subsurface. In spite of searching frequencies used by the submarines for the last 30 years, there was no luck in intercepting any further transmissions. The mystery deepened but all those who were in charge agreed that the Soviet subs had to be communicating with their Fleet H.Q. in some manner.

Historically the subs had always been required to check in at least once daily. If they were in foreign waters that could expand to four times a day.  There were a lot of Russian subs on patrol therefore there should have been an abundance of signals to monitor.

A small corner of the Karamursel station housed an American  Naval Security Group (NSG) detachment. One day, the Chief-in-Charge, William Reed of intercept operations section, theorized that the Soviets might have started to use “burst” transmissions. It was a technique that the Germans started to use towards the end of WWII. Back then Morse Code was compressed and sent out in bursts of a few seconds or less. It was a successful technique which eluded the standard direction finding techniques of the day.  Even by 1960 there was no equipment that could provide a bearing on a burst transmission and even if it was possible, the contents would have been encrypted.

By Christmas 1960, however, the “lost” Soviet submarines had been found and quite by accident. William Reed had been hearing a “scratchy” sound for some time on various monitored circuits, but had passed it over as some kind of an anomaly…. a spurious emission. It sounded like a burst static but not quite. Then, one day, he made a sonograph-enlarged picture of another signal that happened to have one of these scratchy sounds almost on top of it.

Years earlier at Skaggs Island California, NSG was primarily tasked to record and analyze Soviet radio transmissions. Everything was encrypted, so the trick was to break the code in order to read the traffic.  The device used in  the process was a sonograph machine. It utilized a large drum around on which a photographic type of paper was hand wound by the operator for each signal to be analyzed. On playback of a recorded signal, the structure of the signal was imprinted and enlarged for inspection by the analyst.  That work required 20/20 vision and a tremendous amount of patience. Once a signal code was broken, someone  had to figure out from the baud formations their equivalent letters in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. This initial decode was sent to  the National Security Agency. NSA engineers were then able to construct machines that could read these messages in the same manner as the Soviet machines.

When NSA began to read Soviet traffic in volume, they passed on relevant excerpts to military or political end users. Good information could not be obtained forever as the Soviets changed signal codes frequently.  When the codes changed, it was back to the drawing  board to start all over again.

Reed indicates “It was the sonograph machine that enabled us to locate and analyze the “scratchy” signal.  I spread it out and took a closer look.  I’ll be damned!  It had bauds!  Tiny bauds; the most compressed signal that I had ever encountered.  It was a man-made signal and it obviously was not one of ours.  It was a burst signal, and it had  to be a Russian sub.  It just had to be!

We fired the recording directly to the National Security Agency, and they were ecstatic!  NSA put their best analysts on it and instructed us to concentrate on obtaining as many recordings of this new signal as possible.  And suddenly we (and other Naval Security Group intercept stations) began to find them all over the spectrum.  Scratchy signals were music to our ears ...  now that we knew what to listen for. As we obtained better recordings, I measured them carefully and deduced that the signal had a “trigger” heading, probably meant to activate a Soviet recording device.  The trigger was a series of bauds at 345 characters per second, followed by a series of bauds at 142 cps.  Next came the obvious text of the message. NSA confirmed our suspicions in short order. The subs were back! They had, of course, been there all the time.”

 “We had found the Soviet burst signal, but now the question was, “What can we do about it?”  Even before NSA put their best code experts and computers to work trying to break the text, I knew that it was unbreakable. If we could read the text of a position report, we would obviously know the exact location of the submarine. Our only hope, I realized, was to devise a means to locate the transmitters by direction finders. With existing technology, that was impossible.  A new concept was required.”

The reason why spies get on and off the air as quickly as possible is due  to the time that it takes time to get a bearing on any transmission.  One direction finder will only provide the bearing from which the signal is emanating.  It does not tell the operator how far away the transmitter is.  Three direction finders zeroing in on the signal will give a triangulation, and the approximate location of the transmitter.  A number of direction finders will give a multiangulation and a much closer location of the transmitter. But the typical burst signal was on the air for less than a second. That was okay for the operator at a Soviet receiving station, since his triggering device would automatically turn on his recorder. Once recorded, the operator had all the time in the world to feed the signal into a decoding machine which contained the key  to translate the coded bauds into Cyrillic alphabet and thence to Russian plain language. NSG could (and did) build a triggering device to record the signal, but that left them with nothing more than an unbreakable code.

Since existing direction finders didn't have time to get a live bearing, the only hope was to devise a means of obtaining  a bearing “after the fact” from a recorded signal. That had never been done before and no one in NSG thought it would be possible. But NSA engineers did exactly that. They started a crash program on a par (almost) with the Manhattan Project of WWII ( ie to build an atomic bomb). Within months after intercepting the first Soviet burst signal, NSG  had stations set up and operating to detect, record and direction-find Soviet submarines. At first this was limited to areas of primary strategic importance, but soon expanded to cover every body of water in the world where Soviet subs operated.

In common with most great discoveries, the concept was, in retrospect, basically simple: it consisted of constructing huge circular antenna fields in areas around the world which would be able to receive transmissions from critical bodies of water in which Soviet submarines normally operated. These antennae called Wullenweber arrays were connected to large banks of receivers, tuned to narrow bandwidths which overlapped and covered the entire spectrum that the submarines might conceivably use. When a receiver encountered a trigger on a burst signal, a wide (two inch) sixty-inch-per-second recorder switched on immediately and recorded the signal, along with a marker, indicating the time to the millisecond that the signal was intercepted. Since the antenna field was circular, and divided into segments every few feet, it was also possible to determine, tangentially, the general direction from which that signal had been received.  When combined with two or more other intercepts which provided a triangulation or multiangulation indicating the general direction from which the signal had emanated, one was able to determine, after the fact, the approximate location of the submarine.

Later, NSG had obtained ample space at their site locations to construct separate antenna fields for both intercept stations and direction-finding stations. This allowed the luxury of comparing notes between the two to obtain even more precise evaluations of direction. Ample space on site was a prime consideration since, besides the large antenna fields, the space required for the reception and recording equipment required a large building and had to be fully air conditioned, since the receivers in those days still used vacuum tubes which generated considerable heat. Land area  sufficient for construction of a base, with housing and other facilities for the operational personnel, had to be taken into account. Large power plants and ancillary units had to be installed. The project was immense in scope, and was classified Top Secret. That codeword, which designated the entire program, was BORESIGHT. The BORESIGHT project which has just described is now as outdated as the Model-T Ford. It did however, play a critical role  in the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

 In 1961, BORESIGHT was in its evolutionary stage. NSG had to train operators at outlying stations on what to look for, and how to analyze the signals when they received them. No one could mail them a correspondence course and  of course, nothing could be described by telephone or over the radio. The tapes containing examples of burst signals had to be hand carried. That meant by armed courier, with the tape in a briefcase attached to his wrist by lock and chain. In other words, that meant people like Reed and others who knew the signal first hand would have to train operators in the field. During the next period,  Reed circled the globe many times helping to install BORESIGHT stations and training personnel. In early 1962, Reed was notified that he had been selected for a commission in the United States Navy.

National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland 1962-1965

Upon reporting in at NSA, Reed was assigned a minor desk in Section A22, the Soviet Submarine or, effectively now, the BORESIGHT section. As the only man in the section with any actual BORESIGHT field operational experience, he encountered a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding about what the equipment could and couldn't do. He brought in other field experienced personnel, and eventually worked them into a competent BORESIGHT Control Headquarters.

In September 1962, American U-2 over-flights finally confirmed what had been suspected: the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba. That's all the American public ever heard about. It has never been officially acknowledged, but there was also a Russian Submarine Crisis going on simultaneously. Intelligence had received evidence of Soviet submarine pen construction in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Soviet submarines with potential long range missile launching capabilities, stationed that close to U.S. shores, with the resultant increased ability to range up and down US coasts, posed a much greater threat than medium range fixed missiles in Cuba.  That danger had to be eliminated at all costs. NSG were told to maximize efforts to locate the position of every Soviet submarine possible. They did so and started to get hit after hit.

In late October 1962, NSG obtained BORESIGHT fixes, and later visual sightings, of four Soviet Foxtrot-class attack boats converging on Cuba.  It was suspected more were on  the way.  That's when Reed’s boss, Commander McPherson, who was Chief of Section A22 (Soviet Submarine Section) at the NSA, was called to the White House. The president and his inner circle had previously been briefed on BORESIGHT, but in light of these new developments they wanted an up-to-date confirmation of just how good it was and a technical explanation of precisely how it worked. Should the U.S. decide to blockade Cuba, a Wolf Pack of near-silent Foxtrot submarines carrying nuclear-tipped torpedoes could spell disaster unless the US could find them.

Commander McPherson was a sharp, competent, naval officer, but he only knew BORESIGHT second hand, mostly from Reed. In fact, both men had worked up his presentation jointly. Operationally he was on solid ground, but he was a bit intimidated by some of the technical aspects. As a result he invited Reed to accompany him to the President's office. The briefing was actually held in the "little" White House, or annex, off to the right side of the White House proper.

Commander McPherson gave a very good presentation, but as the briefing progressed and the questions became more technical and precise, Reed was called upon frequently to amplify. He had brought along charts and graphs which had been previously prepared for use in a BORESIGHT manual. Most of the questions came from the panel of technical experts assembled from various agencies of the Defense Department.

President Kennedy asked very few questions. He appeared to be very  tired. Secretary of Defense Robert  McNamara,  seemed to be pretty much in charge ... at least at the beginning of the briefing. But as the briefing progressed  he looked like he was falling asleep; head down, almost on his chest. When the presentation concluded, McNamara's head came up. The first question (or rather review) came from him. He said, "Now let me see if I understand this ..."  and proceeded with the most precise and comprehensive explanation of BORESIGHT that Reed ever heard. He had memorized just about everything that NSG had presented in a two-hour briefing.  He had the ability to make even bauds and bits and radio-wave-propagation theory sound interesting.

There was a key question which had to be answered and everyone wanted the President Kennedy to understand. What did a BORESIGHT position report translate to in terms of precise target location?  Was it 100 yards, or 500 yards, or five miles?  It could mean a big difference to  ASW weapons.  If this came down to a shooting war, could the US take out one or two of the subs moving in Cuban waters, or all of them, if needed, with one concentrated strike?

The main point made during the presentation was  the limited number of BORESIGHT stations installed and operating. NSG would be lucky to get a simple triangulation fix. That would put any fix in the right ballpark, but it would not guarantee the precise location of the target.  Once in the ballpark, it was up to naval forces to locate the target. Given more locations, a multiangulation fix could be provided, thus improving the accuracy of the initial fix.

The Cuban Missile Crisis:

William Reed and his son also compiled a precise day-to-day account of U.S. Naval operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, including the vital role that BORESIGHT played in bringing that operation to a successful conclusion. In the details of those day-to-day operations of the U.S. Naval ASW forces, they pointed out time and again how the ships of the US ASW forces were directed to the precise locations of various Soviet submarines. The subs had made the mistake of raising their antennae and sending off position reports by burst transmission but BORESIGHT nailed them.

There was no militant exchange involving Soviet submarines, because by this time Khrushchev was having second thoughts. His Fleet Commander, Admiral Gorshkov, continued to assure him that the Foxtrots, operating on battery power, were invisible.  They could not be detected by the Americans!  But Khrushchev was receiving reports hourly from his submarine commanders contradicting this assurance. His “invisible” Foxtrots were being prosecuted around the clock by U.S ASW forces to the point that they were often forced to surface under threat of depth-charge attack. Khrushchev began to realize that he could no longer back up his threat to "sink the American naval vessels" should they try to effect a quarantine of Cuba. On the contrary, his Foxtrots were in imminent danger of being sunk! The deciding factor in this exchange was, of course, BORESIGHT.

At 10:30 AM on October 27, 1962, Secretary of State Dean Rusk turned to McNamara and spoke words that would make history,  "We're eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked."  All Soviet ships headed toward the quarantine line had stopped or turned toward the Soviet Union.  The Essex received her next orders: do not fire, allow the Soviet ships every opportunity to turn around!

So what made Khrushchev blink? Volumes have been written trying to answer that question.. Khrushchev was finally convinced that Kennedy was serious about going to war over Cuba and that was the most plausible reason as to why he backed down.  Khruschev risked loosing everything in Cuba plus a nuclear strike on his own country. (Comprehensive accounts of the Cuban missile crises can be found by Googling that subject).

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, BORESIGHT quickly became the hottest program at the National Security Agency. It had the full backing of SECDEF McNamara. He insisted upon a crash program. America wanted to install BORESIGHT in every corner of the globe! He pressed American allies for the use of choice locations in which to install the large antenna fields required, plus a secure operating environment.

The remainder of 1962 and all of 1963 was a period of system refinement and expansion. Major installations included:  Adak, Alaska;  Kamiseya, Japan;  Guam;  Pearl Harbor;  Port Lyautey, North Africa;  Edzell, Scotland;  Cheltenham, England;  Recife, Brazil;  Winter Harbor, Maine.  These were backed up by a number of secondary sites which were constantly expanding. In Canada, by 1970, Wullenweber systems (AN/FRD-10) became operational at Masset, BC. and Gander, Nfld. The AN/FRD-13 Pusher system, the smaller version of the FRD-10, was installed in Alert, Nunavut; Inuvik, NWT; Leitrim Ontario and Bermuda in 1979.

By 1964, BORESIGHT had been designated the number two U.S. military priority, second only to the development of U.S. Polaris ballistic-missile nuclear submarines. It remained so closely guarded a secret for the next twenty years or so, that nobody ever questioned publicly what effect this program might have had in the crucial final-day talks between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev. How could they have?  If there had been so much as a rumor of BORESIGHT, the NSA, the CIA, and even the President of the United States would have sworn under oath that no such program had ever existed.

Canadian SIGINT personnel also played a role in the Cuban Missile crisis and the Soviet submarine crisis. This extract from the book "History of Canadian Signals Intelligence and Direction Finding" provides some details.

"One of the prime reasons Khrushchev was ready to capitulate to Kennedy was based on the successes of the Atlantic HFDF Net, specifically with a project known as BORESIGHT, especially the wideband capabilities of these sites. In the exchanges between Krushchev and Kennedy, Khrushchev threatened Kennedy with the information that the Soviets had nuclear submarines sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic from Florida to Halifax. These were armed with nuclear missiles targeted against major and critical sites such as Norfolk, Boston, Cape Canaveral, New York and Halifax amongst others.

Because the Soviets had been using super burst transmissions, they were obviously convinced that those transmissions could not be DF'd or fixed. Kennedy had been well briefed and was prepared for just such an eventuality and was willing, under these severe circumstances, to take the chance of blowing the cover of wideband direction finding successes. He advised Khrushchev that he was well aware of the disposition of Soviet submarines and then proceeded to provide him where they were located by latitude and longitude. He also advised him how often they reported and that they were all targeted with US Polaris missiles. Kennedy also indicated his military were quite aware of the location of the five diesel electric Foxtrot submarines en route to Cuba and the Cuban submarine facility under construction at Cienfuegos, Cuba. He further informed Khrushchev, that in an instant of time, the first target of US forces would be the destruction of the Soviet submarines, both nuclear and diesel electric. The complete scenario then changed and Khrushchev backed down and commenced to negotiate a deal on the de-installation of US missiles in Turkey.

The Supplementary Radio System (SRS), as it was known at that time, and especially its Atlantic DF/lntercept stations located at Gloucester, Ont, Frobisher Bay, NWT, Coverdale, NB  and Gander, Nfld. can take well deserved credit in the contribution they made in support of Kennedy's stance. Canadians can always be proud of our SRS operators for their contribution to this major event in history. They never received so much as a congratulatory message from their Canadian military masters. Recognition did however, come from such US Naval authorities as CNO, CINCLANT and CINCPAC."

Contributors and References:

1) Boresight by William Reed found at http://dool-1.tripod.com/days79.htm (site now unreachable)
2) History of Canadian Signals Intelligence and Direction Finding by George Fraser and Lynn Wortman . Published by Nanlyn (2005.)

http://jproc.ca/rrp/rrp2/boresight.html

[Perun]

AN/FRD-10

The AN/FRD-10 Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) is a United States Navy circular "Wullenweber" antenna array, built at a number of locations during the cold war for high frequency radio direction finding (HF/DF) and signals intelligence. In the Joint Electronics Type Designation System, FRD stands for fixed ground, radio, direction finding. 14 sites were originally constructed as a part of the "Classic Bullseye" program.[2][3] Two AN/FRD-10 systems were later installed in Canada. AN/FRD-10 systems were originally constructed in the early 1960s, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the systems began to be shut down and demolished. 

Capabilities

25 ft high-band reflector screens on the left, behind the high-band monopole antenna at right.

The AN/FRD-10 had an estimated range of 3,200 nautical miles (5,900 km) and was used to monitor and triangulate single or double hop high frequency (HF) signals between 2 and 32 MHz. Site locations were likely chosen based on HF hop distances for their intended surveillance targets.[2] The FRD-10 was designed to locate HF transmissions especially from submarines and was managed by the Naval Security Group.[2] The Navy also claimed over the years that the direction finding sites were used primarily for air and sea rescue operations[17][19] and Naval communications in the case of the pair of FRD-10s at Sugar Grove Station.[20]

The FRD-10 used a goniometer to rapidly scan through all the antennas around the circle. This electronically "rotated" the antenna 360 degrees several times a second allowing fast and accurate direction finding.[16] This was needed because Soviet submarines began to use wide-band burst transmissions in the early 1960s to make themselves more difficult to pinpoint. Initially, these signals were too rapid for Bullseye's predecessor, Boresight, to locate, but the AN/FRD-10 was able to locate even very brief transmissions.[12]

Former locations of FRD-10 sites[edit]

Atlantic[edit]

 

FRD-10 sites in the Atlantic

No.	Site Name	Location	Map link	Fate
3	NSGA Homestead	Homestead, Florida	25°22′21″N 80°25′24″W	Damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, later demolished.[4]
2	NSGA Sebana Seca	Toa Baja, Puerto Rico	18°27′16″N 66°13′36″W	Damaged by Hurricane Georges in 1998, demolished 1999.[4]
6	CFB Gander	Gander, Newfoundland, Canada	48°57′03″N 54°31′29″W	In operation.[22]
8	NSGA Rota	NS Rota, Rota, Cádiz, Spain	36°39′24″N 6°21′54″W	Shut down 1993, demolished 2005.[4]
1	NSGA Galeta Island	Galeta Island, Panama	9°24′09″N 79°52′20″W	Shut down 1995, abandoned in place.[4]
7	NSGA Edzell	RAF Edzell, Edzell, Scotland	56°48′33″N 2°36′20″W	Shut down 1997, demolished later.[4]
5	NSGA Winter Harbor	Winter Harbor, Maine	44°24′04″N 67°59′28″W	Shut down 1998, demolished 2001.[4]
4	NSGA Northwest	Chesapeake, Virginia	36°32′56″N 76°15′31″W	Shut down 2001, demolished.[4]

Pacific[edit]

 

FRD-10 sites in the Pacific

No.	Site Name	Location	Map link	Fate
1	NCTS Guam (NCTS Finegayan)	Dededo, Guam	13°35′37″N 144°51′09″E	Shut down 1999, demolished 2000s.[4]
2	NSGA Hanza	Okinawa	26°24′01″N 127°43′48″E	Shut down 1997, demolished 2007.[4]
3	NSGA Adak	Adak, Alaska	51°56′33″N 176°36′02″W	Shut down 1994, later demolished.[4]
4	CFS Masset	Masset, British Columbia, Canada	54°01′44″N 132°03′55″W	Operational, operated remotely from CFS Leitrim, Ontario.[4]
5	NSGA Marietta	Marietta-Alderwood, Washington	48°47′39″N 122°39′16″W	Closed 1972, first Bullseye site closed.[4]
6	NSGA Skaggs Island	Sonoma County, California	38°10′08″N 122°22′23″W	Shut down 1993, later demolished.[4]
7	NSGA Imperial Beach	Imperial Beach, California	32°35′36″N 117°07′45″W	Shut down 1999, demolished 2015.[4]
8	NCTAMS Wahiawa	Wahiawa, Hawaii	21°31′20″N 158°00′41″W	Shut down 1998, demolished 2005.[4]

Other[edit]

• NAVRADSTA Sugar Grove Station, Sugar Grove, West Virginia (38°30′54″N 79°16′46″W) (two adjacent variants of the AN/FRD-10), not operated by the NSG.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FRD-10

Edited September 12, 2022 by Perun

[Perun]

ЛенВО
АА
332 огтбвп Прибылово 20 Ми-24 40 Ми-8 4 Ка-27ПС
88 овэ Апатиты 11 Ми-24 7 Ми-8
93 овэ Касимово 10 Ми-24 8 Ми-8 2 Ми-9
258 овэ Луостари 11 Ми-24 7 Ми-8
317 осаэ Тайбола 8 Ми-8 2 Ми-24Р 1 Ми-22 2 Ми-9 1 Ми-6
ВВС
138 осап Левашово 10 Ми-8 2 Ми-6 Ми-9?
227 овэ РЭБ Апатиты 10 Ми-8 (РЭБ)
ВДВ
242 осаэ Псков (Шабаново) 4 Ми-8
ВМФ
38 окплвп Североморск-2 20 Ка-27 12 Ка-29 12 Ми-14
400 оиап СН Лахта (Катунино) 12 Ми-8
830 окплвп Североморск-2 20 Ка-27 16 Ка-29 12 Ка-25
912 отап Луостари 5 Ми-8 Ми-9?
194 осаэ Рогачёво 5 Ми-8
??? опсао Мурманск 4 Ми-14ПС
ПВ
14 оап Петрозаводск 20 Ми-8
25 оаэ Нивенское 8 Ми-8 4 Ка-27
ПВО
641 гиап Рогачёво 2 Ми-8
359 осаэ Архангельск (Васьково) 4 Ми-8 3 Ми-26
387 овэ Мурманск (Килпъявр) 10 Ми-24
??? отаэ Горелово 4 Ми-8 1 Ми-9
??? отао Мурманск 2 Ми-8
??? отао Североморск 2 Ми-8
РВСН
17 осап Плесецк 8 Ми-8 2 Ми-9

http://forums.airforce.ru/matchast/6639-vertolyoty-u-silovikov-sssr-1990-god-struktura-i-chislennost/

[Perun]

Soviet Radio Electronic Combat and the US Navy

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44636175

[Perun]

Soviet Radioelectronic Combat

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0382radioelectronic/

[Perun]

US Navy Cold War airborne electronic reconnaissance

https://coldwarconversations.com/episode243/

[Stuart Galbraith]

On 9/4/2022 at 5:33 PM, Perun said:

AN/FRD-10

The AN/FRD-10 Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) is a United States Navy circular "Wullenweber" antenna array, built at a number of locations during the cold war for high frequency radio direction finding (HF/DF) and signals intelligence. In the Joint Electronics Type Designation System, FRD stands for fixed ground, radio, direction finding. 14 sites were originally constructed as a part of the "Classic Bullseye" program.[2][3] Two AN/FRD-10 systems were later installed in Canada. AN/FRD-10 systems were originally constructed in the early 1960s, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the systems began to be shut down and demolished. 

Capabilities

25 ft high-band reflector screens on the left, behind the high-band monopole antenna at right.

The AN/FRD-10 had an estimated range of 3,200 nautical miles (5,900 km) and was used to monitor and triangulate single or double hop high frequency (HF) signals between 2 and 32 MHz. Site locations were likely chosen based on HF hop distances for their intended surveillance targets.[2] The FRD-10 was designed to locate HF transmissions especially from submarines and was managed by the Naval Security Group.[2] The Navy also claimed over the years that the direction finding sites were used primarily for air and sea rescue operations[17][19] and Naval communications in the case of the pair of FRD-10s at Sugar Grove Station.[20]

The FRD-10 used a goniometer to rapidly scan through all the antennas around the circle. This electronically "rotated" the antenna 360 degrees several times a second allowing fast and accurate direction finding.[16] This was needed because Soviet submarines began to use wide-band burst transmissions in the early 1960s to make themselves more difficult to pinpoint. Initially, these signals were too rapid for Bullseye's predecessor, Boresight, to locate, but the AN/FRD-10 was able to locate even very brief transmissions.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FRD-10

There is a document on the Soviet equivalent in CIA FOIA.

 

 

[Perun]

Soviet KRUG

Krug - THICK EIGHT

Range5,000 nm

Bearing360 degrees

Accuracy1.0 degree

The KRUG [Russia for "circle" or "wheel"] array is a versatile Circularly Disposed Antenna Array [CDAA] system that can be adapted to perform a variety of functions. Krug was only Soviet ground-based Wullenweber / Wullenwever wide aperture HF/DF system known to be in use. Considered best of its kind, they were designed through German assistance. The Defense Ministry HF/DF CDAA facilities code-named "Krug" had an antenna one whole kilometer in diameter.

There were several different kinds of Soviet CDAA. The first kind were known to NATO as Krug arrays. Krug is Russian for circle, and it may be that Russia applied the term Krug to all CDAAs, but the Western use of the term refers only to the very large arrays 200-300 meters in diameter with a vertical screen (looking like a huge circular fence) about 105 meters in diameter surrounded by 40 large antenna towers. There were only 31 Krugs ever constructed.

The Soviets also constructed a smaller, generic, 8-antenna CDAA, (using the same caged antenna as the KRUG) which western intelligence referred to as a THICK EIGHT. This system was deployed in the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact countries, and the technology sold to China. A third kind of CDAA was known to NATO as a Fix-24. This kind of array is 150-200 meters in diameter and contains concentric rings of antennas 45 and 130 meters in diameter. These antennas are very difficult to see even at the best Google Earth resolutions, but in some instances they are visible. There were 17 as many as probable Fix-24s.

Desmond Ball, Australian National University, 1989) reported that the GRU's network of DF and intercept stations "consists of the control station at Klimovsk and 11 other stations in various other parts of the USSR." It was created in the early 1950s to track any information concerning aircraft carriers of nuclear weapons of the SAC, NATO and NATO NATO, reconnaissance aircraft (AWACS, B-52, B-1 and B-2, S-135, SR- 71 and U-2, KS-135). In addition to communications between the crews of strategic bomber wings and flights of US reconnaissance aircraft and NATO countries, a radio survey of the satellite communications systems of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff was conducted. The direction and direction of the clients' movement on thousands of kilometers of removal was determined quite accurately by the direction of several ORPUs.

ARKHANGELSK64°30'N40°45'E

ARKHANGELSK SITE 164°25'N40°40'E

ASHKABAD38°l0'N58°05'E

BERINGOVSKIY63°04'N179°06'E

CHITA SITE 152°05'N113°27'E

CHITA SITE 252°l0'N113°30'E

ILI43°58'N77°31'E

KHABAROVSK SITE 148°30'N135°18'E

KHABAROVSK SITE 248°25'N135°21'E

KHABAROVSK SITE 348°23'N135°16'E

KRASNODAR45°09'N38°47'E

MOSCOW/PEROVO55°43'N37°59'E

MOSCOW AREA SITE55°56'N37°37'E

MURMANSK68°47'N32°55'E

NOVOSIBIRSK55°15'N83°19'E

ODESSA SITE 146°26'N30°30'E

ODESSA SITE 246°31'N30°33'E

OYEK AREA52°35'N104°32'E

PETROPAVLOVSK SITE 153°02'N158°49'E

PETROPAVLOVSK SITE 253°05'N158°22'E

PODOLSK (VLASYEVO)55°28'N37°22'E

PODOLSK (KLIMOVSK)55°23'N37°28'E

RUSTAVI41°24'N45°07'E

SUMGART40°45'N49°28'E

SVERDLOVSK56°47'N60°55'E

TASHKENT SITE 141°19'N69°26'E

TASHKENT SITE 241°09'N69°25'E

TISKI71°38'N128°41'E

VEROLANTSY59°34'N29°49'E

VORKUTA67°39'N63°50'E

YAKUTSK61°55'N129°37'E

The Krug system consisted of 12 strategic electronic reconnaissance complexes, 8 separate radio-direction-finding stations (OPPU) located on the perimeter of the territory of the USSR (one explation for the name of the system) and 4 foreign radio interception and electronic reconnaissance centers in Lourdes (Cuba), Cam Ranh ( Vietnam), Rangoon (Burma) and Mongolia (Ulan Bator). On the basis of the order of the Chief of the General Staff of May 12, 1951, the formation of 157 separate TSRPU OSNAZ GSh VS USSR (military unit 71513) with a permanent deployment in Klimovsk, Moscow region began. The construction of the main objects lasted from 1951 to 1953 under the supervision of the first head of the department of the Central AIP, AY Kozlov.

Elements of the antenna represent a platform in the form of a circle, with a diameter of 300 meters. On the perimeter were installed elements (vibrators), coated with chrome or other, corrosion-resistant metal. In the middle of the "Circle" stands a squat, one-story building - technical rooms for receiving and transmitting equipment. System "Circle", previously consisted of 2 concentric circles of 120 antennas with a height of 10 m in each - the receiving position of the route determination system (COT).

The essence of the direction finder's work consisted in determining the direction (direction) from which the radio signal came from. Uniformly located on the 120 meter ring, the antennas did not receive the signal front at the same time, but the cunning device in the house located in the center of the antenna field compared these signals and determined the priority direction. Of course, one direction is not enough to determine the position of the object, a distance, or several directions, was also needed - vectors from different points to one, the intersection. This method is called triangulation.

By the beginning of the 1960s, radio communications worldwide were overwhelmingly high-frequency manual Morse (HFMM) and high-frequency radioprinter (HFRP), and Soviet collection capabilities were geared toward this. There was a large establishmentof intercept stations which aimed at intercepting all HF communications of interest.

Early work on circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA) systems was undertaken by the German navy's signal intelligence research and development center early in World War II. It was during this time that CDAA was given the name, Wullenweber, or Wullenweber Antenna. Jurgen Wullenweber was the mayor of Lubeck, Germany from 1533 to 1537. He was an opponent of injustice and a supporter of the Protestant cause who became a legendary figure. Considered a martyr after he was killed in 1537, his name was chosen as a cover for the German CDAA program of World War II. During World War II, German naval technicians in a secret research and development program designed and built the original antenna. Following the war, the original structure was destroyed according to terms negotiated under the Potsdam Conference.

After the war, some of the German CDAA technology was appropriated by the Soviets, who deployed 30 CDAAs during the post-war period when theUnited States military showed little interest in them. An improvement in collection was the introduction in the 1950s of the Wullenweber, or Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA). This design, pioneered by the Germans in WWII, was first used in US SIGINT operations by the U.S. Navy, which was primarily interested in the CDAA's DF capabilities. The Naval Security Group (NSG) began its systems R&D work in 1956 and fielded its first CDAA, an FRD-10, in 1962. In the 1950s the Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) began designing from the ground up a new collection system based on the Wullenweber.

High-frequency (HF) radio waves were the most common system of telecommunication before the early 1960s. In a curious twist of nomenclature, a high-frequency (HF) signal is actually considered a part of the low-frequency band (which includes Extremely Low Frequency or ELF, Very Low Frequency or VF, Low Frequency or LF, as well as High Frequency or HF). Messages transmitted at lower frequencies (ELF, VLF, LF, HF) travel for long distances since they bounce off the ionosphere and will come down in locations far from the transmitting and intended receiving locations. In contrast, data sent at higher frequencies will 'leak' through the ionosphere and out into space.

HF transmitters and receivers were especially popular with the military and for diplomatic communications, such as between an embassy and its mother country. HF signals are useful for these types of communications because of their ability to bounce off the ionosphere, the upper region of the earth's atmosphere which begins about 50 miles above its surface. This means that they are able to be transmitted to receivers that are over the horizon, behind the curvature of the earth from the emitter. A powerful HF signal has the ability to travel around the entire planet for reception, which makes ita good choice for global endeavors and also makes it extremely vulnerable to interception. Another name for high frequency radio (operating between the frequenciesof 2,310 kHz and 30 MHz [30,000 kHz]) is shortwave. This is because there is an inverse relationship between frequency and wavelength; high frequencies are associated with short wavelengths.

A wide aperture direction finder (WADF) is one in which the arriving wavefront is sampled simultaneously by an array of antennas extending over a distance of one wavelength or greater, as opposed to an Adcock type which has apertures of a few tenths of a wavelength. In the field of WADF's it has been the general practice to use narrow lobes and high rotation rates. This puts severe limitations on the receiving system and the bandpass of the IF and detecting circuitry, and in some cases even requires a dual receiving system. The antennas are usually fed through delay lines to the combiner networks to simulate a broadside pickup pattern with a portion of the circular array. A goniometer spinning at a constant rate couples the antenna signal to a coaxial feed to the receiving system.

The most common, Wullenweber WADF's employ circular rings of identical elements requiring huge reflector screens. These circular ring arrays are quite costly to construct and maintain while achieving satisfactory radiation patterns over only about 3:1 or 4:1 frequency range. In most cases at least two ring arrays are required to give even the most minimal coverage over the 15:1 frequency range from 2 to 30 MHz. Ionospheric disturbances such as multipath propagation characteristically generate substantial bearing errors in the HF spectrum which are difficult to resolve with conventional single lobe methods.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell//world/russia/krug.htm

[Perun]

AN/FLR-9

The AN/FLR-9 is a type of very large circular "Wullenweber" antenna array, built at eight locations during the cold war for HF/DF direction finding of high priority targets. The worldwide network, known collectively as "Iron Horse", could locate HF communications almost anywhere on Earth. Because of the exceptionally large size of its outer reflecting screen (1056 vertical steel wires supported by 96 120-foot (37 m) towers), the FLR-9 was commonly referred to by the nickname "Elephant Cage." Constructed in the early to mid 1960s, in May 2016 the last operational FLR-9 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska was decommissioned.[1] It can be confused with the US Navy's AN/FRD-10, which also used a Wullenweber antenna.

The AN/FLR-9 Operation and Service Manual[2] describes the array as follows:

The antenna array is composed of three concentric rings of antenna elements. Each ring of elements receives RF signals for an assigned portion of the 1.5 to 30-MHz radio spectrum. The outer ring normally covers the 2 to 6-MHz range (band A ), but also provides reduced coverage down to 1.5 MHz. The center ring covers the 6 to 18-MHz range (band A ) and the inner ring covers the 18 to 30-MHz range (band C). Band A contains 48 sleeve monopole elements spaced 78.4 feet (23.9 m) apart (7.5 degrees). Band B contains 96 sleeve monopole elements spaced 37.5 feet (11.43 m) apart (3.75 degrees). Band C contains 48 antenna elements mounted on wooden structures placed in a circle around the central building. Bands A and B elements are vertically polarized. Band C elements consist of two horizontally polarized dipole antenna subelements electrically tied together, and positioned one above the other.

The array is centered on a ground screen 1,443 feet (439.8 m) in diameter. The arrangement permits accurate direction finding of signals from up to 4000 nautical miles (7408 km) away.

FLR-9s were constructed at the following places:[3]

USASA Field Station Augsburg (Gablingen Kaserne), Germany

Chicksands, England

Clark AB, Philippines

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, USA (formerly designated as Elmendorf AFB)

Karamursel, Turkey

7th Radio Research Field Station/Ramasun Station, Udon Thani Province, Thailand

Misawa AB, Japan, built 1963 to 1965, demolished beginning in 2014.[4]

San Vito dei Normanni Air Station, Italy (near Brindisi, Italy)

Advances in technology have made the FLR-9 obsolete. In 1997, the FLR-9 at the former Clark AB in the Philippines was converted into a 35,000-seat fabric-covered amphitheatre. In early May 2002, systematic dismantling of the FLR-9 at San Vito began, and it was totally deconstructed by the end of that month. Although the markings of where the array stood remain in the ground, the structure is completely gone.[5]

Demolition of the FLR-9 at Misawa began in October 2014.[6]

A decommissioning ceremony for the last active FLR-9, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, was held on May 25, 2016. [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FLR-9

Edited September 12, 2022 by Perun

[sunday]

Now all the post-WWII obsession with emissions control becomes clear.

Edited September 12, 2022 by sunday

[Perun]

Krug sites

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78T05161A000200010052-0.pdf

[Perun]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

Now all the post-WWII obsession with emissions control becomes clear.

And this is only a small part of EW

[Perun]

WARSAW PACT FORCES OPPOSITE NATO

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0005517771

[Perun]

WARSAW PACT FORCES OPPOSITE NATO

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp09t00367r000500130001-9

[Perun]

THE WARSAW PACT THREAT TO NATO

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00939a000600020002-9

[Perun]

SOVIET STRATEGY AND CAPABILITIES FOR MULTITHEATER WAR

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp09t00367r000300120001-2

[Perun]

It is for central Europe but could be used on Northern front to:

WARSAW PACT AIR POWER: CAPABILITIES FOR REINFORCEMENT OF TACTICAL AIR FORCES IN CENTRAL EUROPE

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp86t00608r000700080002-6

Edited September 16, 2022 by Perun

[Perun]

TEN STEPS TO COUNTER MOSCOW S THREAT TO NORTHERN EUROPE

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88t00528r000100030004-5

[Perun]

The Maritime Strategy: Looking Ahead

By Rear Admiral William A. Owens, USN, and Commander James A. Moseman, USN

February 1989

 

This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected.  Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies.  Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue.  The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.

 

In the future, United States National Military Strategy will revolve around a central concept of U. S. Maritime Strategy.

 

Sea-based forces will stand out for their ability to meet a full range of threats and still operate within the . fiscal, technological, geographic, and arms control limits of our environment. Such a Maritime Strategy is Key to deterring conventional conflict, and is an integral Portion of our nuclear strategic deterrent. In fact, the Mar- 'hrne Strategy is the necessary ingredient for the long-term Access of U. S. efforts to prevent nuclear war.

Four key premises underpin the maritime component of r1, S. National Military Strategy:

. Strategy is not a game of solitaire. The most challeng­es adversary to the United States will continue to be the Soviet Union, given its size, resources, geography, and military capability. Third World conflicts, which have a 'mited potential to expand in geographic scope, intensity °f combat, or number of belligerents, should not divert S. attention to the point of hazarding our capability to ,al with our most dangerous potential opponent. Re- §'onal conflict on the Eurasian periphery is more likely, and may involve Soviet interest in gaining access to re­sources—independently or through surrogates—or in denying access to increasingly powerful strategic rivals such as China or Japan, or coalitions including them. * Should deterrence fail, the United States must be able to threaten the Soviet Union from any axis, rather than let the Soviets choose the theater and direction of attack. At the tactical and theater levels of war at sea, the offense is Preferable to the riskier and more expensive defense, ^ulti-azimuthal threats (e.g., stealthy aircraft and cruise and ballistic missiles) place the greatest stress on the So­viet system, divert their resources from offensive to defen­sive (e.g., air defense) weapons, and combine to pose the best deterrent to Soviet attack.

► Meeting Soviet forces close to their homeland denies them freedom of action. Forward action is a prerequisite for allied participation in conflict, which will exert the greatest pressure on Soviet war-fighting strategies. For­ward defense will provide control of the seas, and make full use of the West’s productive capacity in sustaining the war effort. Sea lines of communication (SLOCs) are es­sential for reinforcement and resupply of allied forces.

► The grand strategic interest of the United States is to maintain stable balances of power in both Europe and Asia until local states can assume enough of that burden them­selves. Other regions of the globe may require military involvement on a less demanding scale, but any signifi­cant conflict affecting U. S. interests will be fought over­seas and waged by a coalition of allied states employing combined (land, air, naval) arms.

In gauging the future of U. S. National Strategy, is there any alternative to fighting for general maritime com­mand at the very outset of a conflict? Political, economic, and technical trends suggest there is no alternative. The early forward movement of power projection forces, for land attack, antisubmarine and antisurface warfare, and

mining, will remain key to allied success in a conflict of any scope. In the extreme case, such forward movement would force the Soviet Union either to give battle or to forfeit early its initiative against flanks or SLOCs. More important, even the stated concept of forward movement will pose a strong deterrent to military action by the Sovi­ets, their surrogates, and the Warsaw Pact nations.

In contrast to the Soviet Union, the U. S. ability to offset the geographical situation of its main adversary rests directly upon the strength of its maritime forces, alliances with other countries, and willingness to take the fight to the enemy. The United States can contain the Soviet threat and place stress on its interior lines of communication by threatening along multiple lines of approach. In this sense, our SLOCs have the same value as the Soviets’ internal railway and road networks.

For a maritime nation, SLOC defense, free international trade, and success in general war have at their base the control of key constricted passages, or choke points. Such choke points offer the Soviet Union or an unfriendly re­gional power the opportunity to interrupt allied logistics and critical trade, and to attack allied warships. Control of these areas requires allied or U. S. occupation, or at least control of one of the adjacent land areas. Some of the most vulnerable choke points, such as the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, may be rendered unusable simply through political instability, sabotage, or mining, and thus may have a very limited utility in wartime. At the other ex­treme are sea areas where traffic patterns converge far from airfields or naval support bases on the Eurasian land mass. Examples are Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, the Mozambique Channel, or Brazil-Acension Island- Western Africa. Effective control of these areas requires only the nearby presence of friendly or neutral states. T e choke points most likely to be contested are those wit in range of air and ground attack from Soviet, Warsaw Pact, or their surrogates’ (e.g., Vietnam) bases. The need or amphibious operations to seize and control adjacent points of land is easily foreseen, and such operations will con tinue to be a key element of maritime campaign planning-

Today’s analyses of prospective campaigns to counter a major Soviet attack or a regional conflict take as a given allied control of all key choke points where logistics pat s converge at sea. Western maritime superiority functiona y controls these points, forcing an aggressor into imniobi ity, isolation, and economic deprivation. As precision firepower becomes more concentrated on board ships, tn same maritime superiority will come to control many sue points far inland.          .

For the United States, the future international strategic environment will include a wider distribution of industria strength, a dispersion of high-tech armaments, and genera market availability of space-based surveillance systems and ballistic delivery vehicles.1 We must anticipate Thir World states’ abilities to threaten neighbors, create crises, divert U. S. resources, and disrupt vital sea lanes, ine United States will respond to crises from fewer overseas bases, and within sharp operating restrictions on the few that remain.

Because of the changing international economy, me United States can no longer mount by itself the rapid pro­duction surge to sustain a major conflict. In crisis it must depend, at least in the short term, on raw materials ana components sold by friends and allies. The collective de­terrent of the free world depends on the combination ox raw materials and productive capacity of the world's mar-

 

ket economies. No single “arsenal of democracy” is now capable of providing weapons in the numbers necessary to guarantee the defeat of large-scale aggression.

The Soviet Union likely will continue to pursue lower­most opportunities that include:

. Postering destabilizing and expensive (for the West) msurgencies that hold promise for strategic position, such as m Central America, south Asia, and the southwest Pa­cific

^ Initiating contacts and trade with a view to excluding S. influence (e.g., Pacific fishing agreements) while w'dening Soviet access to markets.

Through such actions, the Soviets have gained access to utilities near sea lanes in the South China Sea, Indian cean, and in our own hemisphere, threatening directly those SLOCs critical for Western economic and military Security. We must resist the near-term dangers of the So- Vlet “peace initiative” that would deny maritime forces uc.cess t° Eurasia’s flanks and curtail our flexibility to deal w'th emerging crises. During periods of crisis, the restric- t'ons on naval activity suggested by Secretary Gorbachev w°uld deny access to critical resources and essential sup­port for our allies.

While the United States is losing overseas bases, the seas themselves are becoming the primary site for power Projection against land targets. Sea-based land-attack Capons and hard-to-detect tactical aircraft will become ^ore and more capable of supporting operations ashore and of mounting deep strikes against high-value land tar- 8tis. Often, this will be the only stealth-capable attack cement in-theater. The mobility and potency of modem Sea power raise the premium a land power must pay for sustained surveillance and targeting capability. The

United States can turn this situation to its advantage by investing in sea-based antisatellite weapons and a surviv- able, quick-reaction, satellite regeneration capability.

The technology and distribution of sea-based land- attack weapons are blurring the line between tactical and strategic weapon systems and platforms. Realistic visions for the future include longer range, sea-launched, highly accurate cruise and small ballistic missiles; stealth tactical aircraft at sea; the expansion of the battle space to heights well above the earth’s atmosphere; and possible Navy roles in strategic defense. Greater concentrations of fire­power will be packed on board sea-based, mobile plat­forms within range of all Eurasian targets. This, in effect, could dictate the dimensions of any conflict in terms of duration, intensity, and geographical limits.

The strategic value of each ship is increasing dramati­cally as a function of more potent conventional munitions per warhead, coupled with accuracies that are now rapidly approaching zero circular error probable (CEP).

Figure 1 Calculating Ship Strategic Value

Single Ship Potency •    • Magazine Size

Strategic a -----------------------------------

Firepower        Number of Strategically

Important Targets

But firepower in itself is of little use when the enemy is beyond your sights. The surveillance and tactical capabili­ties of satellites, space planes, and tactical ballistic mis­siles will grow, placing additional demands on fleet-basedd efensive systems. The concept of general air superiority will expand to include control of altitudes up through low earth orbits. Fleet-based antisatellite systems are a near­term tactical necessity; follow-on systems must be capable of intercepting short and medium-range high-velocity anti­ship ballistic missiles. Maritime superiority for the United States means control of vital sea areas, which now include the antipodal points of adversary satellite trajectories— over which satellites must pass on their way to orbit.

Soviet perceptions of security are likewise evolving with progress in weapon technology. On the level of “op­erational art’ ’ (the wide area of integrated tactical thought that lies between tactics and strategy), the Soviets are fac­ing up to U. S. and allied maritime superiority and the strike potential distributed throughout the fleet. The Soviet requirements for space-based surveillance may take on cri­sis proportions as mobile allied battle fleets increasingly present Soviet defenses with an omnidirectional threat. Soviet near-real-time surveillance and targeting have par­ticular value both for antiship ballistic missiles and for more conventional systems targeted on carrier battle groups, as they encounter more robust U. S. fleet de­fenses, with Aegis and outer-air-battle weapons. The need to counter Western surveillance, cueing, communication, and navigation also has grown, for denying the allied bat­tle fleet its eyes and ears is now essential. Consequently, space has become an area of immense value to the Soviet Union as it faces a more powerful allied striking fleet.

In view of the variety of threats to Western interests, speed of technological change, and scarcity of defense re­sources, U. S. strategic doctrine should become more clearly continuous. We cannot afford a force structure built for discrete increments of conflict intensity—e.g-> some forces good only for presence missions, some for Third World conflicts, some for conventional war, and others in a separate strategic nuclear force. Obviously, forces that deter must be appropriate to the threat and immediately available to the scene, taking into account the likely absence of basing and overflight rights. Space- based systems, available on a quick-reaction basis, will be appropriate both for major conflict and for meeting short- notice surveillance, navigation, and communications needs anywhere in the world.

The United States must reexamine its focus on the least likely but most dangerous threat to the nation— unrestrained nuclear or conventional combat with a single potential adversary, the Soviet Union. A program of in­vestment in highly specialized weapons of limited mobil­ity that have a small probability of employment during their service lives is no longer supportable.

Challenges to international security will be many and varied as emerging democracies evolve through phases of fragile stability.2 Nations sensitive to the presence of for­eign forces are likely to constrain military options as the United States responds to crises that foreshadow larger conflict. The Afghanistans and Nicaraguas of the year 2000 and beyond will be remote from the borders of the United States, and will probably involve countries outside of existing U. S. security agreements. Proximate airfields and bases for U. S. forces are not likely to be available, and antagonists in these areas will have high-tech aircraft killers and cruise missiles, possibly even of U. S. manu-acture. Countering security threats in the Third World ^'thout directly involving U. S. military pilots and risking "e capture of U. S. personnel will require quantities of SrT>art, moderate-cost weapons capable of being fired from many naval and air platforms.

Superior allied maritime forces present Soviet leader- S*1'P with a strategic dilemma. No matter how well they succeed ashore—if they should initiate a major conflict— lue Soviets will be doomed to the status of a regional Power at best, short of clients, surrogates, and influence i y°nd the lines held by their own troops. Furthermore, a °ss at sea will leave the Soviet Union permanently vulner­able to sea-based forces with ever-increasing firepower ar|d longer reach. For the Soviets, this will mean a future °f insecurity and danger to Communist Party rule.

On the Eurasian flanks are maritime theaters whose c°ntrol is essential for Western alliance options of massing ar>d projecting military power to counter Soviet aggres- Sl°n. In all these areas, the Soviet Union’s “defensive” 2°nes include allied territory. In direct response to Soviet aSgression, U. S. forces should maintain the best tactical Position to support allies through forward operations in the Norwegian Sea, the northwest Pacific, and the eastern Mediterranean. To allow an enemy to concentrate on one area would be to permit him to select his battleground and his forces accordingly.

By tradition, Soviet strategic forces are located close to lheir command centers, where U. S. jamming cannot be as effective, where replenishment can be more easily accom­plished, and where defenses can be maintained by the c°mbined forces of the theater. For all these reasons, em­phasis in the Soviet military is on survivable and mobile land-based missiles and command facilities. The nuclear- powered ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) is a key ad­junct to their survivable backup force for striking the United States and is closely allied to the Soviet land strat­egy. The safety of their SSBN system, including the sup­porting ships and facilities, is important to their notion of stability, and is a matter of great sensitivity in their strate­gic planning.

Creating an environment for war termination consistent with U. S. war aims demands that the United States limit its opponent’s options and provide incentives to select the terms favorable to the United States. Contrary to escala­tion arguments,3 the Soviet use of bastion defenses for the protection of their ballistic-missile submarines stems from their assumption that these submarines will be attacked during a war.4 Limiting damage to the Soviet homeland by attacking Western nuclear delivery systems during the conventional phase of a war conforms to the Soviet con­cept of deterrence and has long been a tenet of Soviet military thought. Specifically, a key element of the Soviet Navy strategy appears to be an effort to attack Western SSBNs.5 The U. S. ability and intent to attack Soviet SSBNs may or may not be the principal element of U. S. strategy, but weakening the Soviet SSBN system by re­ducing communications, sinking supporting surface and submarine warships, and generally degrading the security of Soviet bastions will keep their navy at home, away from Western SLOCs.

Unlike the western front, the Soviet North is unbuffered by island chains or by Eastern Bloc countries. The Kola

Peninsula is the central front of the Soviet Union. It opens to the principal cities of the Soviet Union, where the Great Russians live, where the military operational leadership is headquartered, and where the Soviet government func­tions. An attack there is not a diversionary effort, but a principal element of our strategy—to make the Soviets consider terminating the conflict. Our failure to fight there would allow them to fight on their own terms.

U. S. Navy and Marine Corps actions on the northern and Pacific flanks could include aggressive attacks on principal Soviet surface ships. These ships seem to pro­vide an early warning line against attack on the Soviet northern flank and protection for Soviet bastions, an es­sential element of intelligence and warning and the com­mand and control system for their SSBNs. Just displaying this potential deters the Soviets from initiating hostilities.

Naval forces would play the key role in establishing control over the critical maritime theaters, thus denying the Soviets the use of their home waters and improving our access to their most sensitive areas. Such control would not necessarily call for strikes on the Kola Peninsula, the Crimea, or the Soviet Far East, but it does mean preclud­ing Soviet control of allied territory, and denying Soviet access to U. S. sea lines of communication. Dramatic suc­cess is needed at the beginning of a global war to rally U. S. allies and to force the Soviets to stay home protect­ing their own forces, rather than threatening allied SLOCs. It is also important to rally China to the side of the allied cause, forcing Moscow to maintain numerous So­viet divisions on the Chinese border, distant from the Cen­tral Front. Asian contributions to the Western war effort will depend on U. S. military presence, determination, and successes early in the war.

Maritime forces in future conflict will do more than simply exert pressure on the Soviet flanks. With land bases not available and with air forces weak in many of the allied countries, U. S. aircraft carriers and Marine expedi­tionary forces must remain available for action, prepared to take the initiative and fill voids in allied air defenses. In addition, the high-density, nonnuclear kill capability rep­resented by advanced cruise missiles and penetrating bombers, both from naval platforms, could play central roles in hitting the most critical targets in the most damag­ing way, from longer ranges, disrupting Soviet time lines and denying them success in their planned campaigns.

At the extreme of strategic nuclear deterrence, new Navy capabilities present the National Command Authori­ties with dramatic offensive nuclear options. Submarine- based strategic forces, in particular, are likely to become the focal point of the triad of allied nuclear deterrence, primarily because the wartime survivability of this deter­rent is the key to stability of the strategic relationship be­tween the Soviet Union and the United States.

With the increased range and accuracy of the Trident D-5 missile, the capability (and potential launch areas) of U. S. and British submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) will expand dramatically. As a consequence of the maritime superiority of the United States and its allies, the Atlantic and Pacific become, in effect, strategic bas­tions with virtually unlimited access to ports and other support infrastructures. Allied ASW forces, operating as part of an integrated battle fleet, will force Soviet ballistic missile submarines to retreat into defensive bastions. So­viet ASW search and intercontinental ballistic-missile (ICBM) anti-SSBN barrage capabilities will be out­stripped in terms of ocean area open to U. S. and British ballistic-missile submarines. The expanded potential oper­ating area yields dividends in terms of: much greater sur­vivability, even in the face of increased threats; much greater flexibility (e.g., remaining “alert” while along­side the pier in East Coast ports); and better communica­tions.

During a protracted conflict, projected high-frequency communications links between our submarines and nearly every U. S. warship will add redundancy to the reliable very long frequency     (VLF) and extremely long fre­quency (ELF) systerns already in place. Further, with investment in sea- based satellite regeneration capability, sub­marines may be able to carry their own means of sustained communications. In sum, U. S. bal­listic-missile submarines, located far from Soviet jammers, benefit from a level of communications reliabil­ity virtually as good as—and in protracted conventional war, better than—that of the land-based missiles and bombers of the U. S. strategic triad.

Given a consistent U. S. research and development pro­gram, Soviet surveillance capability will not surpass that of the United States, making the sometimes postulated ASW breakthrough extremely unlikely. In any case, it would not likely occur without appreciable warning stem­ming from U. S. developments. Studies have shown that Soviet attempts to use their heavy ICBMs to barrage the U. S. and British SSBN force would fail and would waste an unacceptable percentage of the Soviet strategic arsenal.

Finally, the Maritime Strategy makes an assault on U. S. and British SSBNs by any Soviet ASW contingent a non-issue, with Soviet losses mounting rapidly prior to any significant losses among the U. S. SSBN force. Based on research performed under the auspices of the Center for Naval Analyses, we can be sure of our SSBNs’ survival. If Soviet surveillance and cueing becomes no better than that of the United States, and if Soviet surveillance does not make the oceans essentially transparent, no more thanr roughly one quarter of the sea-based ballistic warheads could be lost to any Soviet attack, whether by Soviet ASW forces at sea, or by nuclear barrage.

Strong public pressures will build to use existing forces to compensate for perceived gaps in U. S. strategic capa­bility. Fiscal constraints could shift nuclear combat func­tions and missions traditionally associated with the ICBM force to the SSBN force.7 Questions about ICBM cost and survivability will quite likely push the SSBN-based D-5 to replicate or replace ICBM combat roles. Cost comparisons of SLBMs with B-2 and new mobile systems add to its attractiveness. It will cost 40% more per warhead to buy the rail-mobile Peacekeeper, more than twice as much to buy the B-2, and more than five times as much to buy the land-mobile small ICBM.

The Soviets’ new mobile strategic nuclear force struc­ture presents the challenge of locating, tracking, and kill­ing such weapons when they are deployed. Holding small mobile targets at risk, even with manned bombers, re­quires an accurate cueing system with rapid transfer of perishable targeting information to attacking forces. Such a cueing system could be exploited nearly as well by re­programmed ICBMs and SLBMs as by penetrating bomb­ers. Further, the shorter flight time of SLBMs enhances the probability of success. Again, the difference is surviv­ability. SSBN forces will be available for such an anti­mobile missile attack for months after a nuclear war has begun, while ICBMs and bombers could be reliably avail­able for a much shorter time.

The transition to lower inventories of ballistic missiles, in the context of developing strategic defensive weapons, could yield a very dangerous instability that the United States wants to avoid. If the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) generate any change in U. S. thinking about strategic forces, it will highlight the value of surviv­ability as a key attribute of any remaining U. S. offensive force structure. Unless the START-reduced force is sur- vivable, the strategic balance could become less stable, contrary to even the most basic purpose of the arms con­trol process. A Soviet strategic defense capability may, in turn, call into question the credibility of America’s strate­gic offensive forces. Little is certain about the shape of Soviet strategic defenses, but some characteristics of value in selecting offensive weapon systems have become clear. First, weapon systems should be inherently flexible. Of the U. S. ballistic-missile systems, SLBMs can vary most widely the parameters of attack—range, flight time, and azimuth—presenting any future Soviet defensive system with a demanding, if not overwhelming, challenge. SSBN forces or their successors offer another benefit in their ability to supplement U. S. strategic defenses by serving as platforms for reconstituting aspects of the space-based defense system or even as launch platforms for intercept­ing missiles directly.

The United States must remain the world’s preeminent seapower if we are to support our allies, provide a deter­rent to general war, and effectively defend our country. The loss of overseas bases, the reliance on overseas sources of strategic materials, and other political and eco­nomic trends will increase U. S. dependence on SLOCs and access to key ocean areas adjacent to the Eurasian continent. Broad Navy and Marine Corps missions will endure and probably widen with time: strategic deter­rence, sea control, power projection, SLOC defense, choke point exploitation, and strategic sealift. The U. S. Navy and Marine Corps will play an even more important role in supporting the national strategy of deterrence by providing a formidable, convincing, and forward- deployed naval presence—which demonstrates its ability to prevail in war and which tangibly conveys the U. S. commitment to our overseas interests and to our allies.

The future Maritime Strategy will not be, just as the past maritime strategy has not been: a force-building exer­cise toward 600 ships; a tactical plan for assaulting the Kola or Kamchatka peninsulas; a reaction to Soviet moves; a carrier-based, go-it-alone strategy; or a Navy- only strategy. Free use of the oceans in peace or war will become the dominant theme of U. S. National Security Strategy. Sea power is necessary for the defense of the homeland, for support of overseas friends and allies, and to provide a sanctuary for the U. S. strategic deterrent. The Maritime Strategy and the forces that implement it will be the principal elements of such U. S. capability in the future.

'For analysis of issues associated with economic and technological change, see Andrew W. Marshall, Charles Wolf, and others, “Sources of Change in the Future Security Environment,” a paper by the Future Security Environment Working Group, submitted to the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, Apr1 1988.

2For analysis of issues associated with Third World Conflict, see Paul F. Gorman and others, “Supporting U. S. Strategy for Third World Conflict,” report by the Regional Conflict Working Group submitted to the Commission on Long Term Integrated Strategy, 30 June 1988.

3Jack Beatty, “In Harm’s Way,” The Atlantic, May 1987, pp. 37-53; John J- Mearsheimer, “A Strategic Mistep: The Maritime Strategy and Deterrence in Eu­rope,” International Security, Fall, 1986, pp. 3-57; Barry A. Posen, “Inadvertent Nuclear War?: Escalation and NATO’s Northern Flank,” Washington Security. Autumn 1982, pp. 158-166.

4Cdr. James T. Tritten, USN, “Scenarios of Nuclear Escalation Dominance an Vulnerability,” Naval Postgraduate School report to the Director, Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense. NPS-56-88-013, pp. 8-18.

5RAdm. N.P. V’yunenko, Capt. 1st B.N. Makeyev, and Capt. 1st V.D. Skugarev, edited and foreword by Fit. Adm. of the Soviet Union S.G. Gorshkov, The Navy- Its Role, Prospects for Development and Employment, Military Publishing House, Moscow, 1988, p. 231.            tt

Thomas O’Neill and David Perin, “SSBN Survivability: An Analytical View, forthcoming report of the Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Virginia. 7James R. Blaker, “SSBN Keystone Briefing,” CNA 88-1265, 15 June 1988, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Virginia.

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1989/february/maritime-strategy-looking-ahead