Jump to content

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

Perun
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 1.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Posted Images

Perun Crew

Perun

Posted
  • Author
Posted

NAVY SAYS IN A NONNUCLEAR WAR IT MIGHT ATTACK SOVIET A-ARMS

The Navy has officially acknowledged that if a major nonnuclear conflict broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union, it might seek to attack Soviet submarines that carry long-range nuclear missiles.

The contemplated action, using conventional weapons, would be intended to tip the nuclear balance in favor of the United States and induce the Soviet Union to end the conflict on terms favorable to American forces, according to the Navy.

In the past, some senior Navy officials have declined to commit themselves publicly to such a strategy. In an interview in November, the Secretary of the Navy, John F. Lehman Jr., said it was ''not necessarily'' United States strategy to attack Soviet strategic submarines in a nonnuclear war.& Policy Has Critics Some critics have said that Navy attacks using conventional weapons against Soviet submarines carrying long-range nuclear missiles would put pressure on the Soviet Union to use nuclear weapons in response and would increase the risk that a conventional conflict would turn into a nuclear war.

The acknowledgment that this element was part of naval strategy came in a recent article by Adm. James D. Watkins, who as Chief of Naval Operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the Navy's highest officer. Navy officials said today that they had decided, after careful deliberation, to outline the strategy publicly to rebut criticism that the service lacks a clear vision of how to fight a naval war.

The officials said the article by Admiral Watkins did not signal a new strategy but was the most explicit articulation of Navy thinking on the issue. Navy officials said the article had been submitted to Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger's office for clearance before publication.

In the article, ''The Maritime Strategy,'' published by the United States Naval Institute, Admiral Watkins notes the potential for using Navy forces to ''alter the nuclear equation'' in favor of the United States before either side had used nuclear weapons.

This, he said, could be done by ''destroying Soviet ballistic missile submarines'' and by deploying United States aircraft carriers and other vessels that carry nuclear weapons ''around the periphery of the Soviet Union.'' 'Not Without Risk'

Admiral Watkins wrote that the strategy ''is not without risk'' and that ''neither we nor the Soviets can rule out the possibility that escalation will occur.''

But, he adds, ''Escalation solely as a result of actions at sea seems improbable given the Soviet land orientation.''

One critic of the strategy, Barry R. Posen, an assistant professor at Princeton University, who formerly worked in the Defense Department. called the strategy unduly provocative.

''We are being asked to spend billions of dollars to buy ammunition and modernize our conventional weapons in order to raise the nuclear threshold in Europe and reduce the risk of nuclear escalation there,'' he said. ''And here the U.S. Navy has selected a strategy that works diametrically in the opposite direction.

''Of all the possible Navy strategies,'' he said, ''this one is the most likely to cause the other side to reach for nuclear weapons.'' Debate Within the Navy

A naval expert said there was still debate within the Navy over the wisdom of the strategy and the decision to advertise it.

''Strategic submarines are the Soviet Union's strategic reserve force,'' the naval expert said. ''If we start killing their strategic submarines, they may go after our aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons. If anything, this strategy will promote escalation.''

A Defense Department official, however, defended the Navy strategy. He said the Navy was not saying it would seek to destroy the entire Soviet strategic submarine force in a conventional conflict. He also argued that Soviet military writings suggested that United States strategic submarines could be the target of a Soviet attack in the early stages of a war.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the Navy in developing the ability to attack Soviet strategic submarines. Operating Under the Ice

The Navy, for instance, has taken steps to improve its ability to operate under the Arctic ice, where it is thought Soviet strategic submarines would try to hide.

Last April, Admiral Watkins went to a Navy base in the Arctic and visited a Navy attack submarine that surfaced through the ice, a Navy official said.

Admiral Watkins later spoke about the trip in an interview with reporters. ''An effort was made to make sure that the word got out about the trip,'' a Navy official said, in order to send a signal to the Soviet Union about the Navy's intention to improve ''deterrence'' by adding to its ability to operate in polar regions.

The Navy has conducted tests of sonar and torpedoes in Arctic regions in recent years, military experts said. The Navy is also trying to give some of its Los Angeles-class submarines more ability to operate under the ice and plans to develop a new attack submarine, the SSN-21, that is more effective than existing submarines in Arctic regions.

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/07/world/navy-says-in-a-nonnuclear-war-it-might-attack-soviet-a-arms.html

Perun Crew

Perun

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

OUR RISKY NAVAL STRATEGY COULD GET US ALL KILLED

...

The maritime strategy is the Navy's plan for a protracted, global conventional war with the Soviet Union. Adopted in 1982, the strategy has been revised four times, the latest revision being just a few months ago. While details of the strategy are constantly changing and fleet commanders have considerable leeway in operating their forces, its objectives are to take advantage of the preemptive strengths of the Navy in a confrontation: If hostilities between the superpowers begin, the Navy is to "seize the initiative" and "attack and destroy, rather than stay on the defense."

Under the strategy, the Navy has three main tasks: to attack Soviet submarines close to their shores before they can "surge" to the open oceans; to pin down Soviet ground forces around the world, escalating any conflict "horizontally" -- that is, geographically -- so as to drain Soviet resources away from Europe or the Middle East; and to destroy as many Soviet ballistic-missile submarines as possible.

In order to implement the strategy, peacetime forward deployments and fast decisions are needed in the "transition to war" phase. According to Adm. James D. Watkins, then Lehman's chief of naval operations, "the initial phase of the maritime strategy would be triggered by recognition that a specific international situation has the potential to grow to a global superpower confrontation." "{S}hould war come," Watkins wrote in January 1986, "there will be only a brief time for mobilization."

Vice Adm. Nils R. Thunman, deputy chief of naval operations for submarine warfare, testified before Congress in 1985 that "the maritime strategy calls for the majority of our nuclear attack submarines or SSNs, as we call them, to go forward immediately at the beginning of any hostilities with the Soviets to sink his fleet, bottle up his massive submarine force and now, with the advent of the Tomahawk cruise missile, to attack his land bases." According to testimony of Adm. Ronald Hays, commander of U.S. Pacific forces, the strategy in the Pacific would be "posturing forward early during the pre-conflict period."

Besides the rapid and potentially destablizing submarine movements, the strategy also calls for military strikes against Soviet land bases as well as Marine Corps assaults on Soviet territory. According to Adm. W. N. Small, former vice chief of naval operations, "Among the many elements of our coherent maritime strategy is the option to attack the enemy's bases. At bases located in his homeland we would find . . . his ships and aircraft in a concentrated, vulnerable configuration." "As the Soviet fleet is eliminated," Capt. Linton Brooks, currently a National Security Council staff member and one of the architects of the maritime strategy, wrote in 1986, "both carrier strike aircraft (which the Soviets view as a significant theater threat) and nuclear Tomahawk missiles will be in a position to threaten the Soviet homeland."

One of the biggest problems with the maritime strategy is that during a crisis the movement of naval forces, especially attack submarines, could contribute to escalation of a conflict. Three of the objectives of the strategy -- the destruction of Soviet strategic nuclear submarines, the destruction of Soviet homeland bases and invasion of the Soviet Union, and the creation of intentional confusion about U.S. objectives through electronic warfare and deception -- could all create conditions which might lead to the escalation of a conflict, so that resort to nuclear weapons is also a possibility. Far northern offensive submarine operations to destroy Soviet non-strategic naval forces could also promote escalation by sending false signals to the Soviets during a crisis that a disarming first strike was being prepared.

Asampling of U.S. naval activity in the Lehman years give a sense of the perils naval tactics now regularly engender:

During 1982-1983, the U.S. Navy held successive operations with two- and three-aircraft-carrier battle groups in the Norwegian Sea, held large-scale surface exercises in the Sea of Japan (the first such operations in 13 years) and began routine operations of attack submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk.

From October to December in 1984, the United States conducted its largest peacetime fleet exercise since World War II. The exercise included the participation of five aircraft-carrier battle groups, two of which closed to within 50 miles of the Soviet city of Vladivostok. The Soviets responded with over 100 fighter, bomber and reconnaissance overflights and put surface warships on alert.

During August and September of 1985, NATO held its largest-ever maritime exercise: Ocean Safari 85. Nineteen Soviet ships and submarines and almost 100 Soviet aircraft operated in response to the NATO presence in north Atlantic waters and the Norwegian Sea.

In September 1987, during NATO exercise Ocean Safari 87 involving over 150 ships, U.S. aircraft carriers operated farther north than they had ever been in Norwegian territorial waters. Navy commandos infiltrated on land to simulate directing precise air attacks on "enemy" territory.

On Feb. 12, the cruiser USS Yorktown and the destroyer USS Caron were sideswiped by two Soviet Navy frigates while operating about nine miles from the Crimean coast in the Black Sea. This was the second set of engagements by the two U.S. vessels; in 1986, they had sailed to within six nautical miles of the Crimean coast.

Over the past year the level of provocative naval maneuvers has apparently diminished. But the reduction by no means signals the end of the maritime strategy. Instead it is the product of reductions in operations and maintenance accounts in the Navy budget, a level of deployments in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean which strains the other fleets and a shift to less visible submarine activity.

Greater reliance on attack submarines is the latest revision of the strategy. In February 1987, Adm. Carlisle A. H. Trost, chief of naval operations, revealed that U.S. submarines "are routinely deployed into Arctic waters where they might be expected to carry out wartime campaigns and battle plans in support of the maritime strategy."

Just as in the early part of the Reagan administration when loose talk of winning a protracted nuclear war and dreams of strategic superiority scared the public, so naval belligerence has begun to have its effect. One result has been a concerted effort on the part of western naval spokesmen to downplay the controversial aspects of the maritime strategy. A new Navy secretary and a new chief of naval operations have also been more circumspect in discussing the strategy. Adm. Trost, in fact, made what many consider to be a landmark speech last July at the Naval War College, where he exhorted naval officers to "take the strategy indoors." "We have had a full run of the public debate," Trost stated, " . . . . Now is the time to lower the rhetoric."

...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/07/03/our-risky-naval-strategy-could-get-us-all-killed/717d1b1a-9679-4ddb-8673-1cd2690672f0/

Edited by Perun
Perun Crew

Perun

Posted
  • Author
Posted

...

Alpha Strikes

According to several sources, a ‘standard’ Alpha Strike consists of 16-20 strike aircraft. A Nimitz-class carrier is said to have an upper limit of 150-160 sorties per day, which is about 2.0 sorties per aircraft per day on average for an 80-aircraft wing. Using surge rates, a carrier in Command can do 3 Alpha Strikes per day which is pretty high. The ready time for the strike aircraft is 6 hours, and the aircraft will spend about 2 hours in the air when hitting a target 350-400nm out. In Vietnam, carriers would often do only one or two Alpha Strikes per day. The same was true during the 1991 Gulf War.

During OEF in Afghanistan, Carrier Air Wings (CVWs) sustained 90 sorties a day as baseline, with each pilot flying 70 hours a month. In the Gulf in 2003 the CVWs produced just over 70 sorties per day.

It might be worth noting that the sortie rates achieved in war are quite different from the amazing 4.0 sorties per aircraft per day produced during a few exceptional exercises. In exercises the strike planners often cheat and take shortcuts that would be impossible during real operations. Flight deck cycles for continuous air ops like CAP impose restrictions on where aircraft can be spotted and how quickly ordnance and maintenance guys can start working. This complicates matters quite a bit and has dramatic effect on sortie rates. In a shooting war things slow down considerably and carrier-based aircraft seem to have awful trouble getting airborne. During the 1986 US attack on Libya (Operation El Dorado Canyon) the majority of the A-6E Intruders (7 and 8 out of 10 from each carrier) were initially planned to participate in the strike although only a total of 12 (60%) actually reached the target areas.

...

USS Enterprise vs USS Ranger, 1982

By TRADEVMAN, VS-37 “Sawbucks” flying S-3A Vikings off the USS Enterprise, March 1982 – September 1983

The CVBGs of the mid-1980’s military build-up were designed for continuous engagement with Soviet forces for a period of 72 hours. After that point, the battle group would have to disengage to replenish fuel for both the aircraft and the screening vessels. Ammunition replenishment was a different matter. Helicopter replenishment (VERTREP) of ammunition was expected during periods of engagement, but the transfer of fuel was determined to compromise the group integrity, and would not be undertaken until battlegroup had disengaged to safer waters.

In the summer of 1982, the USS Enterprise and the USS Ranger tangled with each other in a 72 hour off-going/on-going engagement to see if the Navy’s capability in the buildup to the “600 ship Navy” had reached to the planned expectation of a continuous engagement capacity. This was the first workup for the Enterprise after her extended overhaul that had started in 1979, and had her back at sea in the spring of 1982.

The Enterprise battlegroup located and engaged the Ranger battlegroup at a little under 400nm. All strike plans of the day were laid out to put the maximum number of aircraft on target simultaneously, coming from multiple directions. The length of the ingress and egress routs were such that we would launch the first group of 15 strike aircraft and the six to eight fighters (normal launch). This first group’s ingress plots required an additional forty to fifty minutes of flying time. This extra flight time allowed for the remaining half of what we had below deck to be spotted and launched. The fighters launched with the second group were used to relieve the escorts attached with the first launch. The strike involved no less than 31 of the 38 attack/ECM aircraft we carried.

[Dev’s note: An ‘Alpha Strike’ is typically a deck-load of aircraft, and in this case the carrier launched two deckloads with 40-50 minute separation, in effect making it two Alpha Strikes.]

Our strike squadrons were all loaded with Mk76 target bombs, and made actual runs on towed targets running astern of the Ranger’s screening ships. Once the strike was completed, the recovery of aircraft went in reverse order. These aircraft were struck below and rearmed/refueled while the first group to launch was recovered. The time from the launch of the first aircraft to recovery of the last was right at four hours. Upon recovery, all 31 aircraft were fitted with “warshot” AGM-84, AGM-62, and refueled. With both ships company and the squadron personnel, working on the rearming and refueling, our second “On Steriods” strike was ready to launch in 3 hours, forty-five minutes. The follow-up strike was simulated as the attack aircraft were armed with live ordinance. These two large strikes were followed up with three more of the conventional sized (normal) Alpha Strikes that afternoon and evening. Five strikes in total.

The first two strikes that we made against USS Ranger on days one and two were of these “Strikes-on-Steroids” type. The remaining three strikes were the more typical 20 aircraft type strikes. The engagement with the Ranger was done with the standard complement of aircrews in all squadrons that made up CVW-11. Not extra crews, as would be expected in a conflict with the Soviets. “Strikes-on-Steroids” meant “If it could get off the deck with ordnace, that aircraft was in the strike plan.” In a shooting war with the Soviets, there would be no aircraft down because of preventative maintenance, or because of the lack of aircrews. We launched no less than five Alpha Strikes at the Ranger for the first two days from a range of 300NMI, and four on the third day. It took both ships company and the squadron personnel to get it done. We regularly launched four aircraft per minute (faster if Ivan was watching). Daytime recoveries were at thirty seconds intervals, with night recoveries taking a minute. This simulated engagement with the Ranger came at the cost of three of the Enterprise’s deck crew, and I understand, the Ranger lost one man during the same time period. (there’s your price for readiness)

The engagement earned the Enterprise her “Battle E”, and was awarded the victory. It was an exciting time. We were a young crew that didn’t know any better on our first cruse. We had just come out of the yard, so all of our equipment was in excellent condition. Much of this I’m sure is how we managed to get so many aircraft over the target.

[Dev’s note: This engagement was part of a demonstration and it should be pointed out the Navy made several shortcuts to achieve these results. As such, this is not a good example of a carrier’s combat capabilities in wartime. A carrier would have difficulties launching “Strikes-on-Steroids” while at the same time carrying out other missions like fleet air defense, ASW, etc. In this exersise the strike aircraft flew a near-identical strike each time so there was no need to plan and brief/debrief each strike, there was no complex coordination of assets, no aircraft were lost to enemy air defenses, and in reality the threat was non-existent so stress was lower than in a shooting war. By comparison, during the 1986 strike on Libya (Operation El Dorado Canyon) the USN had difficulties getting 12 A-6E Intruders off the decks of two aircraft carriers. Similarly, during the 1991 Gulf War, aircraft carriers never managed to produce the number of sorties expected from them.]

...

https://command.matrixgames.com/?page_id=3262

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...