Soviet Naval Question

Captain2

Captain2

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I apologise for all of the Soviet and Communism questions in general, I've just suddenly stepped into an area of history where I have little to no knowledge and I'd like to thank everyone for their help

Now for the question:

I was debating with someone the usefulness of the Soviet Navy having a large surface fleet, they were effectively competing with not only the Royal navy but also the Americans, meaning that they didn't have any numerical advantage and to the best of my knowledge the only really useful thing the Soviet Union could do would be launch nukes with submarines.

Ships are expensive, If a war started the Soviet Navy would be unlikely to do much besides pester NATO and I can't even see any point to it during peacetime.

4 out of 5 people I've asked have said a large soviet surface fleet would be a good idea, can anyone explain to me what practical use it would have during both peacetime and wartime for a country that would have enough on its hands on land anyway?
 
Here´s a little face to face to spice up the discussion :D

 
I've always wondered why they bothered with a large surface fleet myself. I know SFA about navies but it seems to me the soviet navy would have lasted for about 5 mins in a war.
 
Hasdrubal Barca said:
Here´s a little face to face to spice up the discussion :D

Click to expand...

What year is that referring to?



Back to the OP, the answer is none, really. The USSR was a land/air power, and submarines was it's best chance at sea. But Great Powers had navies, so they built a navy. There simply was no place they could do battle that they had a surface fleet that could survive an encounter with a US surface fleet. Coastal patrol was worthwhile, because that helps keep the subs away. There "strategy" was more in trying to match us than it was any rational planning based on need and use.
 
Yeah, basically it was the whole issue with having to meet the US Navy from a standing start on its own terms. Which wasn't going to happen. In any later war, many of the smaller Soviet surface assets, like their bazillion Grisha patrol boats (which were actually IIRC under the control of the KGB...silly USSR command structure) would have been kept back to guard home waters against American predations (assuming they happened) while the larger naval detachments like the miniature battle groups attached to the Kirov would perform largely the same function as the Nazis' Bismarck and Tirpitz in World War II, basically glorified commerce raiders that periodically engage detachments. I think that it was generally assumed that due to the American, British, and Norwegian antiship forces in the region of the Norwegian and North Seas that most of the Red Banner Northern Fleet's surface assets would last maybe a week at most in an actual shooting war, and were too expensive to justify more than a token amount of the total naval forces.
 
Surface combatants would be valuable in operations when operating in an area where NATO could not force air superiority. Moving past the Greenland-Iceland-UK line American carriers would be unable to operate effectively due to the threat of Soviet long range naval aviation: Backfires, Badgers and Bear recon birds flying from the Kola peninsula. The bomber force together with satrecon and Bears flying 24 hour recon patrol would have been able to create a large bubble in which carrier groups would be fighting for their lives. In addition, past this line carrier groups would come under increased threat of Soviet subs operating closer to their home ports without the benefit of land based Anti-sub support.

The Sovs had a pretty strong amphib arm and part of their doctrine included amphibious operations in the North Atlantic and Norway. An amphibious group needs an anti-sub and anti-air component as well as missile armed cruisers to deal with any potential surface threats.
 
Captain2 said:
I apologise for all of the Soviet and Communism questions in general, I've just suddenly stepped into an area of history where I have little to no knowledge and I'd like to thank everyone for their help

Now for the question:

I was debating with someone the usefulness of the Soviet Navy having a large surface fleet, they were effectively competing with not only the Royal navy but also the Americans, meaning that they didn't have any numerical advantage and to the best of my knowledge the only really useful thing the Soviet Union could do would be launch nukes with submarines.

Ships are expensive, If a war started the Soviet Navy would be unlikely to do much besides pester NATO and I can't even see any point to it during peacetime.

4 out of 5 people I've asked have said a large soviet surface fleet would be a good idea, can anyone explain to me what practical use it would have during both peacetime and wartime for a country that would have enough on its hands on land anyway?
Click to expand...

I'm mostly complimenting what has already been said.

The design of the Soviet Navy's ships and submarines were quite different from those of the Western navies they would potentially face, because their expressed use was fundamentally different. Where the basis of US Naval superiority lay in her carrier fleets (almost every ship is designed to compliment the carrier in some way, either through defense or otherwise), and in event of an attack would use those deployed fighters to strike from far away and with force. The aim of the Soviet Navy, being aware it was numerically inferior, was to 1) defend itself from the onslaught of US strike aircraft that will descend upon it, and 2) to strike from beyond the horizon with massive force by way of long-range missiles. This is why Soviet cruisers, destroyers, and submarines are so laden with launch platforms. Once a carrier is removed from "play," so to speak, the surrounding fleet would be on much more even terms with the Soviet forces pressing the attack. This mission statement also explains why the Soviets were able to get away with classifying their small carriers as "helicopter cruisers;" their expressed mission was not to create air superiority, as true aircraft carriers are meant to do, but rather to function in a glorified ASW role, though this probably has as much to do with wanting to port in Sevastopol, since aircraft carriers are barred by treaty from traversing the Bosporus Strait.
 
Cheezy the Wiz said:
I'm mostly complimenting what has already been said.

The design of the Soviet Navy's ships and submarines were quite different from those of the Western navies they would potentially face, because their expressed use was fundamentally different. Where the basis of US Naval superiority lay in her carrier fleets (almost every ship is designed to compliment the carrier in some way, either through defense or otherwise), and in event of an attack would use those deployed fighters to strike from far away and with force.
Click to expand...

Very true. Look at the design of the old Kirovs compared with US 'cruisers' from the same period. Look at the philosophy behind the US cruiser realigment in '75 and compare that with the Soviet's strategy.
 
The Soviet navy wasn't much more than a paper tiger, something to make the NATO navies be more cautious and waste resources, slowing any reinforcement.

The NATO strategy was to let the natives perform a holding action, giving ground as slowly and expensively as possible, but NOT to attack. The reinforcements would come by sea from America. Much cheaper to do it this way than to station 10-20 million soldiers in Germany.

So since all this stuff is supposed to arrive by sea, all those transports need to be defended. And if the Soviets had built no navy, then the US would need very little to defend those transports. Every ship the Soviets built meant several more would have to be built by America to protect against it.

If even a handful of Soviet subs got into the Atlantic, it would be hell on traffic, virtually forcing a convoy system, which NATO didn't want. NATO had to protect against that threat, even if PACT had no intention of using those ships.

The Soviets weren't stupid, and knew they couldn't win a straight up naval battle with what they had, so they built a bunch of LR bombers with LR missiles, which could also harass convoys, or be used in a combined strike.

If you want to see what a naval confrontation might've looked like, read Red Storm Rising. Heck, it's a good examination of what WW3 might've looked like.
 
But they had a lot of mining for a lot of years. Wouldn't be hard to just hold onto a lot of it. Where the US has had no particular incentive to increase gold reserves at least since going off the gold standard.
 
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