Soviet navy post 1955

Khanzeer

Banned
WI after stalin Soviet navy completely ignored large surface ships and concentrated solely on submarines and construction of ASW surface ships just to defend their sea bastions
The ASUW work is left completely to submarines and naval bombers
Meaning no kiev, Kynda, kresta I , slava , Kirov , sovermenyy
But can still keep nanuchka, osa and tarantula
How would it affect the role of soviet navy ?
 
As I recall, the Kievs and the Kresta Is were part of the bastion defense strategy, which is basically a 'sea control' strategy on a limited scale. The Kievs' large helo complement was to hunt Western submarines trying to penetrate the bastions. The VTOL fighters were a measure of indigenous CAP for the ASW groups. Concentrating on ASW surface ships and submarines means the larger 'sea denial' strategy is still in play outside the bastions, so I don't see much change in role. The Chapaevs and Sverlovs were the first surface ships to fit into sea denial against the West, where submarines were always going to be doing the heavy lifting. Kirov, Slava and Sovremenny are simply more modern combatants doing the same work.

My thoughts,
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Isnt it better not to build so many larger rocket ships and even much larger ASW ships and concentrate on more modern and numerous missile corvettes and land based bombers for sea denial ?
 
Isnt it better not to build so many larger rocket ships and even much larger ASW ships and concentrate on more modern and numerous missile corvettes and land based bombers for sea denial ?
Admirals need flagships of a fitting status.... and land based bombers could be taken away at the next reorganization....
 
But they are so vulnerable and expensive
But I want my flagship ..........!!!!!!!! and anyway if WWIII comes SRF will destroy the world anyway so who cares about actual fighting power? (plenty of other navy's in history have built large ships for status reasons, SSBMs are just not very good at flag showing around the world)
 
Isnt it better not to build so many larger rocket ships and even much larger ASW ships and concentrate on more modern and numerous missile corvettes and land based bombers for sea denial ?
You need a certain size ASW ship for the ASW weapons they had. Metel was a big frigging Missile and Vyuga is not that much smaller. Combine that with a decent Sonar suite and you have a pretty big ship, add in a helicopter and you have a big Destroyer or Small Cruiser

The non ASW focused DD classes both made sense, Kashin was an AA class to support ASW vessels and Sovremmy started as a landing support design, and the USSR was considering landings in Baltic and Norway, the rest predate missile corvettes

For larger ships, Moskva was ASW, Kiev arguably was just the same with better self defense, Kresta II and Kara were ASW, and Kydna and Kresta I predate the ability to put missiles on corvettes
 
Though to be fair you do need somewhere to put a desk and lots of flunkies with heaps of gold braid. Resolving the needs of command staff and small ships has been an issue back to the age of sail.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Though to be fair you do need somewhere to put a desk and lots of flunkies with heaps of gold braid. Resolving the needs of command staff and small ships has been an issue back to the age of sail.
True you can use old gun cruisers for that too
 
You need a certain size ASW ship for the ASW weapons they had. Metel was a big frigging Missile and Vyuga is not that much smaller. Combine that with a decent Sonar suite and you have a pretty big ship, add in a helicopter and you have a big Destroyer or Small Cruiser

The non ASW focused DD classes both made sense, Kashin was an AA class to support ASW vessels and Sovremmy started as a landing support design, and the USSR was considering landings in Baltic and Norway, the rest predate missile corvettes

For larger ships, Moskva was ASW, Kiev arguably was just the same with better self defense, Kresta II and Kara were ASW, and Kydna and Kresta I predate the ability to put missiles on corvettes
Wasn't there also some plans to add smaller ships to support the bigger, more vulnerable ships that died because the ussr did?
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Is it possible to increase the ASUW role of soviet SSN ?
The type 53 & 65 torpedo was the primary ASUW weapon of the soviet navy ? if so that means all soviet SSN can theoratically perform ASUW missions ?
 
Is it possible to increase the ASUW role of soviet SSN ?
The type 53 & 65 torpedo was the primary ASUW weapon of the soviet navy ? if so that means all soviet SSN can theoratically perform ASUW missions ?
Of course it's possible, but the Soviet SSN's were already the most effective ASuW weapons of the Soviet Navy, even if the Soviets didn't think they were.

All Soviet submarines with 533 mm torpedo tubes had some ASuW capability if the S-10 was ever used as an anti-ship missile, but those were regular submarines. Their main ASuW capability came from the Echo-, Charlie-, and Oscar-class submarines which carried P-5 (SS-N-3 Shaddock), P-70 (SS-N-7 Starbright), P-120 (SS-N-9 Siren), P-500 (SS-N-12 Sandbox), and P-700 (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) missiles. Those were dedicated ASuW submarines designed to destroy enemy surface ship groups like convoys or carrier battle groups.

Against a competently led and technologically capable submarine force, there is no real counter except another submarine force (even those can't really defend surface ships too well), so these cruise missile submarines were more effective than any other ASuW weapon in the Soviet arsenal. Not building any surface ships and putting all their efforts into land based aircraft and submarines would have made the Soviet navy vastly more effective. But they were still let down by being technologically inferior to US submarines and less well led, so that would limit their effect.
 
Of course it's possible, but the Soviet SSN's were already the most effective ASuW weapons of the Soviet Navy, even if the Soviets didn't think they were.

All Soviet submarines with 533 mm torpedo tubes had some ASuW capability if the S-10 was ever used as an anti-ship missile, but those were regular submarines. Their main ASuW capability came from the Echo-, Charlie-, and Oscar-class submarines which carried P-5 (SS-N-3 Shaddock), P-70 (SS-N-7 Starbright), P-120 (SS-N-9 Siren), P-500 (SS-N-12 Sandbox), and P-700 (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) missiles. Those were dedicated ASuW submarines designed to destroy enemy surface ship groups like convoys or carrier battle groups.

Against a competently led and technologically capable submarine force, there is no real counter except another submarine force (even those can't really defend surface ships too well), so these cruise missile submarines were more effective than any other ASuW weapon in the Soviet arsenal. Not building any surface ships and putting all their efforts into land based aircraft and submarines would have made the Soviet navy vastly more effective. But they were still let down by being technologically inferior to US submarines and less well led, so that would limit their effect.

Such tactics only works when Soviet SLBMs have sufficient range which comes quite later. The Soviet Navy also serves the important role of flag-showing and power power projection. Nikita Khrushchev would have want a Soviet Blue-water navy during the Cuban crisis.
 
Such tactics only works when Soviet SLBMs have sufficient range which comes quite later. The Soviet Navy also serves the important role of flag-showing and power power projection. Nikita Khrushchev would have want a Soviet Blue-water navy during the Cuban crisis.

"flag-showing" and power projection was arguably an utter waste for the soviets. It lured them to squander substantial ressources in unimportant places,and in most of the cases (including those few that were ok use of ressources) most of the aid was done simply by civilian freighters,and not actual military intervention for which you need power projection.

nikita might have wanted it,but it would have done nothing for the soviet union in the best case,and maybe encourage them to escalate in the worst case which would have been utterly disastrous for the Soviets.

In generally,assets which give you the so vaunted "options" aren so useful if all additional options enabled are shit.
 
Such tactics only works when Soviet SLBMs have sufficient range which comes quite later. The Soviet Navy also serves the important role of flag-showing and power power projection. Nikita Khrushchev would have want a Soviet Blue-water navy during the Cuban crisis.
Normal torpedoes had sufficient range, the missiles always had more than enough range to attack ships effectively. Submarine anti-ship weapons always outrange ASW weapons except aircraft and helicopters, and those 2 can be avoided.
 
If the Soviets had a blue water surface Navy of consequence, (small but competent), say by 1960, is there any way the Cuban missile crisis would not have gone hot? Imagine Soviet freighters accompanied by soviet warships, running Kennedy’s blockade. Somebody is going to shoot and things will spiral fast.

Ric350
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Normal torpedoes had sufficient range, the missiles always had more than enough range to attack ships effectively. Submarine anti-ship weapons always outrange ASW weapons except aircraft and helicopters, and those 2 can be avoided.
The type 53-65 torpedo had the same range as ASROC right ?
 

Khanzeer

Banned
I know this was already mentioned, but many surface vessels had important sea denial and bastion defense roles.
In addition, its worth noting that sverdlov-class cruisers were quite possibly nuclear armed (with soviet 152 shells). Not sure where this fits in, but interesting nonetheless.

book:https://books.google.com/books?id=354n1Ci-PMsC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=sverdlov+class+nuclear+shell&source=bl&ots=KFUldsOsYh&sig=ACfU3U1gw7SghB6gLHHPIwTZPHMdtou3tQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi4u52W3JXjAhXidc0KHVn2D1AQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sverdlov class nuclear shell&f=false
Thanks that is one of my fav books !
 
The type 53-65 torpedo had the same range as ASROC right ?
It did, but that wasn't enough because ASROC and other ASW missiles have to add the range of their torpedoes to them. With this, the range of a 1960's ASROC+Mark 46 is 19+11, or 30 km. However, this source and this one state the range was only 10,000 yards (9.1 km), and this source states the maximum range of the Mod 4 to be 16 km. With a 9.1 km range the maximum torpedo+ASROC range would be about 20.1 km, and with a 16 km range it would be 27 km. A 1993 VL-ASROC with a Mark 50 would have 22+15=37 km of range.

As such, the 53-57, 53-61, and 53-65 were not sufficient to fully outrange ASROC, unless the 9.1 km range is accurate, in which case the new models from 1969 could do so (they had a 22 km range). This is a consequence of inferior Soviet torpedo technology. The Mark 48 torpedo entering service 3 years later had over double the range with almost the same size warhead and less overall weight. To gain the usual ASuW performance expected from a submarine-launched torpedo, the Soviets had to increase the size to the 650 mm 65-76 (from 1976). This torpedo finally had the 50 km range comparable to a Mark 48 (though at much heavier weight), and enough to outrange ASROC like the Mark 48 did.

The 65-76 as such would be the main effective ASuW torpedo of the Soviet submarine force, and the one that fulfills the rule of submarine weapons outranging ASW weapons (even against the modern VL-ASROC with a Mark 50).

In short historical ranges of ASW and submarine weapons (marked with an S but the date) are:

unguided submarine torpedo range: depends, but HMS Barham's sinking at 375 meters was considered "close range" so max. effective range is likely around 750 m.
1910 (S): 750 m, unguided torpedo
1916: 0 m, depth charge
1917: 40 m, depth charge projector (Thornycroft)
1917: 73 m, depth charge projector (Y gun)
1917: 275 m, 7.5" (190 mm) ASW Howitzer Mark I (1,920 meter range was possible but with a 100 lb (45 kg) shell that was considered too small)
1918: 550 m, 11" (280 mm) ASW Howitzer
1940 (S): 1500 m, ungided torpedo with Torpedo Data Computer
1942: 183 m, Hedgehog
1943 (S): 3,650 m, Mark 18
1943 (S): 4,570 m, Mark 28 "Cutie"
1943: 250 m, Squid
1951: 695 m, Weapon Alpha
1955: 910 m, Limbo
1957 (S): 9,140 m, Mark 37 (range is 21,490 m at slower speeds)
1960: 24,500 m, ASROC+Mark 44 (19+5.5 km)
1966: 30,000 m, ASROC+Mark 46 (19+11 km)
1972 (S): 32,000 m, Mark 48 Mod 0 (estimated at max performance, range is closer to 50,000 m at slower speeds)
1976 (S): 50,000 m, 65-76
1987 (S): 50,000 m, Mark 48 ADCAP (estimated)
1991 (S): 100,000 m, 65-76A
1993: 37,000 m, VL-ASROC+Mark 50 (22+15 km)
2012 (S): 140,000 m, DM2A4 ER
 
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