AHC: Soviet Naval Parity
- Thread starter Daniwani
- Start date
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Pretty much impossible, the Soviets are on the same Continental mass as hostile or potentially hostile powers, which means the army is going to soak up a lot of resources, whereas the US doesn't really have to worry as much, and can thus devote a higher percentage of resources to its navy
So you need the USSR to have a larger economy than the US, secure land borders, or both, and even then the USN started off so much bigger that them catching up is questionable in a reasonable length of time
Delta Force
Banned
I could see the Soviets operating a large submarine fleet. The Soviet Union placed great value on submarines for conventional and strategic purposes.
That's what I had figured, Geographically and economically, it seems like it would just be impossible. However, is it possible to have a Soviet Fleet capable of defending/holding its own in its own limited water space and strategic/defensive naval positions?
How did the Soviet Submarine fleet compare to the US submarine fleet irl?
The USSR did have a large submarine fleet. Other than the SSBNs, and subs designed to protect boomers against USN/UK subs the force was split between those planned for anti-shipping to prevent US forces and equipment etc from getting to Europe/NATO, and subs optimized to attack US carrier task forces. realistically speaking the Soviet sub force could not have been significantly larger without severely impacting Soviet ground/air/missile forces and also manning and supporting a larger sub force would have been problematic.
The Soviet Navy was very one dimensional. Trying to match the USN was beyond the USSR's capability on a number of different levels, even before you expand the navy at the expense of other forces.
The Soviet Navy was very one dimensional. Trying to match the USN was beyond the USSR's capability on a number of different levels, even before you expand the navy at the expense of other forces.
It is only the USN that could really afford to be more than one dimensional with their navy. Nearly all navies in the world try to focus on one role due to specialization and cost constraints. Only the USN with the infinite cold war budget could really afford to create a navy that could do everything.
Which actually created a bit of a problem when the Cold War ended and all those infinite budget dollars dried up, leaving the USN unsure of what mission it's actually supposed to be doing in the 21st century.
That is capability the Soviets technically did develop anyways in the 1970s and 1980s.
TumblrShipper
Banned
Nerf NATO. i.e. a communist Europe. China can get nuked into shit. That gives the resources for a naval buildup
Could the "best" Soviet Navy of the Cold War protect boomer bastions and some coastal areas from NATO navies, probably at least for a while. Could they cause problems for sealift between USA & Europe, some but I don't think it would be enough to make a difference. This refers to Atlantic, Black Sea, Arctic areas, and to some extent the Med (where it depends on what they had there before the war started, in any case it would all go away quickly). Outside of those areas a random sub or two might do some damage, but South Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific (all or most), Indian Ocean etc would belong to USN/NATO.
While the USN was multidimensional don't forget that it had specialized and "general" help from other NATO navies, and Japan/Australia/New Zealand. The USSR on the other hand, would get very little assistance from the Warsaw Pact - and even if China was involved during the Cold War at that point their navy was pretty minimal outside of sight of the coast.
Excluding boomers/nukes flying, the task of the Soviet Navy was to disrupt NATO/REFORGER etc badly enough and long enough for the Red Army to achieve whatever goals had been set for it. If the Red Army reached its designated stop lines (where ever those might have been) with NATO sufficiently degraded and demoralized that the new situation would be accepted, then if every ship in the Soviet Navy was permanently underwater at that point the navy would have been successful.
While the USN was multidimensional don't forget that it had specialized and "general" help from other NATO navies, and Japan/Australia/New Zealand. The USSR on the other hand, would get very little assistance from the Warsaw Pact - and even if China was involved during the Cold War at that point their navy was pretty minimal outside of sight of the coast.
Excluding boomers/nukes flying, the task of the Soviet Navy was to disrupt NATO/REFORGER etc badly enough and long enough for the Red Army to achieve whatever goals had been set for it. If the Red Army reached its designated stop lines (where ever those might have been) with NATO sufficiently degraded and demoralized that the new situation would be accepted, then if every ship in the Soviet Navy was permanently underwater at that point the navy would have been successful.
According to all sources, Soviet Navy did not have plans for large scale interdiction campaign against Western SLOC's. It might have been a case of :
a) RN and USN remembering the lessons of WW II when Germany put an serious effort to interdict North Atlantic traffic and RN and USN were deemed to prevent this. Thus, from 1950 onwards a massive effort was put to build up ASW and escort forces, not only by RN and USN but also by RNLN. After late 1950's the institutional inertia took care of the rest.
b) This effort was analyzed by Soviet Navy and thus any ideas of interdiction campaign were rejected.
Soviet Navy was a defensive force focused on destroying NATO's strike assets before they could strike Soviet Union and later on, securing their own second strike assets. NATO's ASW effort was largely an oversized miscalculation, Of course in case of actual war it would not have mattered as nukes would have flown, but this miscalculation destroyed RN.
It is basically ASB. The US had more money and more shoreline to guard while the USSR had long land borders it needed to guard. Since the US had a lot more money and from a strategic point of view it made more sense for it to channel money into the navy than the USSR the Red Navy never stood a chance at competing.
Generaloberst
Banned
The Soviets simply didn't need a navy on the scale of the US or other NATO powers because all of their enemies were on the continent and they could power project with simply ground forces. What's the point in building a massive blue-water navy just to deploy it solely in the Black and Baltic Seas?
Because their main rivals have one. Prestige matters, especially to regimes with inferiority complexes.
Generaloberst
Banned
But, that's not how real life works. The Soviets aren't going to blow their already precarious budget and economy on a couple of showboats that they can stick in the Baltic to patrol around Leningrad and pretend like they have a blue-water navy. If your reason is a valid one, why didn't they do so in OTL?
Agreed, building a massive blue water navy isn't exactly cheap. Trying to match the US dollar for dollar in a naval arms race can only end in one way. Basically the USSR just went broke that much faster.