Soviet navy in 1950s /1960s

SsgtC

Banned
Using hindsight, obviously, DE's and frigates would have been very useful against Whiskey's which did not match XXI performance. (Whether XXI would have been able to meet it's design performance is an entirely different question altogether).
But you would still run into the problem of fitting the newer ASW weapons and sensors on their significantly smaller hulls.
 
I suspect the speed of some of the world war 2 era escorts would also have been an issue.

Interesting stuff. US WW2 DEs were around 300ish ft and 22-25 knots. Knox class FF were 448 ft and 27 ish knots. OHP FFG were 408, 445 and 453 ft and 32 ish knots (US first GT FFG). I think some issues for equipment would have been the sonar dome on the bow, sound isolation for own ships equipment and a helicopter (more so then another sub, the only ASW weapon SSN crews are even remotely worried about). I think WW2 DEs could have had some use by adding a tail and letting them sprint and drift. Quantity does have a quality all its own.
 
Interesting stuff. US WW2 DEs were around 300ish ft and 22-25 knots. Knox class FF were 448 ft and 27 ish knots. OHP FFG were 408, 445 and 453 ft and 32 ish knots (US first GT FFG). I think some issues for equipment would have been the sonar dome on the bow, sound isolation for own ships equipment and a helicopter (more so then another sub, the only ASW weapon SSN crews are even remotely worried about). I think WW2 DEs could have had some use by adding a tail and letting them sprint and drift. Quantity does have a quality all its own.
My comment re speed was more re the original British corvettes and similar vessels.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
That's interesting. I seem to recall the U.S. and Canadians were sufficently concerned about the threat of Soviet type XXI subs that they embarked on significant post war construction and conversion programs for surface ASW forces. My understanding is the world war 2 era escorts were not considered to be suitable. Edit to add: I presume many other NATO navies also reacted in a similar fashion to the U.S. and the Canadians.

Yes, hence the point about "ships built and/or modernized and/or cascaded..." The USN's CVA/CVS, FRAM, and GUPPY programs, the UK's Type 15, Type 16, and A and T submarine class refits (GUPPY by another name), and similar efforts by the French, Canadians, and other NATO navies were designed to deal with the Soviet conventional boats, and, coupled with air power, the defense of the GIUK chokepoints, and the Allied ability to route convoys farther south than in WW II (and the converse, the fact the Soviet submarine bases were even farther north than the Germans' had been) makes it very unlikely the Soviets could have achieved much with an Atlantic submarine campaign in the 1950s.

In the 1960s and afterwards, as the number of Soviet SSNs rose, that would change, but the NATO ASW forces evolved to meet that threat as well.
 
The RN would have been using a mix of Loch class frigates, Type 16 limited conversions from destroyers and Type 15 full conversions along with the Whitby and Rothesay class frigates. All of those would have had the speed to catch a Whiskey. They did keep Castle class corvettes in the reserve but they would have been used only for coastal escort if at all
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Basically, the idea of various SS classes was to conduct a defense in depth against NATO navies, primarily carrier task forces or, in earlier scenarios, amphibius forces. Zulus (just 26) and Foxtrots for long range recon and effect, Whiskeys (236) and Quebecs (100) for closer in defense. One has to remember, that even Whiskeys had just some 8500nm range surfaced, at 10kts speed. Snorting speed 7kts. It's endurance was 30 days. Operating from Soviet Kola bases, that's not enough to conduct offensive operations in the North Atlantic, as even getting through GIUK gap would take some 1400nm's or 9 days, leaving just some 11 days for operations.

Later on, with bastion strategy enabled by Delta -class submarines from 1970's onwards, the defense of bastions became a priority.

Whiskey was not based on XXI class, Zulu did incorporate a larger amount of XXI ideas but had various problems.
so these SS classes could be employed for bastion defence as well ? since they were primarily anti-ship weapons with minimal ASW capabilities [ AFAIK]
 
SOSUS was pretty useless until 1970s because the lack of signal processing .It was still needle in haystack , BUT it was still the best NATO asset against sub threats. SOSUS directing patrolling Orion MPB helped to concentrate effort so any alert could have a good chance against SSK and improving chance against SSN, but this takes time. Surface ASW groups only had a chance if they had enough SEAKING type ASW HELO...7 searching for a week had good chance against SSN threat.

Troop convoys could be decimated! Supposedly NATO troops had 30 days supplies stockpiled but we never had any faith in that.

Friedman has good assessment of ASW battle and all through out this period and USN carrier battle groups had only limited defence against combined bomber/SSK/missile attacks of the 1950s/60s. In exercises the 1/3 to 1/2 the bombers got through to the task group/convoy. By 1970s the combined SAM / Phantom/AWACS defence was improving, but combined attacking bombers & missile subs could still overwhelm the task force/convoy. It depended on how much they were willing to lose in the process.
 
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I would argue the bulk of their subs always would have operated in seas where soviet airforces and AVMF can provide cover otherwise they would be needlessly wasted
Which is completely useless. If the air force can cover a region then strike aircraft can search and destroy enemy ships faster and more efficiently than a submarine can, and that saves the expense of the submarine. There is no point in building submarines that can't work under enemy air cover; that's where they are actually better than an air force.

As it should , if germans with all of Norway and french coastline cannot make a dent in trans Atlantic convoys , maybe soviets should realize that better strategy would be not to waste sources there, rather focus on sea denial to prevent NATO flanking amphibious assaults in Pacific and Warsaw pact territory
and see what happened to german uboat campaign after 1942, they were decimated by allied navies

they would need to get through the escorts to get to the merchant vessels
That's because the Germans were completely ignorant of centimetric radar, HF/DF, and their codes being broken, not because of some disadvantage to submarines. Removing any 1 of those handicaps causes much more problems for the ASW force, and removing all 3 (by not using broken codes, by assuming the radio will be tracked and using it accordingly, and by having RWRs for the right bands) makes it near impossible for an ASW force to win. In that case the ASW force doesn't get the submarine's location early, and if they search for the snorkel with radar then the submarine will detect it first with the RWR and retract the snorkel until the search radar has passed. As long as radar can't cover every square kilometer of ocean every hour of every day (which has never happened), diesel-electric submarines will be survivable.
 
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