US & SU threaten each other with conventional naval showdown on Caribbean over Cuban Missile Crisis

James G

Gone Fishin'
Do you trust the Navy that has decades of experience in naval operations that is experienced lavishly equipped and has the expertise and institutional knowledge of ASW and Carrier ops or the Soviet navy with is little more than a glorified coast guard with some striking powers with its subs sure you might lose a carrier and a handful of escorts o a nuclear torpedo and that is about it the Soviets could not contest the Americans and they knew it. Their surface Navy was a one-shot force they fire their missiles and then get blown to bits by NATO Navies

They always were a one-shot force. Away from their distant bases, Soviet warships will fire then have to get home. Yet in the Caribbean, the USN is near to home; the RN can call in at US bases for rearmament/refuelling and so can other NATO navies. The Soviets would be a long way from Kola and have to fight their way home through an ocean littered with NATO bases on all sides plus NATO carriers too.
 
I Have no doubt USA would win i just contest the point that it would be cakewalk without any Significant losses for USA or Europe.

It would be the Battle of Tsushima all over again. The NATO navies have the capability to hit the Soviets before the later could even see them.

When I get a moment I'm going to look up the respective orbats for the navies.
 

Loghain

Banned
you know what id be interested in the ASB scenario of Soviets Winning such confrontation against all odds ? what would be the shockwawe ?
 
I Have no doubt USA would win i just contest the point that it would be cakewalk without any Significant losses for USA or Europe.

Allright, then, how exactly do you make the fight (relatively) fair? You're building a scenario in which the SoVFleet comes out of it's Murmansk fortress, thus entering the Atlantic, passing the northern tip of Norway. Let's say they sail past Trondheim.

Anywhere the sovs went in the Atlantic, they'd be facing hundreds of carrier-borne aircraft, with no cover of their own, because a)they had no carriers and b)land based fighters didn't have the range?

Any land-based bombers that try to support the fleet willl have to do so with no escort. With makes them easy prey for UK/Iceland-based interceptors.

As for ship-based air defence, afaik at the time the sovfleet had a grand total of 4 Kynda-class cruisers with SAMs. I don't know of any other SAM-carriers in their fleet, since the Kashin-class was only starting to be built, and the Kanin wasn't modernized untill after 1965. So... yeah...

The last time I remember large surface ships sailing out with no air cover was the Yamato & Co. That ended well...
 
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