World Ocean Exercise 75
Two major exercises in the seventies showed that logistic forces can support significant increases in Soviet naval operations away from home waters for periods of less than 30 days without serious degradation in overall combat readiness. In the spring of 1973, logistic forces supported more than 20 warships operating in the Norwegian and Mediterranean Seas and the North Atlantic.
In 1975, during the second Okean exercise, more than 75 surface combatant ships operating worldwide were supported. Oilers provided fuel and water in the manner demonstrated in Okean 1970. Crisis Periods. So far in the seventies, the Soviet logistics system has supported augmented forces of various sizes during periods of tension in the eastern Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the western Pacific, and off the west African coast. These forces have been smaller in number than those supported during the Okean exercises, but in most cases the units have been maintained for longer periods. During the Jordanian crisis in the fall of 1970, the number of major Soviet surface combatant ships in the Mediterranean Sea more than doubled--increasing to 17 units--while the logistic force increased to 19 with the addition of 5 support ships, mostly oilers.
The commonly projected employment of Soviet forces can be seen in terms of their historic objectives of defending the homeland, and was one favored by the Red Army. There was much by instinct to support such an option, given the number of her sons that Mother Russia had lost to invaders. The option minimized naval forces, shipping, and the maritime role in general. A second increasingly attractive Soviet option available was to isolate the U.S. from a land war in Europe. Knowing full well that any confiict involving NATO and the Warsaw Pact wlll require extensive resupply from the U.S., Soviet strategists would obviously wish to sever that link. This option, representing a somewhat forward extension of Soviet power, was growing in favor with their Navy, and was based on their view of a short siege, short war theory. The option also represented a concentration of efforts in the area and thus provides no real threat to remote shipping.
Another strategic option was for the Soviets to strive to defeat U.S. naval forces, then attack commercial shipping in selective areas. Such a strategy implied a longer war than Soviet forces appeared to be configured for. Their Navy would be designed for a one shot, short war strategy, to the extent that no evidence exists that the Soviets advocate extended conflict at sea with US forces. Another realistic option available to the Soviet Navy was to concentrate on attacking commerce. However, lt ls difficult to envisage a scenario where this strategy could be implemented without bringing US naval forces to bear against Soviet forces; it would be the equivalent o! a worldwide submarine campaign, the mining of choke points and terminals, and air and surface attacks on forces in the vicinity of Soviet bases. Again, this strategy implies a long war scenario, of which no evidence of Soviet advocacy exists.
Soviet naval strategy would therefore appear to be deployment and employment of forces to defend their homeland and to isolate U.S. forces, which, in a word, constitutes sea denial. Indeed this strategy has been articulated by the Soviets themselves in the Okean 75 exercises. In this exercise, observed by NATO units, more than two hundred ships were deployed in coordinated operations. Soviet naval task forces operated simultaneously in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. Soviet aircraft operated from bases not only in the Soviet Union, but also from air facilities made available to them in Cuba, Guinea, and Berberra in the Somali Republic. The exercise provided an excellent summary of the Soviet Naval strategy.
Soviet defenses get much stronger as the Soviet union is approached. These defenses compr ise both long-range assets, such nuclear-powered submar ines and long-range bombers, as well as large numbers of effective but range-limited systems, such as medium bombers, patrol missile boats, and diesel submarines. All of these systems possess antiship homing missiles. Together they constituted a most formidable and sophisticated threat to Allied naval platforms that are meant to project power from the Baltic or Norwegian seas. Combined Soviet systems are likely to exert enough pressure on naval forces to force them to be preoccupied with their own survival rather than with projection of their power ashore. Indeed, it is in the context of power projection that there is the highest probability of a saturation attack upon Allied forces.
A saturation attack is one in which enemy forces effectively coordinate the timing of their attack so that successive layers of defensive systems cannot cope with all the oncoming projectiles they must target. It is an extremely complex and difficult operation, one which the the Soviets demonstrated in their Okean 1970 and 1975 exercises, but which could prove more intractable in actual combat. Nevertheless, were the Navy to seek to project power anywhere within the range of most Soviet land-based aviation, the Soviets might successfully utilize their sophisticated command and control systems to coordinate a simultaneous cruise missile attack from submarines, surface warships and planes of various types.
Analyzing the pattern of long-range aircraft use in OKEAN 75, Peter Rasmussen predicted that: "". .. the relevance of the SNAF [Soviet Naval Air Force] is likelv to grow in lhe coming decade. The technological changes which have occurred alreadv, the possibilities which they may open, coupled with the political trends. will have the likelv effect of making the SNAF more ubiquitous and more effective in the years to come."
Soviet naval exercises involving merchant ships and convoy-type activity were rare but some evoked considerable interest and debate among Westen intelligence analysts. Interest focused especially on the activity in Okean-75 (the major exercise which took place in April 1975 involving, air, submarine, surface, and reconnaissance forces of all four Soviet fleets) and, to a lesser extent, on annual exercises involving amphibious forces.
Okean-75 was the first major Soviet naval exercise that involved merchant ships. Okean-75 was cited by analysts as a demonstration of Soviet intent to interdict Western maritime communications in wartime. Some 200 surface ships, divided into 11 task forces, participated in the exercise, which took place in April 1975. The activity of four of the task forces was sufficiently ambiguous to raise concern that some or all of them represented targets for other forces practicing attacks against merchant shipping. Contributing to this supposition, two of the task forces -- one in the North Pacific and one in the Barents Sea -- included merchant ships.
The task force in the North Pacific consisted of four naval ships and four cargo ships. An intelligence ship, the Izmeritel', trailed the group as it moved from an area east of Japan northward toward Kamchatka. This formation was assessed variously as a simulated Western carrier task force and as a merchant ship convoy. The formation was supported by ASW aircraft and was stalked either by a C-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine -- which would tend to support the carrier task force hypothesis -- or by a V-class submarine, a modern torpedo attack unit which is thought to be primarily assigned ASW missions but which could be used also against carriers or merchant convoys.
Another task force operated primarily in the Barents Sea and was composed of seven merchant ships and four naval ships. The presence of a tank landing ship in this group suggested that it represented a hostile amphibious task force, consistent with past exercise activity in this area. The steaming formation for this group -- with the combatants traveling in a forward screen, and the LST singled out for special protection -- supported this conclusion. Moreover, the ships in this group were attacked repeatedly by waves of aircraft equipped with air-to-surface missiles, but apparently attracted little attention from submarines. The actual role played by the merchant ships is unclear.
Merchant ships participated in convoy exercises. The intelligence collection ship Izmeritel' may have been a member of the convoy in the Northern Pacific for at least part of the exercise. Alternatively, the Ismeritel' may have functioned as an exercise referee. Convoys moved at slow speeds more typical of merchant ships than of naval task forces. Convoy maneuvers were more typical of merchant ships seeking to evade attack by submarines than of a naval task force. Since only a small percentage (e.g., 12 percent in the Northern Fleet) of available naval surface ships participated in Okean-75, it seems unlikely that the Soviets would have had to divert cargo ships, as they did, simply to provide additional targets for surveillance systems and aircraft.
Merchant ships may have represented warships or troop ships. The Izmeritel', in trailing the Northern Pacific group, probably was acting as a "tattletale," a common Soviet tactic whereby a ship shadows a carrier task force in order to provide targeting information for strike aircraft and cruise missile submarines and surface ships. The Barents Sea group apparently simulated passage through a minefield, which would have slowed its progress. The exercises both in the Barents Sea and in the North Pacific took place relatively close to the USSR rather than in major sea lanes between the US and its NATO allies and Japan. Both groups were subjected to repeated simulated attacks by ASM-equipped aircraft, primarily TU-16 Badgers which, with one refueling, would barely have the range to reach the sea lanes between the US and Europe. The intensity of the ASM attacks exceeded what probably would be necessary to interdict merchant ships. The ASM strikes against the North Pacific group took place at the same time as those against more obvious simulated carrier task forces. No attempt was made to protect the merchant ships by placing them in the center of the convoys, as would have been expected if the ships were simulating wartime convoys to provide realistic targets for interdiction.
During Okean-75 the Soviets also operated in the merchant shipping lanes between the Indian Ocean and Western Europe. At least two submarines were deployed from the Mediter- ranean to an area west of Africa near the Canary Islands, where they may have established a barrier patrol. About the same time, a destroyer and an oceanographic ship, which had been located west of Africa, began moving northward. The roles played by these ships are unclear. One interpretation is that they were simulating oil tankers enroute to Western Europe. Another is that they joined a tank landing ship operating in the same area and simulated an amphibious task force. The ships eventually reached the area where the submarines were located, but we do not know whether the submarines simulated attacks against them. Soviet reconnaissance aircraft using Guinean airfields frequently flew over the ships and could have updated their position for the submarines.
Also unclear was the role of a group of surface ships consisting of about four major combatants and seven hydrographic ships that operated together northeast of the Azores. The suspected presence of Soviet submarines nearby and the group's steaming formation -- in four rows with the hydrographic ships in the center two -- suggest that the group may have portrayed a US convoy or group was aircraft amphibious task group enroute to Europe. This subjected to regular reconnaissance by Soviet and to simulated air and sub- marine attacks. The lack of positive movement toward Western Europe could argue against this group's simulating a convoy. However, in fact they were simulating a "convoy," a term that in the Soviet usage can include naval auxiliaries and amphibious ships as well as merchant ships. ship was "torpedoed" and that two F-class submarines were in the general area. This case represents the least ambiguous example and its purpose may indeed have been to practice anti-convoy tactics.
Even so, it also could have represented a troop transfer movement -- a class of targets which the Soviets have clearly indicated has high priority for interdiction and which probably falls within the "some attacks on shipping" category that Marshal Zakharov noted should be conducted.
On balance, CIA believed that the two formations involving merchant ships probably simulated naval task forces. In the early stages of the exercise, the merchant ships in the Barents group most likely were intended initially to give the Soviet Navy practice in protecting coastal shipping or their own amphibious task groups. Subsequently, this group probably represented a Western amphibious landing force attacking the homeland. The group in the North Pacific probably simulated an attacking Western force of naval combatant's. The activity west of Africa and north of the Azores is more difficult to interpret. Either or both of these could have served as merchant convoys as well as targets for ocean surveillance. If they were convoy-associated, the submarines apparently targeted against these groups -- at least four diesels -- would represent about 10 percent of all attack submarines deployed for Okean.
Most of the events in Okean-75 could simply represent an exercise of fundamental naval skills: reconnaissance, intercept and attack by the offensive forces, and escort and evasion tactics by the defending forces. CIA expected to see some antishipping activity in a multi-fleet exercise the scale of Okean-75. Because interdiction of the sea lanes is a mission of the Soviet Navy, there would be a requirement to practice tactics.
On the defensive side, the Soviets hadd an increasing need to defend their merchant ships as their merchant fleet expanded its operations. The Soviets conducted extensive shipping between Soviet ports -- which in 1975 accounted for 78 million tons of cargo -- and also with East European ports. In wartime, this and other Soviet shipping would require naval escort. The Soviets also routinely co-opted merchant ships-for naval operations. Together with amphibious ships, merchant ships also often were used to carry equipment for the ground forces. They regarded protection of their own sea lines of communication as important, particularly in the northern and far eastern areas of the USSR where roads are bad or nonexistent. In the Far East, where Soviet military operations would depend heavily on easily interdicted rail lines, they could believe that moving military supplies by ship would be important for supporting sustained combat against the Chinese. Thus, the participation of merchant ships in Okean-75 need not indicate a change in the priority of Soviet naval missions.
Since 1975, Soviet naval exercises in general were smaller in scale and scope and primarily directed to the missions of the separate fleets. After 1975, the Soviets conducted no more OKEAN global fleet exercises to practice delivering a crippling blow to Western naval forces in a coordinated, devastating strike. By the late 1970s, analysts had begun speculating about a new Soviet bastion strategy, and U.S. naval leaders had to account for this trend in their calculus on how to use the fleet if war broke out.16 U.S. Navy operational commanders reacted. In the Pacific, during his tenure as Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, from 1977 to 1978, Adm. Thomas B. Hayward developed a “Sea Strike Project” that envisioned Pacific Fleet units conducting offensive actions against the eastern Soviet Union. In the 1980s the Soviet Navy continued to grow in size and capability, but was challenged by a reinvestment in American sea power by the Reagan administration that aimed for a 600 ship navy to execute a “Maritime Strategy.” In the late 1980s, recognizing that a naval arms race was hurtful to the Soviet economy, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachov took a less confrontational approach to the western alliance with “Glasnost.”
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