Anti-Ship Missiles
Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei G. Gorshkov, who for three decades occupied the post of the Commander in Chief of the Navy, had every reason to characterize cruise missiles as the "national weapon" of the Soviet Navy. Important tasks in the development of naval missile weapons were handled by the ordering agency - the Naval Missile and Artillery Armament Department (URA) of the Navy, the research organizations of the fleet - CRI-1, for many decades.
In the mid-1950s the growth of the strategic threat posed by western aircraft carriers called for a response by Soviet naval defenses. Western carriers could launch aircraft against the Soviet Union from beyond the effective operating areas of the Soviet Navy, which was then organized to protect the coasts and to support the flanks of the army. Soviet ships, aircraft, and submarines were designed for short-range operations and lacked armament which would permit an effective defense against the carrier.
In the early 1950s the Soviet Navy was tasked to protect the coasts of the USSR and to support the flanks of the army. The Navy seldom operated more than a few hundred miles from the coastline. The surface force lacked sufficient armament to operate safely beyond land-based air cover in the face of Western carrier-borne air power. The naval air arm was composed mainly of land-based fighter aircraft and light bombers with short range.
Only a few of the Soviets' 300 diesel-powered submarines armed with torpedoes exercised beyond home waters. These were available for the protection of coastal areas and for interdiction of sea lanes in wartime. Because these submarines were slow, had limited submerged range, and had to penetrate the aircraft carrier's large screening force before they could launch torpedoes against it, their usefulness against the carrier was marginal.
In the mid-1950s, the Soviet Navy, primarily to counter the nuclear threat of the carrier, had to extend its defense perimeters. The alternatives were to construct aircraft carriers or to develop a strike weapon of sufficient range. The Soviets chose cruise missiles as their strike weapon.
A new weapon or weapon system was needed to cope with the carrier. The Soviets chose a weapon system - the cruise missile - with the range necessary to counter the carrier threat. Cruise missiles are rocket- or jet-powered aerodynamic vehicles controlled remotely and by self-contained guidance systems. They provide greater range and weight of explosive charge than traditional naval weapons and can be launched from Surface ships, Submarines, or aircraft. Their homing systems make them more accurate than naval guns.
Cruise missile technology had been acquired from Germany after World War II, and the development and production of cruise missiles did not require either the research and development, the resource base, or the lead time of six to eight years for aircraft carriers. The Soviets had no experience in building or operating carriers and were already committed to a large and costly surface ship construction program for coastal defense.
The Soviets probably calculated that cruise missiles offered several favorable characteristics in addition to lower costs and shorter construction lead times. Soviet training manuals claim that missiles have an overall hit probability of from 60 to 90 percent, as compared with under 10 percent for naval guns and 10 to 25 percent for torpedoes. One direct hit with a high-explosive SS-N-2 Styx missile, according to Soviet manuals, can destroy a transport or a destroyer-size warship. Three hits will destroy a cruiser-size ship. If this textbook ratio is continued, an estimated five to seven hits will destroy an aircraft carrier, but one hit - in the hangar deck, for instance - possibly could prevent the carrier from launching its aircraft.
Also, cruise missiles are difficult to counter because of their flight characteristics. Their speed, ranging from slightly under Mach 1 for some to as high as Mach 3 for other missiles, allows defensive weapons little reaction time. Some missiles in their final approach to a target fly at low altitudes and present only a small radar return that may be lost in surface clutter.
Since the mid-1960s the Soviets accelerated the development of their cruise missile forces: they increased the size of the force, introduced new models, and retained older models in the inventory.
The first combat use of anti-ship missiles in October 1967 revolutionized naval strategy and tactics. The first time the guided missile weapon - "air torpedoes" - was used by the Germans in 1943. They managed to sink several ships. But the effect of using "air torpedoes" was smeared by the fact that the Allies had a multiple superiority over the Germans on land, sea and air, and the loss of several ships could not change not only the course of the war, but even the course of individual operations. And after the war, the role of controlled "air torpedoes" was fading compared to V-2 ballistic missiles and an atomic bomb.
The shock around the world caused the sinking on October 21, 1967, of the Egyptian missile boat of the Israeli destroyer Eilat. Since that time, fleets of almost all countries began to make feverish attempts to adopt anti-ship missiles (RCPs).
By 1978 DIA had not conducted any net technical assessment on the vulnerabilities of aircraft carriers to cruise missiles. However, the Chief of Naval Operations made a statement concerning aircraft carrier vulnerability to Soviet missiles. " Soviet air, surface, and submarine-launched guided or cruise missiles are the primary militarv threat to U.S. aircraft carriers. Basicallv, all surface warships are vulnerable to these weanons. However. the aircraft carrier is the least vulnernble, because, of its extensive defensive, and damage-control features. Of course, the aircraft carrier is essentially a mobile air base, and is less vulnerable than a fixed base would be; also, it is not subject to certain threats such as political denial and guerrilla attack."
The United States and the Soviet Union traditionally followed different paths in exploiting missile technology. Soviet cruise missiles, for instance, were designed mostly for tactical antiship use rather than for threatening strategic land targets (as was the U.S. emphasis).
In 1979, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) undertook an evaluation of the navy’s work, entitled in draft, How Good is Navy Force Planning? This report concentrated on Sea Plan 2000 and a study entitled “Assessment of the Sea-Based Air Platform Project,” as well as the then incomplete study entitled “The Sea-Based Air Master Study Plan.” Rather than assume the aircraft carrier to be the centerpiece of future forces, GAO concluded that the US Navy’s missions should be prioritized and analyses should be made of alternative ways to fulfill its mission through land-based aircraft and surface ships armed with cruise missiles.
Cruise missile submarines and strike aircraft carrying air-to-surface missiles (ASMs) were the Soviets’ primary anticarrier weapons. In addition to more than 300 naval Backfire and Badger strike aircraft, some elements of the Soviet Air Force (SAF) and Air Armies of the VGK (AAVGK) were also assigned maritime strike tasks.
In wartime, these forces would attack carrier battle groups crossing fleet defensive thresholds, generally some 2,000 kilometers from Soviet territory. Antiship-missile equipped surface combatants would also be used in areas where they are in proximity to US carrier battle groups at the outset of hostilities or as carrier battle groups approach Soviet sea-control areas.
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