contribution of non-Soviet forces would be negligible), would normally be of the following order:
Both sides would have a number of logistic support ships; amphibious ships and craft; mine counter-measure ships and auxiliaries. The Soviet Northern Fleet would also include upwards of twenty-five fast missile craft.
There were, of course, in addition, the large Soviet and Warsaw Pact naval and naval air forces in the Baltic, which the naval and air forces of the Federal German Republic and Denmark would have to oppose. In the Mediterranean there were the United States Sixth Fleet and a large part of the French Navy. The Italian, Greek and Turkish naval forces were also earmarked for NATO and would, provided their governments remained staunch, fight the Soviet Navy effectively.
The attitudes of the various governments in North Africa, as well as their capability to support Soviet naval operations, would be of critical importance. The relinquishment by the British, in the 1970s, of a naval presence in the Mediterranean, to be replaced partly by the US Navy, partly by Allied Forces South (AFSOUTH), had proved to be a weakening step.
Considering strategy, therefore, first of all during the hoped for warning period, JACWA foresaw five main tasks:
1 To put the Western Approaches command on a war footing.
2 To step up reconnaissance of Soviet and Warsaw Pact naval and naval air activities.
3 To inaugurate measures to control and protect shipping.
4 In conjunction with CINCNORTH, SACEUR’s major NATO commander in Oslo, to protect the oil and natural gas installations in the North Sea.
5 To ensure the safe and timely movement of all sea traffic between the UK and the Continent in support of SACEUR.
So far, little in the way of strategic thinking was needed. Once hostilities began, however, the options for decision would open up, as, under the impact of enemy action, the demands upon inadequate forces began to come into critical competition.
In the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars JACWA’s predecessors (with the warm approval of the British Admiralty) had proceeded at once to sea with their fleets ‘to sweep the enemy from the seas’. Many thousands of miles of largely unproductive steaming had worn out both machinery and men. Valuable ships had been torpedoed, or sunk by air attack, without inflicting even equivalent losses on the enemy. JACWA, as a team, had a most compelling reason for rejecting this precedent. With so few forces at their disposal, and no reserves from which to make good losses, the only offensive operations which could be justified were those which promised to reduce, at once, the level of the threat to NATO’s aims.
It was evident that the most potent enemy forces were the sixty nuclear-powered general purpose submarines (SSN) of the Soviet Northern Fleet, together with the 250
The British naval contribution to NATO had been augmented, during the period 1979-85, following a sudden, eleventh-hour awakening of public opinion to Britain’s extreme vulnerability to attack upon her seaborne trade and supplies — a vulnerability now felt almost as much by the other NATO countries in north-western Europe. The most important elements in the emergency naval programme were:
1 Three escort carriers. These were container ship hulls fitted with ‘ski-jump’ flight decks and containerized aircraft control and operations modules. Carrying a mix of V/STOL fighter-strike-reconnaissance aircraft, and ASW helicopters, these 28-knot ships, built to merchant ship specifications, were good value for money.
2 Four additional improved
3 Twelve corvettes of a new type, for fast patrol ship duties.
4 Six additional mine counter-measure ships.
5 Five small patrol (diesel-electric) submarines.
This naval construction programme was feasible, despite Great Britain’s poor economic performance in the 1970s, because her shipbuilding industry, other than in designated warship building yards, was very short of orders and the extra jobs were warmly welcomed. It seemed a preferable alternative to building merchant ships, at a loss, for Soviet satellite countries, to be employed in cut-throat competition against the merchant fleets of the United Kingdom. The shape and size of the Royal Navy in the mid-1980s was appropriate, therefore, to the two main functions of the UK maritime task, namely, sea-use management and combat with hostile forces. This pattern had become accepted, also, in the other NATO navies, so that the mix of forces achieved overall had gradually moved towards the optimum.
The strategy of SACLANT, as it had evolved under a series of most able incumbents of the post, by 1985 comprised three main elements: first, to maintain in readiness the US Navy’s strategic nuclear forces, and ensure that no Soviet operational development could upset the strategic nuclear balance; second, to act, with his conventional forces, as vigorously as possible to reduce the threat from Soviet conventional forces to NATO’s seaborne supplies and reinforcements; third, to give direct assistance, as appropriate and feasible, to both SACEUR and JACWA in their operations.
SACLANT’s assessment of the combat capability of various types of naval and air force had led him to base his concept of operations on the judgement that the supersonic homing, guided or programmed missile, whether launched from land, surface warship, submarine or aircraft, was the main danger to naval forces and shipping at sea. But it was a danger to which some effective counters were already in operational service. The hoary ‘axioms of action’ — above all surprise, concentration and economy of force — had to be borne in mind. Owing to the inability of submarines to operate submerged in large groups, in the way, for example, the U-boat ‘wolf-packs’ were able to operate on the surface in the Second World War, it would today be difficult for a submarine attack to saturate the anti-missile defences of a well-ordered escort or support group. Maritime strike aircraft, on the other hand, could carry out a heavily concentrated attack, which might temporarily overwhelm the defences.
It was with these considerations in mind that SACLANT’s operations were planned. It was essential, as a basis for them, to exploit two capabilities, which had been developed in recent years, to provide early warning of impending attacks. The first of these concerned submarines. The knowledge of Soviet submarine dispositions and movements painstakingly built up in peacetime had been augmented by the use of the surface-towed array surveillance system (STASS), operated in a number of suitably stationed patrol ships. These monitored the noise made by submarines underway, especially when they exceeded modest speeds. The information so obtained could be fed into the total submarine surveillance system, with corresponding improvement in its reliability and comprehensiveness. The second important system was the airborne warning and control system (AWACS), operated in large patrol aircraft. This could provide long-range warning of low-flying aircraft or missile attack, and hence help to offset, to some extent, the danger of defences being overwhelmed by the weight of a surprise missile onslaught.
The Soviet Naval Staff, in planning the naval operations which would support ‘defensive action’ by the Warsaw Pact, if that should prove necessary, were quite clear in their minds about what had to be done. The Soviet Navy had to show that its contribution to the achievement of the Soviet Union’s political goals could be more than just supportive of the ground forces’ campaign. By concentrating upon the isolation of the north-west European battlefield, it could not only help the Red Army directly but also do much to weaken the commitment of the United States to Western Europe. The main tasks of the Soviet Navy, therefore, during the first ten days of hostilities, would be to:
1 Maintain the Soviet Navy’s strategic nuclear forces intact and at readiness, whilst limiting as much as possible the damage which could result if NATO were to unleash strategic nuclear warfare or tactical nuclear warfare at sea.
2 Help the ground and air forces to seize and keep open the Baltic Exits, and the Kiel Canal.
