The Third World War: August 1985

most vulnerable, and least easily defended, elements in the supply from wells to shore were the pipelines on the sea-bed, the Russians had decided to cut these. It was not difficult to do this, except in the southern North Sea, which initially was not readily accessible to the attackers. In the north, six diesel-electric submarines, approaching via the deep water off the Norwegian coast, were deployed to predetermined positions, where they released special underwater manned vehicles, to locate and destroy the twelve most important pipelines. By using delayed action charges, the submarines were able to withdraw without detection.

Three of them, operating in the shallower areas, also laid mines in the vicinity of the pipelines, where the destruction would occur. Two NATO patrol ships, sent to investigate the explosions on 8 August, struck mines and sank. In order to distract attention from the submarine operations, sporadic air attacks, using stand-off missiles, were carried out on some of the oil and gas rigs themselves. The UK air defences took a heavy toll of the elderly Badgers used by the Russians for these attacks.

The final major event of the war at sea, during the opening phase of the Warsaw Pact onslaught, was the declaration by the Soviet government on 9 August that the Western Approaches was a War Zone, into which shipping of any kind entered at its peril. The only neutral countries within the War Zone were Sweden and Finland. The Swedes were told that the inconvenience they would suffer would not last long and that the action had been forced upon the Warsaw Pact by the aggressive intentions of NATO. The Soviet objective of neutralizing the Federal German Republic would soon be achieved. The correlation of forces made this inevitable. As to Finland, it was hardly necessary to seek her compliance.

The declaration of the War Zone was not regarded by the Soviet Union as sufficiently emphatic of itself. Certain of her submarines, which had been ordered to take up patrol positions and at all costs to remain undetected, were therefore ordered to attack with tactical missiles, after careful identification, certain important ships — oil tankers, container ships and dry cargo ships belonging to European NATO countries. Sailing weeks earlier from distant ports, along standard ocean routes, these ships had been ordered to continue at full speed, some towards the North Channel and some towards St George’s Channel, where they would be met and escorted into harbour. Ships which were more than five days’ steaming from Western Approaches coastal waters had been turned towards the nearest NATO friendly or neutral port or anchorage, to await further instructions.

Late on 9 August reports reached JACWA that two large oil tankers, two container ships and two dry cargo ships had been attacked without warning with submarine-launched missiles. The positions given, four in the Bay of Biscay and two west of Ireland, could not immediately be reconciled with the plotted positions of any Soviet submarines, as deduced from the various anti-submarine detection or surveillance systems. If ever the gravity of the Soviet submarine threat to shipping had been doubted, such doubts were now speedily removed. Against nuclear-powered submarines, aided by satellite and aircraft reconnaissance, even the fastest merchant ships were sitting ducks.

The first thing to do, having established that Commander Western Approaches South (COMWAS) was organizing the search for survivors and sending tugs to the damaged oil tankers (neither of them had yet sunk), was to order any other NATO merchant ships approaching the declared War Zone to turn back. The next was to consider, with SACLANT, the implications of these attacks. The situation which now faced the maritime commanders, in the Atlantic and the Western Approaches, was critical. It was quite obvious that unless SACEUR could be certain of being reinforced by fresh combat forces from the United States by 15 August, he could not throw in his final reserves on the Central Front within the next four or five days, and thus stand some chance of holding up the Warsaw Pact advance to the Rhine.

A group of military convoys, with a speed of advance of twenty-three knots, had sailed from Halifax NS on 8 August. They could be disembarking troops and equipment in northern French ports by the 14th. But there were strong indications that a wave of Soviet submarines, which had sailed from the Kola Inlet on 4 August, was now crossing the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap. Denial of the Faroes to a Soviet raiding force had fortunately helped to maintain NATO anti-submarine surveillance of the key area, and three more Soviet submarines were known to have been destroyed, two by NATO submarines operating independently and one by a combination of air and surface forces. On the other hand, at least one NATO submarine had failed to report on leaving her patrol off the North Cape. In two days’ time, it was estimated, there would be twenty-four Soviet nuclear-powered submarines in the North Atlantic.

Had time permitted, at least some of the vital initial convoys could have been routed south of the Azores, where they would have been beyond the reach of Backfire maritime strike aircraft from Murmansk. The effective radius of these aircraft was about 4,000 kilometres. As things were, there was really no choice but to assemble the most powerful escort and support forces available, and fight the convoys through by the shortest route across the Atlantic. It was expected that NATO submarines operating to the north of the gap would further reduce the number of Soviet submarines reaching the convoys. Most important of all, US Strike Fleet Atlantic, supported by maritime aircraft based in Iceland and northern Scotland, would cover the whole operation. If Soviet Backfires could attack convoys in mid-Atlantic, the US Strike Fleet could pulverize the Soviet Northern Fleet base from a position in the Norwegian Sea. Its approach, plumb through the middle of the gap, could not of course be concealed from Soviet reconnaissance. Nor could it be ignored by the C-in-C Soviet Northern Fleet. The battle of the Gap would be quite unlike Jutland, or Midway. But battle there would be.

Once again, the question of ‘to use or not to use’ nuclear weapons in the war at sea had to be faced. It was the opinion of the naval commanders that, on the ‘form’ so far, the use of nuclear depth charges or nuclear warheads or torpedoes would by no means show gains commensurate with the risk of escalation. As to nuclear strikes on the Soviet bases in the north, only if nuclear weapons had finally been resorted to on the Central Front would these be carried out.

SACLANT had been under less pressure from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour and day-to-day events since the war broke out in Europe on 4 August than his Western Approaches colleagues. The departure from Halifax NS four days before of the group of fast military convoys which formed part of Operation CAVALRY could not possibly have gone unobserved and unreported; and the route which the convoys took could not be varied much. It was not surprising that a fierce battle was taking place, the outcome of which would be critical for events on the Central Front. Operation CAVALRY had to succeed.

SACLANT had been under no illusions about the losses which the Soviet submarines might inflict, with their horizon-range and stand-off missiles. Measures had been taken, therefore, to limit the effectiveness of the Soviet ocean surveillance satellites and air reconnaissance. Since the destruction of three of the Conakry-based reconnaissance Bears on the 4th — old models, but carrying a somewhat rudimentary and hitherto unsuspected air-to-air capability — three more Super-Bears had been removed. But indications of increased Soviet submarine movements had been reported by the four STASS ships on patrol. It looked as if the Soviet Submarine Commander had ordered his force to concentrate ahead of the CAVALRY convoys. Each of these consisted of twelve ships, stationed in three columns of four, with an escort group, including an escort carrier, disposed appropriately in the vicinity. Some distance away was a powerful ASW support group, consisting of a light aircraft carrier (with V/STOL fighter-strike-reconnaissance aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters embarked), two anti-missile cruisers and four ASW frigates. It had been intended that a second ASW support group should take station astern of the convoy formation, because submarines can attack with missiles from any direction — unlike in the days of torpedoes, when ‘limiting lines of approach’ for effective attack put a premium upon the submarine pelting ahead and then ‘lying in wait’ for his targets. But a submarine attack upon a support group, as it formed up in Hampton Roads, had seriously damaged the carrier and sunk a frigate. The remainder of the force had been told to ‘get that goddam’d submarine’ and were still hopefully and energetically pursuing one or two sonar surveillance system (SOSUS) reports which could have been the culprit.

For the first two days of the transit, US and Canadian MR aircraft operating from Newfoundland would support the convoys. For the last two, RAF MR aircraft based in south-west England would take over. For the perilous two days in mid-Atlantic, the best that could be hoped for from the shore would be spasmodic cover from the already over-stretched US Navy Air Force Orion MR aircraft at Lajes in the Azores.

The Commander Strike Fleet Atlantic, entering the Iceland-Faroes gap on 10 August, was extremely thankful to have had the protection, during this transit, of fighters from Newfoundland and Iceland. These were maintained by air-to-air refuelling, and operated with the AWACS aircraft in continuous attendance. There had been a strong westerly wind, and the need to operate fixed-wing aircraft from the carriers would have slowed him down. As it was, he had made a speed of more than twenty knots. What worried him was the absence of submarine contacts.