Article on how the Soviet Navy planned to fight WWIII

[Olefin]

Just saw this today and its a very interesting read

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/revealed-how-the-soviets-planned-go-war-americas-navy-11593

Excerpt from it reads like something from GDW

"But there's also wit and drama, which you rarely find in these types of papers. Here's an account of an air-crew briefing for a mock raid by Soviet Backfire bombers on a US carrier fleet somewhere in the Pacific:

...a young second lieutenant...fresh from the air college, asked the senior navigator of the regiment, an old major: “Sir, tell me why we have a detailed flight plan to the target over the vast ocean, but only a rough dot-and-dash line across Hokkaido Island on way back?”

“Son,” answered the major calmly, “if your crew manages to get the plane back out of the sky over the carrier by any means, on half a wing broken by a Phoenix (ed. note: the name of a missile carried by the US Navy's F-14 fighters) and a screaming prayer, no matter whether it’s somewhere over Hokkaido or directly through the moon, it’ll be the greatest possible thing in your entire life!”"

Also this interesting detail from the article

Tokarev also writes that the naval air force, tasked with sending its bombers against US carrier fleets, did not trust the targeting information they got from satellites or other intelligence methods. “The most reliable source of targeting of carriers at sea was the direct-tracking ship' or 'd-tracker”, a destroyer or other ship that shadows the US fleet constantly in peacetime, sending back coordinates just in case war breaks out. And when it does?

It was extremely clear that if a war started, these ships would be sent to the bottom immediately. Given that, the commanding officer of each had orders to behave like a rat caught in a corner: at the moment of war declaration or when specifically ordered, after sending the carrier's position by radio, he would shell the carrier's flight deck with gunfire...He could even ram the carrier, and some trained their ship's companies to do so; the image of a “near miss,” of the bow of a Soviet destroyer passing just clear of their own ship's quarter, is deeply impressed in the memory of some people who served on board US aircraft carriers in those years.

[rcaf_777]

This plan was played out in Tom Clancy book "Red Storm Rising"

If I remember the carrier alot of damage, most of aircraft attacked a group of decoys vs attacking the real bomber group with antiship missiles.

I think the NATO response to these attacks were attack land based bomber bases in the Kola Peninsula and Baltic Sea areas

[Olefin]

I thought it was interesting that they were actually thinking of having the shadowing destroyers turn themselves into kamikazes and had actually trained them to try to close and ram.

Also really calls into question whether Boomer could have ever actually happened with the fact that the Soviet boomers needed two hours minimum of hovering at periscope depth to be able to do a launch. Especially as that submarine gets off multiple launches spread over weeks - I can see her doing it once and surviving but three times?

[RN7]

Yup they relied on bombers and subs with anti-ship missiles to take out the US fleet as they knew their own surface fleet wouldn't stand a snowballs chance against US carrier battle groups. Saturation attacks by bombers were the best way of neutralising American carrier power, as they went down the Chinese anti-carrier ballistic missile route in the 70's but soon realised bombers with anti-ship missiles were far better and cheaper to do the job. Forced the US Navy to be proactive about knocking them out by planing to send carriers through the GIUK gap into the Norwegian Sea and even Arctic waters in wartime.

[Olefin]

It also shows that the Soviets were basically figuring in the loss of a whole regiment of bombers per attack on a carrier no matter what the result - expecting a minimum of a 50 percent loss rate per strike among the aircraft involved.

Clearly in any long war Soviet naval aviation would have been destroyed pretty quickly with that doctrine with the war staying non-nuclear as long as it did.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Contrapost to this, in the (chronological) sequel to Flight of the Intruder, Stephen Coonts' foil Jake Grafton is tasked with working up a strike package to take out a Soviet surface action group using A6B's, this being well prior to the adoption of the Harpoon ASM. 30% losses on the way in, reduce the enemy forces by perhaps 20-30%, 30% losses on the way out, then rearm and refuel and try to hit them again.

The devil's arithmetic indeed.

Also I have heard tell that the Walker's (John Walker died back in August and I hope he's in Hell) treachery would've cost us incredibly had the balloon gone up.

[kato13]

It also shows that the Soviets were basically figuring in the loss of a whole regiment of bombers per attack on a carrier no matter what the result - expecting a minimum of a 50 percent loss rate per strike among the aircraft involved.

Clearly in any long war Soviet naval aviation would have been destroyed pretty quickly with that doctrine with the war staying non-nuclear as long as it did.

Clancy (actually probably Larry Bond) got around that by having the first counter attack against the bombers being directed against drones. The F-14s were splashing drones while the real bombers were coming from another direction.

It was a one trick pony and in the end Tomahawks from 7 or 8 Los Angeles subs truly did decimate the bombers right after they landed from a strike.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Clancy (actually probably Larry Bond) got around that by having the first counter attack against the bombers being directed against drones. The F-14s were splashing drones while the real bombers were coming from another direction.

It was a one trick pony and in the end Tomahawks from 7 or 8 Los Angeles subs truly did decimate the bombers right after they landed from a strike.

Operation Doolittle, IIRC. A direct strike on Soviet soil, one that in reality would've triggered a nuclear attack on either Norfolk, Holy Loch or possibly Bremen.

[Webstral]

Perhaps. I have read that the Soviets were expected to expect an unspoken agreement with the US that direct attacks on the territory of the other party was out of bounds. It's hard to say how attached to this idea the senior leadership would have been. It's equally hard to say whether or not they would have viewed escalation to nuclear action as a response to conventional attacks on the Kola Peninsula as being advantageous to the Soviet war effort. As everyone here knows, Soviet doctrine held that there were no natural firebreaks between various levels of escalation. Any use of nuclear weapons might lead to an all-out exchange. Twilight: 2000 is based on a very different premise. Where reality might actually have shaken out is a tough call to make.