Quote:
Originally Posted by Mohoender
In fact, what we know is that surface ships get to the bottom of the sea. Little is said on the subs. What we can guess is that little survive the exchange but also that they are active at launching the nukes.
For my part, I consider mines to be a real threat in T2K but a random one. You won't find large minefields as in ww2 but NATO's capability to clear the existing ones is equally reduced to nothing.
Another thing, Soviets used to drop mines from aircrafts and Tu-95 Bear will flight much longer than B-2 Spirit. In addition, Antonovs can also be easily modified to drop mines.
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The Soviets were always considered to have the largest mine inventories of any of the major naval powers; according to Norman Polmar's "Guide to the Soviet Navy" they had between 350,000 and 400,000 naval mines (of 48 different types) stockpiled. While a portion dates back to World War II, a large number are modern mines capable of being planted in depths of up to 3,000 feet (915m). Polmar goes on to make the claim that this is several times the size of the US/NATO mine inventory.
Soviet naval writings stress both a defensive and a offensive use of mines; defensive to protect critical Soviet naval ports as well as provide secure locations for the SSBN force to shelter in. The offensive use is to blockade NATO ports, and critical chokepoints in the sea lanes....the Greenland-Iceland-UK gaps for certain, but based on some of the writings, I can see Gib, the Dardenalles, Suez, Hormouz and even the Malay barrier.
There is an old naval saying that goes "any ship can be a minesweeper, once." The belts don't have to be heavy, but scattering 30-40 mines in a area and programming them to go active after a period of time....