[Bluedwarf]

Speaking of reactivating old ships, I came across an gem that the HMS Victory, predating the United States, is still in commission! Given the technology left, it could well be one of the last full strength warships, and could certainly make a very interesting scenario, given that it would be one of the few vessels that would not be short of ammunition (creating gunpowder of the sort it could use is not exactly rocket science, given I know some high school kids who used to do it!)

The old wooden vessels would not be suseptible to rust, like the lighter GRP and Aluminium hulls of many smaller craft. But historically pressing civilian craft into service has always occurred in massive numbers whenever war broke out, and many of these vessels have been equally as effective as dilapdated warships, as the example above makes clear.

With regards to the Caspian fleet being stuck, that would only apply to the larger vessels, with the river system in spring and summer enabling many FACs and even some frigates access to the Baltics and the North Sea.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, the Soviet Navy was primarily focused on defence, and so they never planned on major assaults far from home. Hence, the destruction of the Northern Nato fleet at a time when they had few major surface combatants is entirely in line with the way they would prepare for war. Ie mines, aircraft and shore batteries as previously mentioned could be expected to be devestating, because that is what they were built and trained for. They have been slow to develop the surface combatants because, in their philosophy, that is not the most significant part of their Naval Defence strategy, unlike the west. They had huge numbers of missile weilding vessels that were transportable over land that would be devestating against the older vessels, as the Israelis discovered when a now dated Osa class vessel (a 165t rail transportable vessel of which the Soviets built around 200 in the early 80's) sank an updated Israeli destroyer in the 6 day war. China had about 120 of these as well, btw. Their punch is only as dated as the missiles they launched.

Interestingly, in 1984, USSR had 80 Whiskey class subs in reserve, plus another 50 in service, having been replaced by Foxtrot class vessels. These vessels, launched in the 1950's, would certainly have been reactivated, though how many would have actually been useable may be another question. But given warning it is very conceiveable they could all be made operational, though unlikely they would have been grouped together with any fleet as such.

While many of their capital ships are dated, the 12 Sverdlov class gun cruisers vessels would likely be more serious threats due to the fact that they used boilers to drive steam turbines and guns instead of missiles. While they would have had a harder time surviving initially, those that did would serve better in a lower tech post-nuke world that the more deadly but more tech-dependant vessels. Similar to the Iowa, Brooklyn, Ceylon and De Ruyter classes of vessels (USA, USA, UK and Netherlands respectively). But it is surviving the initial years that would be the problem. Looking at the age of vessels in service on both sides, it is unlikely that any that were not in reserves would be better than civilian vessels, with the latter probably being preferable due to the better conditions.