Black Sea Naval Actions

[mpipes]

My Campaign History:

In late February 1998, a NATO carrier and amphibious group that includes the USS Kennedy, USS Truman, HMS Invincible, USS Kearsarge (configured as a sea control ship with 16 AV-8Bs and 8 AH-1Ws), Príncipe de Asturias, Foch, USS New Jersey, USS Salem, and HMS Belfast enter the Black Sea to execute Operation Black Devil. In conjunction with remaining Ukrainian, Romanian, and Turkish airpower, the NATO force essentially destroys the Black Sea Fleet, hunting down and sinking most of the remaining surface ships and putting the remaining naval bases out of action. Truman suffers serious damage, striking a mine, and HMS Invincible is torpedoed by a Tango, suffering significant hull damage requiring at least ten weeks in dry dock to repair. Belfast suffers a missile hit, causing damage to her upper works, and Salem suffers minor damage from three hits from 150mm gun rounds. Several other ships are damaged as well. Ukraine launches a ground offensive at the same time into Crimea, but it is unable to make much headway against stubborn Soviet resistance.

[Raellus]

@Southernap: Thanks for the info, insight, and resources.

Based on the preponderance of the evidence, it looks like Med Cruise got it right.

I never envisioned a NATO foray into the Black Sea, nor a Red Fleet sortie out of it. In either case, I think the interloper would get their hat handed to them or, even if they succeeded, strategically, it wouldn't be worth the cost in losses.

I think it's most plausible that Turkey and the Soviets spar a bit at sea after Turkey's invasion of Bulgarian Thrace on Christmas Day, 1996, resulting in limited naval engagements in which the Soviets come out on top.

The Greeks declare war on Turkey in January '97. As you pointed out, the pre-war Turkish navy was more oriented towards and focused on the Med. That's where their focus would return, and remain, after fighting breaks out on Cyprus.

I think the NATO of T2k would essentially cede the Black Sea to the WTO and focus on regaining control of the Med (from the Italian and Greek navies).

[Legbreaker]

Yes there's not much point in NATO trying to take the Black Sea. I personally can't see any great advantage in doing so, but there's a whole lot of disadvantages. Sure it'd be nice to control it, but the cost...

[Raellus]

There's another reference in canon that implies Soviet dominance of the Black Sea by

"The best Soviet troops had been shipped further south to Bulgaria and by May had managed to halt the Turkish drive." (emphasis added)

-v1 ref's manual, p. 25

Technically, one can "ship" things by land or by air, but I take this word to signify its more traditional meaning of "move by sea". Since the Romanian army hadn't collapsed yet- that wouldn't happen until September- the most logical way for those Soviet troops to have gotten to Bulgaria is by sea. This would strongly suggest that the Turkish and Romanian naval presence in the Black Sea had been eliminated by May, 1997.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It's worth noting that this time period is also when the Soviets were experimenting with ekranoplans (chiefly on the Caspian Sea), so it would seem the Soviets were paying a lot of attention to maritime actions in that part of the world.
Given that situation along with the lack of significant mentions in canon. I think you have a lot of leeway for the Black Sea area.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Soviet Minister of Defence, Dmitriy Ustinov, authorised a programme of 120 Orlyonok-class ekranoplans to be built for deployment primarily on the Black Sea and Baltic Sea. The number was later reduced to approximately 20-30 but when he died in 1985, the project was cancelled with only a few ekranoplans of various classes having been completed.

[Raellus]

Great suggestion. I'm a big fan of Soviet ground-effect aircraft. There was just something about them that I found scary, as a late Cold War kid. I'll definitely include mention in my write up of Black Sea naval actions.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I didn't hear much about the Soviet ekranoplans until the the mid-1990s and the lack of information made them very mysterious which just served to make them seem very exotic.
It'll be great to see something that makes use of them and taps into the mystery surrounding them (when something gets called the "Caspian Sea Monster", it practically begs to be used in a scenario or two!).

That'll be a nice counter to the handful of people who talk about them as failures because it's a "plane that can't fly properly" (yes I have seen this type of comment on some videos, they described ekranoplans as failures because they could only fly a few metres above the ground - missing the entire point of a ground effect vehicle).