Cold War Gone Hot: A Third Battle of the Atlantic

Half_Life_Expert#4276

This is the next "What if/Could it?" thread. Its sort of a sequel to the third one: "Cold War Germany: A NATO victory without nukes?" Link:http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/111838-Cold-War-Germany-A-NATO-victory-without-nukes as well as the previous one on the U-Boat Campaigns

I had brought up toward the end of the Cold War Germany thread a very likely "Third Battle of the Atlantic", and what that might encompass. Unfortunately it never really got anywhere. I would like to revisit this possibility.

If the Cold War had erupted into a Hot War in Europe, it is a near certainly that there would be fighting in the North Atlantic, chiefly in and around the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GUIK) Gap. Unlike the previous two BOTA, this hypothetical one would involve submarine vs submarine warfare on a large scale (as of now, only one submarine has sunk an enemy submarine while both of them were under water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_9_February_1945), as well as missile warfare, meaning extensive use of Anti ship and Anti aircraft missiles.

So I propose this for discussion:

In a Third Battle of the Atlantic, lets say any time between 1975 and 1991, with NATO and Soviet Navies (I doubt any of the other Warsaw Pact nations would have been able to get much of their fleets out of the Baltic), going head to head, what might have happened, would the US Aircraft Carriers been vulnerable?, would the Soviets be able to pull off a victory?, could NATO protect the REFORGER Convoys from Canada and the US from Submarines and Anti-ship missiles? and all other aspects that go along with this scenario.

As with the Germany thread, this will assume no use of nuclear weapons

You are also free to discuss possible naval operations in the Baltic and the Mediterranean, but not the Pacific, this is just NATO v Warsaw Pact. Perhaps someone else should do one on a Cold war Gone hot in the Pacific. Doing a modern set one would be too close to politics in my opinion (which is against the rules

To get things going, here's my post on it in the Cold War Germany Thread:

Another aspect worth discussing, even though it isn't in Germany: a third Battle of the Atlantic.

As with the last two World Wars, there were major submarine campaigns in the North Atlantic. I think a repeat of that is a near certainty, along with at least one major surface action. Soviet subs would most certainly be among the first to shoot in the naval theater and they would probably go after not only merchant shipping and convoys but also NATO subs. And NATO wouldn't have to rely on transport ships as much as in the past due to the major advances in airborne transport.

A major surface/carrier engagement would be very interesting.

the capital ships of the USSR (the only WP navy worth mentioning I think) were the Kirov Battlecruisers, and a few VTOL Carriers (the more conventional Carrier Admiral Kutznetzov wasn't commissioned until the very tail end of the Cold War).

NATO had the US super carriers, Iowa Battleships, and the British and French Carriers (the latter assuming they aren't needed in the Mediterranean).

Anti ship missiles would be the primary weapon for both ships and aircraft, even subs in the case of the Soviet Oscar Class.

in the end I think the Soviets would lose a third Battle of the Atlantic, due to NATO's inherent pre-war dominance south of the GIUK Gap (Greenland-Iceland-UK). But WP would have a better chance if they could totally control Iceland I think.

Go ahead, discuss!

Half_Life_Expert#4276

I guess ive hit a dead end on this one

daelin4#9896

I think the problem is that there has never been much submarine or naval combat since WW2 of any large scale. Sure the Falklands got some ships sunk, but over all, no nation since WW2 that has any meaningful size of a naval service has been committed against anther's. In most cases the ship was not destroyed by another ship or even a submarine, but by aircraft. We therefore have little to no understanding of what a Hot War over the seas would entail- any Nato-Warsaw action would involve land combat, as the latter is primarily made up of land forces, and the naval forces of the West are generally designed around the strategic land-support/ nuclear strategic focus. It's not like the US nor the Soviet Union during the Cold War had droves hundred submarines and picket ships ready just in case they need to go make a mess of each other's shipping.

In many ways, the large capital ships of the world's navies are just vanity fleets. A battleship like the USS Iowa might be useful if you park it in the Crimea and shoot up the Russian ships there, but that's not exactly something that air fleets or drones can do, not to mention you don't put a large prestigious vessel and thousands of lives at risk for the effort.

In such a hypothetical event that the NATO fleets face those of the Soviet Union (let's be generous and include China's as well), the majority of the action will be sending air assets like jets or cruise missiles to try to sink their ships. Weapons aboard modern naval surface vessels have for the most part been developed for defense from close-range attacks.

An interesting side note: the Soviet Union technically never had any dedicated aircraft carriers that the US possesses: they had aircraft-capable cruisers, which was a blend of conventionally armed warships with the capability of launching and receiving aircraft. Considering the Soviet Union being a predominately land-based and land-dependent power, and the presence of nuclear submarines and a substantial surface fleet of other types, makes this more or less understandable.

Ultimately, I think that to try to analyze such a hypothetical situation through the lens of typical fleet engagements that those found in WW1 and WW2 (that is, Jutland and Barents sea), even if you factor in engagements of naval air assets (ie Midway) would be inappropriate, as technology and strategy affected by then-current geopolitics influence how you wage war. The same problem occurred when the US military failed to factor in modern developments during the US Civil War, utilizing line-infantry attacks in waves against entrenched Confederate forces at Fredericksburg, or the European powers' inability to realize the drastic changes required in viewing warfare in WW1, where Napoleonic-era principles were applied to situations involving machine guns, railways, trenches and industrialized total war.

spartac

Well, if there was hot war probably the russians were going to dominate atleast at sea.Nothing offensive,but the biggest NATO ship is the half the 4 biggest russian.At land I do not know.I would be quite hard for both sides and I am not in aviation,but I know that the SUs are crazy and on the other side NATO has Stealth and F-somethings.

Well, this what I know from ex-Warsaw pact soldiers and lurking in Itar-Tas.

SmokeScreen

I have to be honest, I know very little of how modern naval warfare would play out, and even less what it looked like 40 years ago. I don't know what capabilities the Soviets fleet had and I don't have the slightest idea how on a fundamental level it differed from the Nato fleets. Though, Daelin already mentioned aircraft carriers.

Here is an idea, somebody could start a thread about Naval warfare in general. I'd like to learn something new, how do modern and post WW2 naval equipment and weaponry work and what are they. I'd like to know specifications on ship types and what sized fleets does the larger military powers possess... well, I'd really like to know everything that's to know about naval warfare.

spartac wrote: »

Well, if there was hot war probably the russians were going to dominate atleast at sea.Nothing offensive,but the biggest NATO ship is the half the 4 biggest russian.At land I do not know.I would be quite hard for both sides and I am not in aviation,but I know that the SUs are crazy and on the other side NATO has Stealth and F-somethings.

Well, this what I know from ex-Warsaw pact soldiers and lurking in Itar-Tas.

While that may be true (again, I don't know), size doesn't always indicate a better ship. In fact sometimes I'd imagine it's the opposite. A bigger ship could potentially be just a bigger target, more easily fired upon and detected by radar and satellite.

spartac

SmokeScreen wrote: »

I have to be honest, I know very little of how modern naval warfare would play out, and even less what it looked like 40 years ago. I don't know what capabilities the Soviets fleet had and I don't have the slightest idea how on a fundamental level it differed from the Nato fleets. Though, Daelin already mentioned aircraft carriers.

Here is an idea, somebody could start a thread about Naval warfare in general. I'd like to learn something new, how do modern and post WW2 naval equipment and weaponry work and what are they. I'd like to know specifications on ship types and what sized fleets does the larger military powers possess... well, I'd really like to know everything that's to know about naval warfare.



While that may be true (again, I don't know), size doesn't always indicate a better ship. In fact sometimes I'd imagine it's the opposite. A bigger ship could potentially be just a bigger target, more easily fired upon and detected by radar and satellite.

well,bigger ship means more gun power and bigger defense system.

daelin4#9896

I'm sure Hitler thought of that right up until Bismark and Tirpitz went under. And of course the largest battleship to date, the Yamato-class battleships, both sunk by aircraft.

As far as I am concerned, the major navies post-WW2 were fleets in being, with the goal of establishing strategic and political influence more so than with a focus on knocking each other out. I mean even Jutland proved that large pitched battles between surface ships weren't going to guarantee results; technically, Jutland's outcome was a draw. In the Pacific, the Japanese and fleet of carriers were all sunk by aircraft, only the USS Yorktown was sunk by surface attack (a Japanese submarine). The only reason why no naval air battles took place in the Atlantic was because there were no aircraft carriers, the British had the UK to launch their planes, and the Kriegsmarine had no cooperation with the Luftwaffe in naval aviation. Jutland was the proof in the pudding that naval battles were more decisive if air power was used to destroy the ships, not other cruisers.

Ace_Blazer

*Tom Clancy spoiler alert* Well how it plays out in Red Storm Rising is that the Russians snuck an airborne division into Iceland, giving themselves a solid foothold to raid the Atlantic corridor. The bulk of NATOs air power in the Atlantic that could actually protect the shipping lanes is actually with the US carrier groups, and all it takes is one decisive blow to force them into port. NATO would be loathe to send out its carrier groups unless it had full aerial superiority or was willing to deal a decisive counter blow to long range bomber bases in Russia.

Anyways the hypothetical scenario was a deception where the Russians stripped the US carriers of their fighter cover (wasted ammunition on decoys) and so had to rely on missile defense system of their Vulcans battling guns and chaff clouds. I believe the Russian bomber group consisted of Badger and Backfire bombers that all told could shoot 200 anti-ship missiles. Even taking down 90% of the missiles leaves 10 to go through and hit various ships that could seriously cripple the fleet, and personally I doubt the effectiveness of chaff and anti-missile systems.

Long term viability for the Russians to keep NATO carriers in port would be a major problem if the Russians could not win the war on the ground in Europe fast enough. Taking out NATOs Atlantic fleet would be an action to delay REFORGER, but wouldn't be the main objective. It's simply too far away to do more, especially when they need to expend resources on other fronts.

Anti-submarine warfare would consist of dedicated Destroyers equipped with helicopters that have passive sonar capabilities. The range and operation would mean these ships would give decent anti-submarine capabilities that could be used for escort and convoy duty. NATO spends a lot of resources and training on anti-sub warfare as they know that that is their weak link. This isn't to say how effective it would be. This would merely mean that instead of losing 5 ships a day, you may lose 1, and then they'd have to deal with hostile air raids if NATO carriers can't provide proper air cover.

Half_Life_Expert#4276

Ace Blazer wrote: »

*Tom Clancy spoiler alert* Well how it plays out in Red Storm Rising is that the Russians snuck an airborne division into Iceland, giving themselves a solid foothold to raid the Atlantic corridor.

.

it was also to knock out the SOSUS line there

Amilcar Barca

Half Life Expert wrote: »

it was also to knock out the SOSUS line there

Yes, i remeber well that novel. It was the one that made me get interested in modern warfare

SmokeScreen

daelin4 wrote: »

I'm sure Hitler thought of that right up until Bismark and Tirpitz went under. And of course the largest battleship to date, the Yamato-class battleships, both sunk by aircraft.

As far as I am concerned, the major navies post-WW2 were fleets in being, with the goal of establishing strategic and political influence more so than with a focus on knocking each other out. I mean even Jutland proved that large pitched battles between surface ships weren't going to guarantee results; technically, Jutland's outcome was a draw. In the Pacific, the Japanese and fleet of carriers were all sunk by aircraft, only the USS Yorktown was sunk by surface attack (a Japanese submarine). The only reason why no naval air battles took place in the Atlantic was because there were no aircraft carriers, the British had the UK to launch their planes, and the Kriegsmarine had no cooperation with the Luftwaffe in naval aviation. Jutland was the proof in the pudding that naval battles were more decisive if air power was used to destroy the ships, not other cruisers.

Essentially what you are saying is that air power is the deciding factor, i.e. the one with more and better planes would win. Or am I way off base?

Ace Blazer wrote: »

Anyways the hypothetical scenario was a deception where the Russians stripped the US carriers of their fighter cover (wasted ammunition on decoys) and so had to rely on missile defense system of their Vulcans battling guns and chaff clouds. I believe the Russian bomber group consisted of Badger and Backfire bombers that all told could shoot 200 anti-ship missiles. Even taking down 90% of the missiles leaves 10 to go through and hit various ships that could seriously cripple the fleet, and personally I doubt the effectiveness of chaff and anti-missile systems.

I am interested to know what the decoys were?

Ace_Blazer

I believe the Russians used drones or cruise missiles deployed by Backfires that transmitted data as if they had bomber signatures. Seeing as the F-14s engagement range is something ridiculous and out of visual range, they wasted all their munitions intercepting the targets before they could come within anti-ship missile range. Course once that happened they could not help out against the actual bombers that were coming in from an opposite vector.

I mention Red Storm Rising because it's hard to consider a scenario where there's an actual surface fleet engagement or a massed submarine attack on a carrier group. Also I'm not that well versed in Cold War strategy. I believe submarine doctrine calls for subs to act independently in their own sector so that they don't accidentally shoot each other.

Having even 5 subs attack a carrier group would be suicide: the massive anti-sub net around it complete with destroyer and helicopter screens is too much. There would also be no way to communicate because subs had to surface to bring their comms antennas above, not to mention that comms traffic could be easily picked up in close proximity of any sub hunter. Any chance of coordination would have to be done way ahead of the attack; there's no way you can plan that way with subs against a moving target.

I recently heard of a story where a Chinese sub was able to pop up in the middle of a US carrier group during exercises (not sure if true); however, even calling that a best case scenario, the sub has to spend some time on or near the surface to fire off its missiles or torpedoes, and then it's dead meat. I'm not sure any solo sub captain would kill his crew for an attack that would likely be intercepted by an automated defense system.

A massed air attack seems to be the most viable.

daelin4#9896

The US navy post-WW2 has aviation as a dominant element of their global strategy, therefore most surface ships are designed in part to operate as complementary defenses against aerial attacks. The only navies during the Cold War that had modern surface ships in significant numbers to post a threat to carrier groups are either owned by allies, or far too few or outdated to pose a significant threat to navy carrier groups: the Soviet Union, for example, has never built a battleship, they were all inherited from the Imperial Russian navy, and were all scrapped by the late-1950s, which of course makes them not applicable to the thread topic which defines the dating between 70s-90s.

The doctrine of the Soviet Union is an entirely opposite mentality, in effect a response to defeat the strengths posed by the US-led navies of NATO. Only one class of dedicated aircraft carrier exist on the Soviet/Russian side, and this single ship is smaller than the Nimitz-class "super" carriers of the US navy, which existed in the 1970s- the larger carriers were never built, and the only other Soviet/Russian carrier of this type was sold to China.
While the Soviet Union also had a large fleet of aircraft-capable cruisers (that is, surface ships that had significant, but not primary, functions of carrying aircraft, and are armed with a larger array of conventional weapons than US carriers), their design and intent were against submarines and anti-ship capabilities to defeat carrier groups that the US navy relies heavily upon. Cruise missiles among the Soviets play a comparatively much larger part in engaging NATO warships than aircraft, whereas the US relies much more on their superior air power. Naturally, any advancements in this field was cause for concern for the US and other NATO allies. This in part was the reason why the use of battleships and other large craft during this era was controversial- they offered little to the current doctrine of naval power and were large, expensive targets filled with personnel, hardly a target that Soviet anti-ship missiles and torpedoes could avoid temptation to fire upon.

The GIUK gap, the section of the Arctic-norther Atlantic strait between the UK and Greenland/Iceland, is one of the few safer parts of the oceans that the Soviet Union can move ships into the Atlantic, at which they can pose a significant threat to shipping, particularly between North America and the rest of Europe. Naturally this is one of the primary areas where any anticipated Cold War engagements between Warsaw Pact and NATO would occur. Strategically speaking, if you consider the proximity to Soviet-controlled waters and therefore potentially numerous Soviet submarines on patrol in the area, the only real activity by NATO are their own submarine forces, and is generally of the nuclear-strategic and/or fleet-in-being variety. Posting a carrier group here may not be of great strategic value considering plenty of alternative theatres, especially if aircraft can just be launched from airstrips on Iceland and the UK.

Ultimately any battle in the Atlantic between Warsaw Pact and NATO forces would primarily be in this part of the world, since the Atlantic has near-zero access for hostile Soviet warships, and the trip from either Crimea or Vladivostok would prove poor alternatives. This I believe plays a large part in the Soviet navy's defensive posture compared with those of NATO,s whose naval powers are not only historically powerful but also former overseas colonies which historically had great interest and investment in blue-water sea power. As far as I am concerned the primary Soviet navy objective in the Atlantic, or really throughout the world, is to provide threats through nuclear deterrence- the fear of submarines launching nuclear missiles onto cities like London, Paris or New York are one of the few things the Soviets have on their side.