It appears inevitable that the Russians, once innovators of naval aviation but, lately, merely witnesses to the carrier’s hot and cold war potential, will themselves take air power to sea in the not-too-distant future. Their carrier may be a lineal descendant of the Moskva, or it could be a design closer to the familiar flattop.
In January 1916, the Turkish port of Zonguldak on the Anatolian coast of the Black Sea was subjected to one of the world’s first bombing raids by shipborne aircraft. Ten seaplanes from the Russian carriers Nikolai I and Aleksandr I dropped some 40 bombs in the harbor area, badly damaging the steamer Irmingard, as well as hitting Port facilities. Thus, the Russians, whose lack of aircraft carriers today causes speculation, were pioneers in developing naval aviation.
Although Russian naval aviation received its first hydroplane in 1911, the real beginning of Russian seagoing air power occurred almost exactly a year before the Zonguldak raid when the Black Sea Fleet received the two seaplane carriers. By March 1915, these ships were in action against enemy positions in the Bosphorus area and along the Bulgarian and Romanian coasts. Their seaplanes, possibly Grigorovitch N.9s with 150-h.p. engines, were employed in both scouting and bombing missions. Actions continued in the southwestern Black Sea area for most of the year, the Russians being particularly concerned about the German battle cruiser Goeben and the scout cruiser Breslau. In addition to reconnaissance and bombing missions, the aircraft were employed in distant convoy escort, forcing German U-boats down and generally performing the function chat would be made famous by our HUK groups in World War II.
Soon after the raid on Zonguldak, the war in the Black Sea became an exercise in futility for the Imperial Russian Navy. With the Revolution in 1917, naval operations ceased. The Nikolai I was taken over by the forces under Admiral Kolchak and subsequently was renamed Demokratiya. In a Soviet history of the Black Sea Fleet, all mention of the seaplane carriers ends on this note. Jane’s Fighting Ships of that period records the auxiliary cruiser Almaz, which also carried a seaplane, but makes no mention of either the Nikolai I or the Aleksandr I.
Until their Revolution, then, the Russian Navy was second only to the Royal Navy in operations involving seaborne aviation. Its activities had included bombing strikes against shore targets, spotting and reconnaissance, maritime patrol, and convoy protection. In the upheaval of civil war, the resources, both men and material, largely were lost as a part of the Navy’s general dissolution. But if the tangibles were gone, the memories of glorious moments and innovative thinking lingered to inspire the Bolshevik successors to the Tsarist tradition. As early as the fall of 1921, while the scars of the civil war were still fresh and the sailors’ mutiny at Kronshtadt just months past, Soviet Navy Chief of Staff Dombrovskiy voiced what is, perhaps, the basic theme of Red naval experience when he said: “Defense of the borders of the state from the side of the water boundaries is the cornerstone of our present day naval policy; for the time being we will relinquish the broader tasks. . . .” [Emphasis added.]
This clearly was a pragmatic approach to seapower. Whatever the economy was capable of allocating to maritime expenditures would be spent first on defense. The recent experiences with interventionist forces and the general hostility of the outside world toward the Communist pariah made defense the prime concern.
In the Soviet Navy of 1921, coal, even for heating ships is said to have been lacking. By 1923, logistics had recovered sufficiently to permit training exercises in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, then the only two in existence. The following year witnessed the development of formal provisions for the regular supply of all the armed forces, but conditions remained marginal until the initiation of the Five-Year Plans in 1928.
While the Soviet Navy labored to avert extinction, the rest of the world sought to outlaw war. One instrument directed toward this end was the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. In order to maintain a position of approximate parity with Britain, which had four ships in existence with some form of flight deck, the United States, with only one carrier, the ex-collier Langley, sought and got a clause in the Treaty permitting the completion of two battle cruisers then on the stocks as very large aircraft carriers (commissioned as the Lexington and the Saratoga). The Japanese, who were completing the Hosho (the first operational keel-up carrier), received a similar dispensation for conversion of two large, fast ships into aircraft carriers.
If the harsh realities of the national economy forced Soviet naval officers to limit their efforts to the defense of the coastal zone, no such inhibition affected them as thinkers and strategists. This fact should have become apparent to the world at Rome in 1924. There, at a conference of lesser nations designed to parallel that among the great powers in Washington three years earlier, the Soviet representative demanded a quota of 490,000 tons of combatant shipping. Justification for this high figure was the requirement to defend four widely separated seaboards; and appended to this demand was one to close both the Baltic and Black Seas to nonriparian powers. Later, the Reds reduced the tonnage demand to 280,000 tons, but further required the guaranteed return of all vessels seized by the White Russians and later dispersed to a number of foreign navies, as well as the demilitarization of the Korean Straits. The conference failed, needless to say, largely as a result of the Soviets’ impossible demands.
Just a year later, Soviet Navy Commissar Zof dealt with the dreamers before a home audience at the Naval War College:
You speak of aircraft carriers and of the construction of new types of ships . . . at the same time completely ignoring the economic situation of our country and corresponding conditions of our technical means, completely ignoring the fact that perhaps tomorrow or the day after we will be called on to fight. And with what shall we fight? We will fight with those ships and personnel that we have already.
Zof took his people to task for being impractical, not for espousing an irrelevant weapons system. Indeed, the aircraft carrier was an unproven vehicle during the 1920s. Great Britain, an early leader both in seaplane carriers and flattops, was entering a period of doldrums which would leave it only marginally ready for World War II in this regard. The French, after completing a battleship hull as a carrier, likewise turned their attention elsewhere. Only the United States and Japan pursued the aircraft carrier concept with any diligence. When the Pacific War broke out, the latter, capitalizing on its combat experiences of the 1930s, had the advantage in equipment and experience.
In the Soviet Union, 1928 found Stalin solidly in power and inaugurating the Five-Year Plan economic system that has become a hallmark of Communist regimes everywhere. In the matter of naval construction, ship acquisitions by type and number were carefully timed to capitalize on the development of the requisite industrial base. Thus, in the first Five-Year Plan (1928-32), only a few torpedo boats and coastal submarines were built. In the subsequent Plan (1933-1937), the number of surface ships—now including new destroyers and cruisers—and naval aviation strength—all shore based—increased substantially. The impact of a decade of forced industrial growth was readily evident in the Third Five-Year Plan, which began on 1 April 1937: medium cruisers, destroyer leaders, and large submarines topped the expanded acquisitions by the Soviet Navy.
While the Third Five-Year Plan was forging ahead, with a program that would make the U.S.S.R. the world’s leading submarine power, events occurring in the United States underscored the scope of Soviet naval ambition. Beginning perhaps as early as November 1936, the Soviets made concerted efforts to secure, through co-operative American businessmen and lobbyists, design and material support from the U. S- Government for the construction of two or three battleships. Perhaps concerned over the possibility of causing closer Russo-German relations, the President and Secretary of State looked favorably upon the Soviet request. The U. S. Navy, however, was gravely concerned about the technical revelations such co-operation would involve, and unstintingly opposed the plan. The Soviets were most persistent in pressing their suit—even to the point that, in June 1938, Premier Stalin personally approached the U. S. Ambassador in Moscow on the subject. Although further attempts were made to secure battleship and aircraft carrier plans through the following 12 months, it appears that, after Stalin’s lack of success with personal diplomacy, the Soviets gave up any serious hope of gaining their ends. By early 1939, they evidently had laid down at least one battleship of their own design. The construction of aircraft carriers was expected to take place somewhat later, during 1942-43, when building facilities were supposed to become available.
As Admiral Nikolai G. Kuznetsov, then Navy Commissar, expressed it in his memoirs:
It was decided to build battleships, heavy cruisers, and other classes of surface warships; that is, a big surface navy. A large number of submarines was also to be built. Not excluded either was the construction of aircraft carriers; rather they were only postponed to the last year of the Five-Year Plan. This was explained, I recall, by the complexities of construction of warships of this class and the aircraft designed especially for them.
The naval writers of the late 1930s were quite excited about the exact nature of the accelerated construction going on in the Soviet Union. One report, noted in the May 1938 PROCEEDINGS (p. 767), tells of the launching of the 15,000-ton carrier Stalin, capable of accommodating 22 aircraft. In the August issue of the same year (p. 1216), the PROCEEDINGS noted a press report stating “the second of two aircraft carriers, the Voroshilov, is to be built for the Russian Navy. The first, the Stalin, is nearly finished.” Somewhat later, Jane’s Fighting Ships cited reports of a 700-foot carrier named Krasnoye Znamya (“Red Banner”) having been laid down in Leningrad in 1939. What the Stalin was may never be known; the 1942 Jane’s favored a report that she was a 9,000-ton merchantman converted to be a seaplane tender in the Black Sea. There have been, of course, a number of noncombatant ships named after the late Soviet dictator. The Voroshilov turned out to be a Kirov-class medium cruiser. And the Krasnoye Znamya, if she ever existed at all, was dismantled at an early stage of construction when Leningrad was threatened.
Admiral Kuznetsov, as noted, is positive in his Memoirs that aircraft carriers were a part of the long-term build-up of the Soviet Navy. Another Soviet naval officer believes that at least four were planned for completion by 1948. That the program was not fulfilled can be laid to many causes, but perhaps the main one was Stalin’s recognition of the growing threat posed by Hitler’s Germany. With Germany as an adversary, there would be no requirement for aircraft carriers. This same threat reinforced the already dominant influence of the Red Army leadership in its demands for greater allocations from the budget. Long-range planning again had to give way to immediate demands on limited resources in order to prepare the Motherland to withstand the Wehrmacht onslaught. The one or more battleships then on the ways would be finished, time permitting, as essentially all the resources necessary for their conduction were irretrievably allocated.
A recent Soviet magazine article states: “. . . The treacherous attack of Fascist Germany upon the Soviet made it impossible to carry out completely the planned program of naval construction. . . Still, the truncated program had, in 13 years, added four cruisers, 37 destroyer types, eight river monitors, 18 patrol ships, a minelayer, and 206 submarines to the fleet. Some of the 219 ships on the ways would be completed during the war, but the stillborn units, together with the absence of many recently-purged, experienced leaders, and the early loss of critical bases and sources of supply restricted the Soviet Navy to an inglorious war record.
While the Red Fleet was struggling merely to exist, the catalyst of war was accelerating the development of some weapons and systems, and eliminating others. Among warships, the aircraft carrier became pre-eminent. The ships became larger and faster, as did their aircraft; operations expanded to become around-the-clock and all-weather. By war’s end, carriers of early war construction already were exhibiting deficiencies in terms of new operating requirements. Such advances reduced virtually to zero the Soviet ability to design and produce a modern carrier.
(Up to this point—1946—the view and events of the times are available in published Soviet sources, both as they occurred and as the subjects of historical reporting. The benefit of such perspective is not available for the years since then. In order to derive any conclusions concerning a Soviet interest in aircraft carriers, it is necessary to determine past patterns of thought and activity, illuminate points of similarity or difference, and from this exercise, postulate future direction.)
World War II ended with the Red Army in control of the eastern half of Europe and little to fear in the way of a land threat. At sea, however, a ragtag Soviet Navy was all there was to oppose the mightiest maritime array in history. Clearly, a major Soviet effort would be required. When the Fourth Five-Year Plan was initiated a few months after the war’s end, of all the programs known to have been begun before 1941, only that for the battleship was not resumed. The Soviets apparently recognized in the events of the war the passing of the battleship as a principal type. As for aircraft carriers, continuing Soviet interest is implicit in a statement by Admiral Alafusov, Deputy Chief of the Main Naval Staff, in 1946:
The conditions of modern war at sea demand the mandatory participation in the combat operations of navies of powerful carrier forces, using them for striking devastating blows against the naval forces of the enemy as well as for the contest with his aviation. Both at sea and near one’s bases these tasks can only be carried out by carrier aviation.
Perhaps this interest would have borne fruit in the early postwar years had not the Soviets suffered an unfortunate accident to one of their war prizes—the incomplete German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, which capsized and sank while under tow to the Soviet Union.
Coastal submarines were coming down the ways in 1946. New destroyers and then new cruisers followed as the devastated shipyards were revitalized. In 1948, the Soviets announced that they intended to build up to a total of 1,200 submarines. By 1950, Western observers began to see evidence of the rapidity with which the Russians had incorporated advanced technology taken as war booty from Germany: the “W”-class submarine clearly owed its configuration to the Type XXI—then an advanced design. In the early 1950s, still newer classes of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines began coming down the ways.
The parallel between roughly the 1930s and the first post-World War II decade is unmistakable. In each case, naval building programs proceeded from a few simple designs to a considerable variety of types as the industrial base developed and expanded. And there have been reports that four aircraft carriers were to be built in the 1950s, one for each fleet to start with. If such were the plans, other events intervened.
As the world moved into the mid-1950s, mutual nuclear deterrence and peaceful coexistence became the basic tenets of political life. The Soviets had overcome the American monopoly on nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. In 1954, the commissioning of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) impacted on the then burgeoning Soviet diesel submarine building program. In 1955, according to Admiral Kasatanov, the Soviets launched their first ballistic missile from a submarine, presumably a “Z-V”-class conversion. And, at about this same time, they became convinced of the feasibility of launching cruise missiles from submarines. The effects of these developments on the Soviet Navy were four-fold:
► The submarine building program would have to be reorganized to overcome the deficiency created by the Nautilus; this despite the recent heavy expenditure of resources for conventional submarines.
► The deployment of ballistic missiles would be pressed to match or overmatch U. S. strategic attack forces in a new dimension.
► The rapid deployment of cruise missile submarines as an immediate counter to Western carrier forces, the punch and range capabilities of whose air power steadily was increasing.
► The curtailment of programs not directly supporting the effort to capitalize on or overcome major military technological developments.
The principal products of this redirection were six new classes of submarines, half of them nuclear-powered, appearing between 1958 and 1962. Among the nuclear boats, only the second, lengthened version of the “E”-class cruise missile submarine appears to have satisfied the owners. As for the ballistic missile and attack designs, by the time they reached the Fleet, the SSNs had advanced markedly over the Nautilus’ capabilities and our 16-tube SSBNs with 1,300-mile missiles were beginning their patrols. Despite their best efforts, the Soviet Union had failed to compete successfully with America in these two areas, although their SSGNs were successful in posing a potent threat to the carrier forces. And so it was “back to the drawing boards.”
While these efforts were being put forth, significant events were occurring—Suez, 1956; Lebanon, 1958—which indicated the continuing usefulness of surface naval forces with attendant air power. The lessons were not lost upon the Soviets. Despite Khrushchev’s ringing denunciation of cruisers, the designers sketched the outlines of the “Kynda” class, designating them “rocket cruisers.”
Thus, while the submarine programs were in a state of transition, the surface navy received a variety of new ships from missile patrol boats to the CLGMs. At the same time, yards were expanded and modernized until today they are considered to be among the most capable in the world.
Naval operations, too, underwent marked changes during 1959-1965. In the growing atmosphere of nuclear stalemate, opportunities were seized—tentatively, at first—to gain experience in operations removed from home waters.
The first out-of-area-exercise fleet occurred in 1962 when the Soviets were beginning the exports that would precipitate the Cuban missile crisis in October. The result of that fiasco, outwardly caused by the presence and capabilities of the U. S. Navy, stung Soviet CNO Admiral Gorshkov particularly and led him to take his service to task during Armed Forces Day celebrations the following February. He directed his fleet commanders to get their units to sea for training and to keep them there.
The Soviets entered the Mediterranean in 1964 with both surface ships and submarines, evidently with the intent of establishing an influence in the area as their Tsarist predecessors had done nearly two centuries earlier. The pleasant waters offered an excellent year-around training ground, while the support facilities of the Black Sea Fleet were close at hand.
New ship designs that would increase the Soviet Navy’s distant waters capabilities must have been nearing completion at about this time, for the ships themselves began appearing in 1966 with the commissioning of the first ‘Alligator”-class LST. This was followed some months later by the appearance of the “Kresta-class missile cruiser. A significant event occurred in 1967, when the helicopter ship Moskva was launched—the first Soviet ship designed to have an air group as her “main battery.”
The vertoletonosets, or helicopter ship, as one Soviet official called her, gave the lie to the loud Russian pronouncements of little more than a decade earlier that the day of the big ship was dead—that cruisers were good only for carrying diplomats around.
The Moskva has proved to be the dimensional equal of the world’s cruisers. Indeed, the Soviets subsequently announced she was officially typed an “ASW cruiser.”* Similar to the smaller French Jeanne d’Arc and British Blake, the Moskva carries more helicopters (reportedly 20), a more extensive array of AAW and ASW weapons systems, and a more sophisticated electronics suit than either. From her appearance, it would seem that she is intended to provide the principal ASW protection to whatever force of ships to which she is attached, as well as coordinate and augment air defenses. In addition, the many antenna arrays indicate the communications facilities needed to act as a flagship. Thus, the Moskva represents a great investment of Soviet technical and material resources.
There have been some reports of a third unit in this class being under construction. This remains to be proven. Perhaps more likely will be the building of a follow-on design, incorporating the lessons learned with the Moskvas. At any rate, it would seem almost certain that further developments in the business of taking air power to sea will be forthcoming.
The Soviets have been repeated witnesses to what can be achieved with seaborne air power, in both hot and cold war situations. That they have been impressed is unmistakable—even in the vehemence with which they have predicted the demise of the aircraft carrier. It appears inevitable that the Soviets will take tactical or strike air power to sea themselves in the not-too-distant future. It could be in the form of VTOL or STOL aircraft-several models of which they have revealed to the west—or it could take the more conventional form. The carrier, in appearance, may be a lineal descendant of the Moskva, or it could be of a design closer to the familiar flattop. Its existence, not its configuration, will present us with a new threat dimension.
Students of Soviet naval affairs have noted how the Red theorists rationalized their country’s inability, in the 1920s and early 1930s, to build anything larger than light naval units and small submarines by devising a new strategy “proving” the end of the big ship era. Then, in the middle and late 1930s, they observed the Soviet programs to acquire the very largest types of warships. Again, in the 1950s, the “new” strategy stressing the primacy of the submarine was repeated. The Soviets had more subs than anyone else. Big ships—carriers and cruisers—were castigated as being as dead as the dodo bird. And today, the Soviets have their first type of aircraft to go to sea carried on what they themselves call a cruiser. Indeed, it would seem the vertoletonosets has brought the day of the avianosets—aircraft ships—much closer.
*It has been suggested that use of the term “cruiser” by the Soviets is based upon political considerations. Both the Moskva and the Leningrad are based on the Black Sea, egress from which is controlled by the Montreux Convention. The Convention fails to address the subject of aircraft carriers, but a case barring their transit of the Turkish Straits could be made based upon existing language. The stipulations on cruisers, however, are quite clear and allow passage to “cruisers” like the Moskva.
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Commander Martin has served in cruisers, destroyers, an LST, and with the Third Marine Division. He recently completed a second tour in the Office of Naval Intelligence and currently commands the USS Higbee (DD-806). A frequent contributor to the Comments and Discussion Departments of the PROCEEDINGS, this is Commander Martin’s second article.