The First Salvo

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They talk about it. They train for it. They design their forces for it. And with ships like the guided-missile Slava-class cruiser, the Soviets seem to have the capabil­ity to launch a decisive preemptive strike. If it’s true that, as the wrestling coach tells his athletes, “For every hold, there’s a counter,” how do we counter their first salvo?

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The speed, range, and lethality of modern naval weapons, either nuclear or conventional, are so high that decisive damage can be inflicted within minutes of a decision to go to war. The Soviets talk about the battle for the first salvo, they design their forces around it, they practice it, and they seem to have every capability to launch a decisive preemptive strike. Conse­quently, the West envisions a surprise Soviet attack of submarine, surface, and air-launched cruise missiles fired simultaneously against all major NATO naval assets. In this view, U. S. carrier battle groups (CVBGs) are per­ceived as particularly vulnerable.

The majority of U. S. general-purpose seaborne combat power is concentrated in the carrier and the CVBG. Since long lifetimes remain in these platforms, this situation will continue for at least the next 20 years. Maintaining su­premacy at sea requires developing a naval strategy recog­nizing this reality.

Currently, a strategic answer to the battle for the first salvo is seemingly lacking. An effective strategy involves both countering enemy strengths and taking advantage of his weaknesses, all directed towards an ultimate objective. Points of leverage must be identified and exploited.

Soviet Strategy: The Soviet Navy operates under a uni­fied strategic concept directed on the national level.

“Soviet military strategy is the same for all force com­ponents, and its principles are the general ones for the conduct of war as a whole and for the conduct of strate­gic operations in consideration of concrete circum­stances in various theaters of military operations. . . . Although each operation has its own characteristic scope, the general goal of each strategic operation will be one of the partial military-political goals of the war. ’ ’¹

Although smooth in pronouncement, in practice, this strategy could prove difficult for the Soviet Navy. The overall war effort will be directed by the Soviet Army. In the past, officers of rival services have not seen an inde­pendent role for the Soviet Navy. Rather, they have con­sidered its primary functions to be supporting the ground forces by guarding the seaward flanks of the army, launch­ing friendly amphibious assaults, and defeating enemy amphibious assaults. Admiral Sergei G. Gorshkov has complained in his writings that other elements of the So­viet defense establishment have interfered in the opera­tions of the navy. Such interference probably would not cease during a war or the period leading up to war.²

The character of this interference would likely be to dilute or constrain naval first strikes. This is true for sev­eral reasons:

► The strategy of preemption is a land as well as a sea strategy. Since the land theater is assumed to be the deci­sive arena, the timing and character of the initial assault will be tailored to army requirements. The requirements for effective naval preemptive strikes will have a low pri­ority compared to army demands for strategic surprise. Conceivably, naval general-purpose units may not be al­lowed to surge from naval bases or to take obvious strike

positions. Any action varying from normal patterns migb‘ be stopped by the army leaders for fear of tipping thd^r hand. Certainly, a coordinated preemptive assault by th^e army and navy would not be designed to optimize naval requirements. Thus, massed attacks by Soviet Naval Avia^­tion may be eliminated from consideration because of l°ⁿf flight times, the probability that NATO would detect their launch, and (in some cases) the need to overfly NATO territory.

• Soviet naval strategy has been formulated largely under concepts imposed by army theoreticians. Compared to “the fleet against the shore,” the “fleet against fleet” *^s ! considered an inferior role. The navy operates under a conceptual framework of fronts and theaters. The entire concept of nuclear defense of the homeland, the “Bln®

Belt of Defense,” probably consists of concentric g^e°' graphic zones of defense measured in increasing distances from Moscow and defended by a combined arms ap' proach.¹ Given army strategic guidance, the extent of th® battle for the first salvo might extend only to those zones- Deployment of significant forces outside these zones to launch preemptive attacks against the CVBGs might be suppressed as “fleet against fleet adventurism.”

• Soviet writings indicate that they believe that all nuclear submarines, not just nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub' ^ marines (SSBNs), need protection. Gorshkov’s conceit

for the vulnerability of his submarines to Western antisub­marine warfare (ASW) forces has been reflected in hi* ’ criticism of the German failure during World War II ^t0 support their submarine operations with surface ships and aircraft. Soviet concepts of mass have always taken th® form of large numbers of weapon platforms participating in an attack with allowances for considerable losses.⁵ Th® prospect of a large force of submarines isolated from th® support of land-based air, with their surface support vuT 'v nerable to preemptive Western attack, and in a location remote from Soviet lines of defense, is a violation of S°'            *

viet doctrine and a departure from the national priorities of homeland defense. It must certainly place a geograph'® limit on the distance from the homeland that an army strat­egist might consider committing a naval force in hopes of a preemptive attack on a CVBG.

• A tendency for geographic limitation could also be rein­forced by the nature of the strategy of Soviet general-pn^ pose naval forces. The strategy is defensive; the forces a®® not intended to be decisive in themselves. Rather, they at® intended to preserve a decisive force (nuclear strike force⁵ in SSBN bastions) and to prevent Western naval unit⁵ from conducting decisive actions against the homeland- This basic defensive orientation resting on geographic the­aters and defensive zones may limit out-of-zone activity-

This is not to say that forces will be strictly contained within geographic limitations. The large number of pint' forms available to the Soviets will allow at least a fracti⁰¹¹ to be deployed on a worldwide basis. These forces would operate against naval and commercial vessels as an econ­omy of force measure to disrupt allied plans and to pin®® the allies in a defensive, reactionary mode of behavior-

Forces will undoubtedly be assigned to trail or intercept all major allied naval groupings prior to hostilities. Thi⁵

°uld be difficult for conventionally powered units be- ^Use °f low endurance and poor underway replenishment apabilities. Lack of repair stores, limited repair facilities, ⁿ few trained repair technicians on board Soviet units l|^mu ^ir endurance. A U. S. CVBG can exploit this 'ted endurance by moving rapidly in areas remote from t₀°^{Vlet su}PP^ort facilities, making it difficult for the Soviets maintain sufficient mass for a successful preemptive

attack.

However, even a small force investment by the Soviets if “ yield benefits out of proportion to the forces at risk _Set °^r '^nstance, the engagement was nuclear from the out­; °r if the effects of surprise were considerable. But the ^lnt *s that as the scene moves away from those defensive ^eas that the Soviets consider vital, the magnitude of the ^reat against the CVBG will be significantly reduced.

_ar ^0Vlet Doctrine: Most of the concepts of Soviet doctrine I ^{e eit}her taken directly from Karl von Clausewitz’s writ- or indirectly from the Clausewitzian principles, L_e- . ^Were absorbed as integral parts of Marxism- ⁿ*nism. One reflection is in the concept of a “center of ^av'ty “The hub of all power and movement on which ^erything depends. . . . The point against which all en-

Until about ten years ago, the U. S. fleet composition considerably simplified the problem of identifying the center of gravity. The SSBN and the CVBG were the only forces with a capability to directly threaten the homeland. Most of Soviet naval development was, in one context or another, designed to directly counter these forces.

However, force developments on both sides have com­plicated this process and made the identification of a cen­ter of gravity more difficult. Introduction of a Soviet sea- based intercontinental missile with a range long enough to reach its targets from Soviet home waters encouraged es­tablishment of SSBN bastions. The requirement of strate­gic attack and, by implication, the requirement to defend these bastions are usually first on any list of Soviet naval missions.

If the allies attacked these bastions, the Soviet problem would be immensely complicated conceptually. The char-

NAVAL FORCES

Menacing as they look, if the “Oscar,” above, and the new “Sierra,” facing page, cruise missile-firing attack subma­rines stay near home to defend the Soviets’ SSBN bastions, they can’t be assigned to the first salvo mission against U. S. carrier battle groups.

acteristics of an ASW campaign (long tracking times, many and dispersed forces) do not lend themselves to identification and attack of an easily discernible center of gravity. The resulting battle would be an extended cam­paign of attrition.

In such a situation, the Soviet propensity toward mass­ing of forces and large combat margins would drive them to retain a predominant portion of their naval forces to maintain a combat margin to counter the greatest potential allied threat to the bastions. Because allied submarines could use under-ice approaches to gain access to the bas­tion areas (or, alternately, because the bastions themselves are under the ice), the Soviets will be forced to retain a large portion of their nuclear attack submarine (SSN) as­sets to protect the bastions. In such a campaign of attri­tion, the lack of a discernible center of gravity vulnerable to preemptive attack, coupled with the strategic defensive tasking of the general-purpose units to protect the bas­tions, will tend to inhibit dispatching forces outside the normal defensive zones.

A similar effect has occurred within the U. S. Navy because of the proliferation of antiship and land-attack cruise missiles throughout the U. S. fleet. In particular, submarine-launched Tomahawk gives every U. S. subma­rine a credible capability for nuclear strike against the Soviet homeland. The Soviets must now consider every U. S. submarine a potential strategic threat. Under-ice approaches would outflank the long Soviet coastline and air ASW forces. Soviet mission structure and doctrine would require the Soviets to retain sufficient SSNs to de­fend their northern coastline. Again, the net effect of the proliferation of capability spreads the center of gravity away from the CVBG, which in turn reinforces a tendency for the Soviets to retain forces to react to and intercept allied attempts to penetrate their critical defensive zones.

Soviet Command and Control: There is a story about 8 Soviet destroyer in the Black Sea that had a serious fire ^0,1 board. The commanding officer requested permissi°¹' from higher authority to flood his magazines. Whatever the answer, it evidently came too late, because the ship burned and sank.

This story illustrates a truth about the Soviet Navy: de­cision making resides at the top. Operational control i^s exercised by a command post ashore, which receive^s tracking reports and vectors forces toward the known or estimated enemy positions. In a D-Day shoot-out, control would probably be extended to the exact timing of the attack and the weapons to be used.⁷

Evidently, problems have developed with this system- Recent articles in Morskoy Sbornik suggest . . . th^a' Soviet naval leadership has recognized that task foN^e commanders and individual ship commanding officer* (COs) require a great deal of autonomy to operate effe^c" tively far from the Soviet coast.”⁸ The Soviets seem to be implementing this as policy, if the extensive command and control facilities on the Kirov cruiser and some modi­fied Golf -class submarines are any evidence.

However, fixing their equipment to reflect this poliey may be only half the Soviets’ problem. Captain Willi®¹¹’ Manthorpe, Jr., U. S. Navy (Retired), observed about the Soviet officer ”... constant interference by his senior^s’ possibility of open criticism by his subordinates, and scru­tiny by the Party tends to stifle any tendencies toward innovation, initiative or decisiveness by the commandiufl officer.”⁹

This institutionalized personnel weakness will not dis­appear by pronouncement. Moving the central comma¹¹® post to seagoing platforms may result in an even greater tendency to rely on schoolbook solutions, which may prove very fragile in practice. The Soviet system would seem to be susceptible to deception, overload in rapidl) changing situations, data deception and discrimination dif­ficulties, and the problems of matching inappropriate solu­tions to tactical situations. Certainly, a commanding off’' cer reluctant to flood his magazines to save his ship mighj be reluctant to launch an irretrievable cruise missile uflb all the blanks in the form are filled and blessings have been received from higher authority.

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^•nch their own attack. Generally, the idea that Free °rld forces would launch a preemptive attack has been ^.Jected as politically impossible. However, during a pe­nd of extended tensions, there will be a fine line between _r° dies and the right of self-defense. The question will _r ^v°'^ve around the rules of engagement (ROEs)—the di- ^chves that a government may establish to delineate the ^fC|J instances and limitations under which naval forces „¹ initiate and/or continue combat engagements with ^enemy forces.

h A common misperception is that when under peacetime , „Es, a force must take the first hit: It cannot act in self-

^lfces before the Soviets were positioned and ready to

def,

Execution of the Strike: Soviet doctrine dictates that any . ^e mission must be carried out rapidly and with suffi- ^lent mass. Bombers normally would strike first, followed y cruise missile-armed submarines.¹⁰ However, as men- °ned earlier, the time required to position aircraft and ^eir jack of covertness may rule against their immediate ?^e- “[T]he need to be able to strike instantaneously ^aces a premium on deployed forces, particularly the mis- ^{1 e SL|}bmarines, and it seems likely that shore-based air- ^raft such as ‘Backfire’ will only have a followup role.”¹¹ rhe problems of using only submarines or surface ships ^^re difficult:

y Ihese platforms are subject to preemption.

Command and control are more difficult. The commu­tations may be revealing and exploitable. _to ^Surface tattletales must clear the target before the attack avoid diverting attacking missiles, which will act as tcursors in the strike.

t may not be possible to collect and maintain sufficient : ^ass required for a successful attack if the target is mov- ⁿ§ at high speed.

_c Another possibility in the execution of the strike is punter-preemption. NATO forces could preempt Soviet ^ense until the opposing force has missiles away.

That is not the law and is not required by our general Peacetime ROE. The right of self-defense may also involve the use of armed force against a threat of immi­^nent attack. . . . Hostile intent is the threat of the immi­^nent use of force. Evidence of hostile intent may lead to the force being declared hostile. Whether or not a force is declared hostile, where the hostile intent amounts to a threat of imminent attack, the right exists to use pro­portional force in self-defense by all authorized means available.”¹²

The threat of counter-preemption is thus a real concern to be considered by Soviet decision makers. This threat will also inhibit the Soviets in deploying forces out of the usual zones of defense for the purpose of preemptory at­tacks against the CVBG.

The large strike capacity demonstrated in Okean-70 and -75 may not be representative of actual capabilities. In Okean-70, a very stylized, preplanned scenario was used.¹³ Each of these Okean exercises was conducted dur­ing the period when the Soviets were formulating a new five-year plan, and thus the exercises combined the ele­ments of a demonstration, an appeal for additional fund­ing, and a propaganda show.

Practical considerations indicate that things would not perform as well in actual combat:

“Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war. . . . Countless minor incidents—the kind you can never really foresee— combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls far short of the intended goal.”¹⁴

Summary of Conditions: The preemptive strike against NATO battle groups is known to be a powerful tactic where an inferior force could conceivably defeat a supe­rior force. In particular, it inhibits the stationing of forces in areas where the preempting force can muster a large enough attack potential.

However, there are definable weaknesses in the tactic which can be exploited:

• The central control can be jammed.
• The communications of the units can be exploited.
• Attacking platform’s endurance will be strained.
• Attacking platforms are susceptible to preemption.
• Attacking platforms are susceptible to geographic over­extension.

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^<Ht‘fdings / February 1985