The Soviet Navy in 1990: A U.S. View—Still Cautious

A U.S. View—Still Cautious by Rear Admiral Thomas A. Brooks, U.S. Navy

The year 1990 was a remarkable one for the Soviet Navy. In the midst of an­nounced reductions across the spectrum °f Soviet military capability, Soviet Navy capabilities grew.

The overall size of the navy did not grow in terms of personnel and ships. The Soviet Navy suffered personnel re­ductions, but at a lesser percentage than >ts sister services. It sent to scrap a num­ber of obsolescent ships and submarines. On the other hand, the navy saw its ship­building program produce record ton­nages of submarines and significant num­bers of surface ships. The Soviet Navy also received numerous combat aircraft from the Soviet Air Force.

The preferential treatment which the navy enjoyed is exemplified by a state- nient by General of the Army Mikhail A. Moiseyev that, alone among the combat services, no reduction in strength was enumerated for the navy.

A new dimension, of course, was tacti-

Complementing this major develop­ment in Soviet Naval Aviation (SNA) was the transfer of several regiments of land-based fighters/interceptors and large numbers of ground attack aircraft.

The charge is made that the transfer of all these aircraft is merely a circumven­tion of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Agreement and an attempt to pre­serve Soviet air order-of-battle. Perhaps. But that is not important. The fact is that these aircraft have been absorbed into SNA and are performing navy missions. They have been wholly integrated into the navy force structure and have pro­vided robust capabilities in areas where the navy might otherwise have had diffi­culty executing its missions.

A case-in-point is the Baltic. With the elimination by scrapping of large portions of the Soviet surface and submarine fleets in the Baltic and the loss of the use of naval bases in Germany (and soon, Po­land), the Soviets lost much of their capa- adequate to cover all the Baltic, the Fencer will be given a large portion of the sea-denial mission which was previously the responsibility of the Soviet and War­saw Pact ships.

A rather more bizarre and less easily explained addition to the Soviet Navy are the three motorized rifle divisions (MRDs), turned over to the navy in 1990, complete with all the tanks, armored per­sonnel carriers, and artillery that com­prise a front-line motorized rifle division. Allegedly, these are coastal defense units, but they are neither trained nor equipped for that mission. Nor are they amphibious-trained. This transfer appears to be a clear and rather blatant circum­vention of the CFE Agreement. If there is some other explanation or more rational scheme for the employment of these mo­torized rifle divisions by the Soviet Navy, it has yet to become apparent.

From 1988 through 1990, some three dozen submarines and four dozen surface

SOVFOTO (A. KREMKO)

^cal aviation at sea. During 1990, Su-27 ^and MiG-29 fighters worked with the lew carrier Fleet Admiral of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov (Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov, formerly Tbilisi), which became operational in January 1991 and is expected to deploy to foe Northern Fleet by summer 1991.

bility to dominate the Baltic with surface ships and submarines. At the same time, expanded numbers of Tu-22M Backfires would not be coming available and the Su-17 Fitter force was too small and too short-ranged. The Su-24 Fencer provided the perfect solution to the problems. With range and weapons-carrying capability

She’s been a long time coming, having had her keel laid down in 1983, but the Soviet Navy’s first conventional-takeoff-and-landing carrier has joined the fleet. She has been called the Leonid Brezhnev and the Tbilisi; she now is the Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov.

The modified Kashin-class guided- missile destroyer Ognevoy makes her final voyage en route to the scrap­pers in Aliaga, Turkey.

combatants were sent to scrap. Of these, about half arrived at scrapyards during 1990. Most of the vessels scrapped had exceeded their useful lives; some came from reserves where they had not oper­ated in years; and others were in such bad repair that it is a wonder they made it to the scrapyard. In fact, some did not. In the last three years, four Soviet subs and three surface ships have either sunk or grounded en route to scrapping yards.

The loss of these units will by no means be mourned by the Soviets. In almost all respects they had been liabili­ties to the Soviet Navy, not assets. Their combat capabilities were nil, and they required crews (regular or reserve), maintenance, and pier space—all of

which are now saved.

During 1990, the Soviets also disman­tled the first of their nuclear-powered submarines. As was true of the scrapped diesel boats, these first-generation, Hotel, Echo, and November-class sub­marines are more than 30 years old and had reached the ends of their useful lives years ago. In fact, a number of the sub­marines had been inactive for years.

But the first-generation nuclear subma­rines probably will not be alone in the graveyard. In their drive toward stream­lining the submarine force, the Soviet Navy’s leaders will probably soon con­sign the single Papa and most of the Alfas to the same end.

The scrapping of old nuclear subma­rines was slowed not by a requirement to keep the boats in the order-of-battle, but by the unavailability of enough scrapping facilities to accommodate them and the absence of a program to dispose of the reactors and nuclear material. Environ­mental concerns, late to surface in the Soviet Union, precluded following the traditional Soviet disposal method of merely dumping the material at sea.

The scrapping of surface ships is keep­ing pace with the submarine force and, in terms of tonnage, actually exceeds the submarine scrapping program. Again, for the most part, these ships are antiquated and in very poor condition when they ar­rive at the breaking yards, with extensive rust and corrosion reported on some of the older hulls. We are also seeing the beginning of the disposal of some of the more modern classes, such as the Kashin. These ships were introduced in the 1960s and formed the backbone of the modern Soviet surface force for more than two decades. The Moskva-class helicopter­carrying cruisers probably will not be far behind.

Most of the scrapped Sverdlovs, Skoryys, Rigas, Kotlins, and Kildins came out of the inactive reserve fleet, as did most of the Whiskey-class diesel sub­marines. The impact on the active fleet has, to date, been much less than the numbers of units scrapped might suggest. Nonetheless, it is interesting to compare the size of the Soviet naval inventory in 1991 with that of 1988 (see Table 1). The impact has been dramatic!

And there are more than 100 surface ships and more than 150 submarines re­maining in the Soviet inventory which are either ready for the scrapyard now or will be in the next five years. The first of five announced ship breaking yards began operations in 1990. When all become operational, the pace of scrapping can increase.

But this is only part of the story- Viewed in isolation, the scrappings of obsolete hulls can leave the casual ob­server with the wrong impression of a Soviet Navy in rapid decline and perhaps on its way to being irrelevant in the So­viet scheme of things. In fact, quite the opposite is the case.

Shipbuilding: 1990 was another banner year for Soviet naval shipbuilding. No aircraft carriers were launched, so the tonnage total did not equal 1989, but sev­eral other totals did. Ten submarines were launched, exceeding 1989 by one nuclear unit, and making 1990 the largest year for submarine launches since 1982. In terms of tonnage launched, it was the most pro­ductive year in a decade. At the same time the Soviet Navy launched nine major combatants.

It would appear that the Soviet cruiser building program has come to a halt, with the fifth Kirov canceled in 1989 and no follow-on noted for the Slava class. Both cruiser building ways either have been or will be given over to civilian shipbuild­ing. Likewise, only one Victor-III-cIass nuclear-powered attack submarine hull is expected from Admiralty Shipyard before that yard too is turned to civilian produc­tion. Most of the other Soviet warship­building yards appear to be relatively unaffected.

Although a slowed pace of delivery should probably be anticipated ulti­mately, no slowdown is yet apparent. In one of the more remarkable episodes of “free enterprise,” or what might pass for it in the Soviet Union, a “tourist subma­rine” was launched at Severodvinsk last year—reportedly a product of shipyard worker initiative. The submersible is de­signed to carry tourists to tour the ocean’s bottom and includes glass viewing ports and manipulators to pick up souvenirs from the bottom. It comes with a crew of three, including a stewardess to look after the needs of the passengers. The Severodvinsk Shipyard is now trying to market this rather remarkable vessel.

The Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov (ex-Tbilisi) finished her fitting out, sea trials, post-shakedown shipyard availability, and acceptance trials in late 1990 and was commissioned in January 1991. The exact composition of her air wing is unclear at this time, but it will probably include Su-27 Flankers and MiG-29 Fulcrums, the latter being ground attack as well as fighter-capable. A small number of helicopters will also be embarked, and during August 1990, the carrier also operated the Yak-38 Forger vertical takeoff or landing fighter- bomber and a new variant of the Ka-27 Helix helicopter that may be configured to act as an early-warning radar platform.

The total size of the Kuznetsov's air Wing will be varied by mission and oper­ating area. The Soviets have several times announced that Kuznetsov is capa­ble of carrying 60 aircraft, but to do so, they would have to be tightly spotted on the flight deck as well as the hangar deck, something we have not observed the So­viets practicing. Rather, they tend to de­ploy their carriers with an air wing sized to be accommodated entirely in the hangar spaces. Thus, an air wing sized somewhere between two dozen (all hang- ared) and four dozen (mix of hangared and deck-spotted) is likely.

The Kuznetsov’s sister-ship, the Admi­ral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Gorshkov (zx-Riga), launched on 4 December 1988, continues to fit out at the Black Sea shipyard of Nikelayev in the Ukraine.

Construction continues on the Soviets’ first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN), the Ulyanovsk. An unanswered

SOVFOTO (A. KREMKO)

This new variant of the Helix heli­copter on board the Kuznetsov may be an early warning radar platform.

question is how many Ulyanovsk-class CVNs will be built. Work on the Ulyanovsk continues at a pace slightly slower than for the Kuznetsov (Tbilisi) class, which is to be expected for an en­tirely new class, and the nuclear-powered carrier should be ready to launch in late 1991. Whether the Ulyanovsk will be one-of-a-kind or whether she will have a sister ship is a unknown. There is no re­cent precedent for the Soviets building only one example of a capital ship de­sign, but Soviet statements with regard to the future of their carrier-building pro­gram have been ambiguous, with refer­ences to building only those “currently under construction,” leading to the obvi­ous question of precisely what is meant by “under construction.” Inasmuch as long lead-time items for an Ulyanovsk follow-on would have surely been under construction at the time of the statement, should we anticipate one or two CVNs? We should know later this year.

Guided-missile destroyer production in 1990 continued apace, with the launch of the 15th Sovremennyy and the completion of the 13th, Bezboyazneunnyy (Intrepid): at least 22 of these heavily armed, 7,850- ton ships are in the program. The 11th Udaloy-c\ass guided-missile destroyer, Admiral Kharlamov, joined the Northern Fleet roster in September 1990.

During early winter of 1990, the ini­tial Neustrashimyy (Redoubtable)-class guided-missile frigate began sea trials in the Baltic; the 4,000-ton-plus frigate is the production successor to the Krivak-I/ Il-class frigates built at Kaliningrad in the 1970s and 1980s and is equipped with helicopter facilities—a feature not found on her smaller predecessors. Meanwhile, the annual Krivak-III frigate for the KGB’s Maritime Border Guard was launched at Kerch in the Black Sea, and the sixth unit of the class, the Kedrov, followed her sisters to the Pacific in Oc­tober. The Grisha-V-class corvettes con­tinued a construction program begun in the 1960s at a number of yards, with units having gone to both the navy and the KGB. Meanwhile, trials with the world’s largest surface effect ship, the 700-ton, SS-N-22 missile-equipped Dergach-class corvette continued in the Black Sea, and conventional missile and large patrol boat construction continued at at least four shipyards for the Soviet Navy and for export customers like India, Cuba, Iraq, and Yemen.

Soviet Naval Aviation too had a banner year for new aircraft entering the inven­tory. Transfers from the Soviet Air Force continued and now total more than 650, including several types of modem tactical aircraft. Naval versions of the Su-27 Flanker were also added, and the replace­ment of retiring Tu-16 Badgers with modem Tu-22M Backfires continued (at about a two-for-three pace), as did the construction of the redoubtable Tu-95 Bear airframe, with new Tu-142 Bear-Fs joining the inventory at the same time as some of their older Tu-95 cousins were probably being retired.

Developmental work continues on the Yak-41 vertical or short takeoff or land­ing follow-on to the Yak-38 Forger. The A-40 Albatros probably entered state ac­ceptance trials in 1990 and can be ex­pected to enter production in 1991 as a replacement for the aging fleet of Tu-142 Bear, Be-12 Mail, and 11-38 May mari­time patrol aircraft. A side-by-side, two- seat trainer version of the Su-27K naval variant of the Flanker fighter conducted trials with the carrier Kuznetsov, a combat-capable version of the fighter could be in development.

Exercises!Operations: Like 1989, the past year saw no major Soviet Fleet exer­cises, and out-of-area deployments re­mained at a low level. A ship visit to Cuba took place, but it was extremely brief, and no exercise activity was con­ducted with the Cuban Navy. Soviet presence at Cam Ranh Bay continued to decline until late in the year when it showed a slight upward surge. The Soviet presence at Ethiopia’s Dahalek Islands appears to have diminished or ended, and the Soviet Navy appears to have left An­gola in November 1990.

The Soviets have maintained a major combatant and several auxiliaries in the approaches to the Persian Gulf but have taken no part in U.N. coalition embargo operations. Late in the year the Ob’-class hospital ship Irtysh arrived in the area, but the Soviets never declared whether there were medical personnel on board, and, if so, whether the ship would be made available to provide support to Desert Shield/Desert Storm personnel.

Operating Tempo: The overall operat­ing tempo of the Soviet Navy in 1990 essentially was unchanged from 1989. While a computation of tempo based on total operating days divided by the num­ber of ships carried in the Soviet naval order-of-battle would suggest a slight decline in operating tempo, a similar computation using the first-line ships of the active inventory would show no change. Operating tempo rate, down con­siderably over the course of the five years, has probably now leveled off.

Personnel. Personnel issues must weigh very heavily on the minds of So­viet naval senior leaders. The Soviet Navy is by no means exempt from the myriad problems affecting the other ser­vices—draft resistance, ethnic tensions, low morale, etc. But the navy must add to these universal concerns the new-found problem of how to cope with the reduc­tion of required conscript service from three years to two. The strains on the training establishment are immense, but so are the strains on the ships, which are about 75% conscript-manned. Rather than turning over a little more than one- fifth of the crew every six months, the reduction in conscript time will result in turning over more than one-third of the crew every six months. Experiments were announced in 1990 which would pay significantly better salaries to men who would enlist for three years, but it is too early to tell how well the scheme will work for the Soviet Navy, which has until now had only a tiny number of volunteer career enlisted personnel (and which has only a handful of uniformed women, none of them in seagoing billets).

Readiness: The material readiness of the Soviet fleet improved in 1990 as numbers of marginally operational ships were paid-off. At the same time, how­ever, overall readiness can only be esti­mated as declining. The reduced at-sea times, cut-backs in distant deployments, and fewer opportunities to exercise at sea, when coupled with personnel and training problems, can only be inter­preted as having resulted in an overall readiness decline. The Soviets always have considered it more important to be (materially) ready to go to sea than to be at sea. But even within that framework, senior Soviet Navy leaders must recog­nize that overall readiness has declined and will not pick up again until personnel and training problems are solved.

Overall Combat Capability: The Sovi­ets use two measures to judge the combat capability of their naval forces. The first, referred to as the “coefficient-of-combat- capability,” measures the warfighting potential of a ship in terms of the capabil­ity of her weapons, sensors, etc. The sec­ond, known as the “correlation-of- forces,” measures overall fleet capabili­ties against the capabilities of potential adversaries.

To Soviet naval leaders, the coeffi- cient-of-combat-capability must be judged as improved and improving. The ships taken out of the inventory are being replaced by ships with more potent weapon systems and many more of them. The Echo-II SSGNs will not be replaced one-for-one by Oscars, but the overall capability of the Oscar in terms of num­bers of missile tubes, the quality of the weapons, speed and range/area coverage, and reduction of vulnerabilities probably gives the Oscar a coefficient-of-combat-

The Oscar IIs are not replacing the older guided-missile submarines on a one-for-one basis, but new subs’ 24 missiles more than make up the dif­ference in firepower.

capability at least four times that of the Echo-II. Similar gains can be measured in the surface force as Kirovs (with as many as 500 or more surface-to-air mis­siles) replace Kyndas and Kresta-Is, and fully capable aircraft carriers are added to the fleet. The carriers add to the coeffi- cient-of-combat-capability for the avia­tion dimension of Soviet naval power as well, as do the hundreds of seagoing and land-based aircraft recently added to So­viet Naval Aviation. Thus, viewed exclu­sively from the perspective of platform capability, the Soviet Navy’s trade of quantity for quality that Admiral Kapitanets referred to during his squad­ron’s brief visit to Cuba last June is yield­ing a more capable fleet—“leaner but meaner,” if you must.

But this is only one measure. The cor­relation-of-forces compares the Soviet Navy’s gains in platform capability and reductions in numbers against the capa­bilities and numbers of potential adver­saries. Soviet military leaders see a simi­lar reduction in numbers in Western navies but also a similar increase in so­phistication and capability of platforms, sensors, and weapon systems. The coef- ficient-of-combat-capability has im­proved for U.S. and allied units as well. At the moment, the Soviets are probably content that they have at least held their own in the overall correlation-of-forces. Nevertheless, their respect for (indeed fear of) Western technological capability and their lingering distrust of our motives give them great concern that, despite their huge investment in shipbuilding and modernization, the correlation-of-forces could easily turn against them. Thus, the abiding Soviet interest in naval arms con­trol is easily understood. It is the product of an inbome fear for the superior mari­time power of the West, our ability to neutralize their perceived advantages through technology, and their inability to compete—economically, or technologi­cally, or tactically—if we were to decide to embark on a naval buildup. Naval arms control would not only protect the Soviet investment but would buy some degree of confidence that the struggling economy of the Soviet Union will not have to in­vest vast new sums on naval forces just to stay where it is—significantly behind, but slowly narrowing the gap.

Arms Control: With the current state of the Red Fleet as backdrop, it is perhaps easy to understand why naval arms con­trol has emerged again as a major issue. There has been a marked hardening of Soviet positions across the entire spec­trum of arms control and a concomitant lessening of Soviet enthusiasm for the arms control process. Issues thought to be settled are reappearing as problem areas, and naval arms control, never far from Soviet thoughts, has again been raised by the Soviet military, apparently as much to slow down the arms control process as in hopes of achieving any true reductions. The aforementioned transfer of three motorized rifle divisions into the Soviet Navy under a “coastal defense” fig leaf cover is not only an attempt to circum­vent ground force limitations under the CFE Agreement but also to generate some leverage toward naval arms control.

Future Force Levels: Over the decade of the 1990s, the pattern observed in 1990 will persist. The Soviet Navy will continue to shrink in size, as will most major navies. Soviet naval shipbuilding

and aircraft and weapons production will slow as ships and aircraft become more technologically complex and expensive. While no one can accurately predict force levels at the year 2000, trends are appar­ent to suggest a Soviet submarine force with about as many first-line SSNs as are operational today (a number somewhere tn the sixties) but with the entire force being composed of Victor-Ill and newer classes and thus being significantly more capable. The SSGN force will be on the order of half the size it is today, but it will be comprised largely of Oscar-series SSGNs. The diesel-attack submarine force will probably be reduced to less than six dozen boats. The overall capabil- '        ¹⁽y of the smaller Soviet submarine force

will be much improved over the subma­rine force of 1990.

Likewise, the surface fleet will proba­bly be about the same in numbers of niajor combatants but significantly re­duced in terms of total numbers through the retirement of many of the surviving classes of small coastal combatants. Yet this smaller overall surface force will boast as many as eight aircraft carriers (four Kievs, two Kuznetsovs, and at least °ne, perhaps two Ul’yanovsks) and mod­ern, missile-heavy surface combatants.

Soviet Naval Aviation will decline in numbers from their 1990 high as older-

generation aircraft are replaced on a less than one-for-one basis. Their missions will continue to expand as they are called upon not only to operate high-perfor­mance aircraft at sea but also to provide coastal air defense and an increased re­sponsibility for sea denial in the Baltic and other closed coastal waters.

Outlook'. These are difficult times for the entire Soviet military establishment. Yet, the Soviet Navy will not be as se­verely impacted as the other services. The navy will continue to enjoy a healthy shipbuilding program and likely will not face further significant personnel or seri­ous budget reductions. The much- vaunted civilianization of the Soviet Un­ion’s military-industrial capability will probably have little impact on the navy beyond the already-announced conver­sion of Admiralty Shipyard’s submarine building facilities, the cruiser building ways at two other yards, and some minor ship building facilities. In any case, no shipbuilding facilities are being aban­doned, and the yards could be redirected to naval construction. Naval-related re­search and development appears to be fully funded, or nearly so. No really sig­nificant breakthroughs are anticipated in any of those areas. Overall naval order- of-battle will decline, but the actual com­bat capability of the ships comprising the Soviet Navy will increase. The impact of personnel problems on the overall readi­ness of the Beet will depend on the suc­cess of the experiment in voluntary en­listment. If the experiment works and the navy can build a core of career petty offi­cers, this could more than offset the neg­ative impact of the reduction in conscrip­tion length.

The stature of the Soviet Navy in So­viet military doctrine will become more important in an era of constrained re­sources and defensive doctrine. The Red Fleet will continue to be a submarine navy, and submarine building programs probably will be impacted least in any budget reductions. The announced policy of trading quantity for quality will con­tinue, as will Soviet efforts to reach naval arms control agreements. Barring the unforeseen, the shape of the Navy of the year 2000 can be discerned: it will be smaller, but more capable. If personnel and training problems can be overcome, it will improve in terms of readiness. No matter what happens internally in the Soviet Union, the Soviet Navy will be the second largest in the world and will re­main a force with which we must reckon.

Admiral Brooks is Director of Naval Intelligence.

The Soviet View—Changing in 1990

By Captain William H. J. Manthorpe, U.S. Navy (Retired)