Alfa and Soviet underwater Bastian Strategy Cold War

The “688” class boats and Royal Navy subs did so on a regular basis. This was the main reason behind the Shkval invention! The “688’s” several times sneaked up on a Soviet SSBM, within 5,000 meters and pinged the boomer. Then add insult to injury the “688” would escape without being detected.

Even the Russian improved Akula managed to Tail & Track the US boomer in mid 95 in its bastion territory , Which proves that inspite of all the bugging of Ocean Floor , Either side could sneak in to each others territory and track their boomers.

As for the SOSUS being hype remember this, during the Cuban Missile crisis the Soviet Navy sent four SSK’s to Cuba. Three of the subs were forced to the surface.

I think you are talking foxtrot here , Even then the foxtrot managed to play hide and seek game with all the US ASW assets trying to track Soviet subs in the region , There is a book to the same effect which says similar thing. which said that they would manage to hide from Multiple P-3’s and surface ASW unit.

It also explained why Soviet subs could sneak up on a carrier and in a crisis they couldn’t find a carrier!

It happened once or twice not a matter of routine, Even during NATO exercise the Oscar managed to tail the Kitty hawk without she knowing about it.

There is so many know instances of Russian/Soviet coming so close , I am equally sure that there would be many unknown incident , The West Bragged about it and so it was known and hyped the Soviets didnt .

RE: Alfa and Soviet underwater Bastian Strategy Cold War

I have a theory the Americans and British couldn’t prosecute Alfa with torpedoes during its active service life of roughly 1979-1989/1990

Actually, it could be. The Alfa threat was trumped in the US Navy, Congress and, mass media the same way the need for the F-22 is being advertised now.
The Alfa could go very fast, it could also go very deep around 3,000 feet (900 meters) underwater but, it could not do them both at the same time. The Mk.-48 and the Tigerfish torpedos could do the job provided the Alfa was not at the limits of the kill zone to start with.

The Soviet SOSUS was not as sensative as its American counter-parts. Sometime reducing the RPM on the generators by ten percent was enough for the US subs to penetrate the barrier without being detected.
The US Navy did a lot of testing to find the limits of the Soviet underwater sound barrier. This was important for where the barrier and the Alfa were built the main threat came from America’s SSBM’s. If an American SSBM could be detected and an Alfa sent into the area to search for it, that would be the best way to counter this threat.

Mk 48 Adcap though approved in 89 for production may not have been as good as claimed.

There is nothing to back up “that claim” other than wishing! The US Navy is quite content with the ADCAP Mk-48 and there has been no major improvements planned since then. One thing about American weapon systems, you will find the faults when the military or manufacturer claims a need for an upgrade.

could not work under ice in mid 90s

The ADCAP could. The problem with the previous models of Mk-48’s was when the ice was thick and the distance between the ice and the floor of the ocean was less than two hundred feet then the ice stalagtites (SP?) would be a major problem.

I think Alfas wartime role in bastions was not as “interceptor” but as survivable Soviet underwater awacs.

The Alfa indeed was an underwater interceptor. After a NATO sub was detected by the Soviet type SOSUS, an Alfa would be sent out as quickly as possible to intercept the NATO sub. The hope was to detect a Polaris sub. The high speed was needed to get to the general vacinity quickly. The Alfa had a very noisey reactor. The last Soviet sub to be made without silencing as a primary aspect of the design.
The last thing any sub needs to do is to run around pinging all over the place. If the Alfa is in the bastion pinging away, many convergence zones away the pings can be heard. Alerting any sub in the region where the Alfa is.
If the Alfa is deep than the “enemy” sub would approach above the isothermal layer and, avoid detection.

Soviet tactic in cold war was to have 1 sub actively illuminating whilst other silent russian subs used these pings to detect

The problem was the first sub to ping was a target. Where as the NATO subs were far quieter than their Soviet counter-parts and the NATO sonars were far more effective than the Soviet sonars, pinging gives away your position. The last thing any SSBM needs is something around that attrack attention.

tactical speed would be higher than any other sub because it could be at full speed and still “see” if active.

You are talking about the dash speed. When the Alfa gets over ten knots the boundary layer over the hull shielded the sonars from external sound and makes the subs blind. The Alfa had to sprint and drift.
That is what makes the Seawolf and Virginia Class subs unique, they can hunt at twenty knots. The problems of seeing through the boundary wave have to great extent been solved.

the bastion being the white sea , and a super strong ASW patrol at the mouth I dont see how USN subs could ever penetrate there and make it out alive.

The “688” class boats and Royal Navy subs did so on a regular basis. This was the main reason behind the Shkval invention! The “688’s” several times sneaked up on a Soviet SSBM, within 5,000 meters and pinged the boomer. Then add insult to injury the “688” would escape without being detected.
Up to the mid-1980’s the US/UK sonars had a detection advantage in range of about 3:1 over the Soviet SSN’s! Add to that the NATO subs were significantly quieter than the Soviet SSN’s.

As for the SOSUS being hype remember this, during the Cuban Missile crisis the Soviet Navy sent four SSK’s to Cuba. Three of the subs were forced to the surface.
The Soviet command structure always felt in a NATO/WP conflict, after securing the bastions they would flood the Atlantic Basin with numerous subs. The walker family gave them information that showed in a conflict, the WP could lose twenty subs in the first four hours. It also explained why Soviet subs could sneak up on a carrier and in a crisis they couldn’t find a carrier!
A Soviet admiral once said, when he wants to know where his SSBM’s are all he has to do is to follow the Norwegian P-3 Orions! This became a real joke for the US Navy.

Adrian

Nor has the Sub evolution remained static since WW2, If the ASW capability evolved so did the subs . As I have siad before SOSUS were good and effective in certain areas mostly the Choke Point the so called GreenLand Iceland Gap , It is just impossible to bug the entire Ocean Floor as it is made out to be.

SOSUS certainly acquired Larger than Life Figure. It certainly looked strong on paper.

If the SOSUS were so good and Western ASW were that effective , How is that many a times the USN was suprised by the presence of Soviet/Russian Sub tracking their Ships in friendly water one never knows how many went undetected.

By what SOSUS is made out to be , They should have known where each Soviet/Russian subs were isnt it , The odds are one can easily bypass the SOSUS network if the Soviet had wished too

As you say SOSUS arrays cover chokepoints.Its a trip wire system. It can only detect subs in its vicinity. If the contact is not prosecuted promptly then it will be lost as the contact moves away. Unless you can actually sink the contacts or have enough resources to localise and shadow everyone then of course there is ample opportunity to some subs to slip out into the open ocean to turn up unannounced where they aren’t wanted.

During periods of low tensions the forces available to prosecute the contacts generated by SOSUS is reduced. If tensions increased NATO would reinforce the line with more MPAs, surface ASW groups and SSN/SSKs and seek to track or sink the contacts quickly depending on the actual state of hostilities.

Daniel

First, submariners are as famous storytellers as fishermen :p
Second, no doubt You have heard of multiple facts of sub collisions during Col War era. What makes You think that sub captains will not use dangerous manouvering if they had to in order to trail an enemy sub?
Who told You that Alpha’s Okean sonar suit was crappy? It was quite powerful and accurate in active mode and that was the mode to be most often by Alphas.
Regarding the agility of Alphas I have only the word of Russian captains, it’s Your choice whether You believe them or not :dev2: According to them Alpha was more agile than LA. I don’t know at what speed LA had the turn rate You cited but Alpha was able to make a U turn in 42 seconds at full speed and it was able to go at full power in one minute after full stop.

Snake, at what range are you assuming the Alfa will be commencing its interception run? Indications are that the Alfa’s were noisy enough to be detected out out to at least one or two CZ’s. The subs powerful active set has no use at these ranges, in fact it only serve to further broadcast the boats position. Unless the Alfa is within a few nm’s to start with then its likely in a world of hurt.

Similarly maneuverability is immaterial at these ranges. Try working out just how fast the boat would need to move to stay in the baffles of an opponent at ranges of multiple nm’s.

Lastly the argy-bargy of Cold War sub maneuvering has little bearing on actual hot war engagements. Ramming went out of fashion many,many years ago as a method for sinking an opponent.

Daniel

You are talking about a time where ASW was hardly incorporated, some depth charges, yes, a rudimentary thing called ASDIC and early Sonar, yes, but no (well except from some pioneer starter) helicopters with dipping sonar, ASROC rockets, torpedoes with huge range and own seeker and so on.

Nor has the Sub evolution remained static since WW2, If the ASW capability evolved so did the subs . As I have siad before SOSUS were good and effective in certain areas mostly the Choke Point the so called GreenLand Iceland Gap , It is just impossible to bug the entire Ocean Floor as it is made out to be.

SOSUS certainly acquired Larger than Life Figure. It certainly looked strong on paper.

If the SOSUS were so good and Western ASW were that effective , How is that many a times the USN was suprised by the presence of Soviet/Russian Sub tracking their Ships in friendly water one never knows how many went undetected.

By what SOSUS is made out to be , They should have known where each Soviet/Russian subs were isnt it , The odds are one can easily bypass the SOSUS network if the Soviet had wished too

The Soviets had indeed that SOSUS for protection of their bases, but if it were so stupid and easily bypassed, why would they ever take the effort to make one?

The Soviet Listening Device were more of defensive in Nature which is to protect its Bastion Territory from Intruders ( or atleast warn them ) and to have a safe haven for its SSBN to operate , and again there were very small and limited in Nature.

The Soviet certainly were not naive to believe that they cant bug the whole Ocean floor .

I would indeed expect the same, indeed the mentioned sonars do not provide 360° coverage, but they do have some overlay in arcs, which enhances your capability. Then comes the Alpha idea, do you have any clue how an Alpha captain would ever know where the blind arc of his opponent is??? The only way to do that is really knowing the heading of your opponent, something practically very difficult. You need your sonar for that, a tracking, but when an Alpha wants to track, he’ll have to slow down, have his sonar find the opponent at a decent range, with his crappy sonar, that is less likely than the opponent tracking him, then he would have to accellerate very rapidly, move to that proposed blind arc and then move closer? I don’t know how much experience you have with ships, but it’s quite unlikely that they could be capable of that without coming in dangerous collision courses. And that all without being heard?!
So basically they would need the luck of being behind an American sub that is sailing at high speed. It can happen once, but it won’t happen that much.
Alpha and agile? Haha, no sub is really agile, their rudders are in front of their propellor, an inherent cause for not being agile. The LA was the first sub capable of turning 180° within 4 times its own length.(as reference, even the most bulky merchant ship has to be capable of that, be it a 400m tanker or a 300m container vessel, surface warships can turn sometimes within their own length)
So being Agile for an Alpha, I doubt it and if so, it would still have to bring him quite close.

First, submariners are as famous storytellers as fishermen :p
Second, no doubt You have heard of multiple facts of sub collisions during Col War era. What makes You think that sub captains will not use dangerous manouvering if they had to in order to trail an enemy sub?
Who told You that Alpha’s Okean sonar suit was crappy? It was quite powerful and accurate in active mode and that was the mode to be most often by Alphas.
Regarding the agility of Alphas I have only the word of Russian captains, it’s Your choice whether You believe them or not :dev2: According to them Alpha was more agile than LA. I don’t know at what speed LA had the turn rate You cited but Alpha was able to make a U turn in 42 seconds at full speed and it was able to go at full power in one minute after full stop.

I would indeed expect the same, indeed the mentioned sonars do not provide 360° coverage, but they do have some overlay in arcs, which enhances your capability. Then comes the Alpha idea, do you have any clue how an Alpha captain would ever know where the blind arc of his opponent is??? The only way to do that is really knowing the heading of your opponent, something practically very difficult. You need your sonar for that, a tracking, but when an Alpha wants to track, he’ll have to slow down, have his sonar find the opponent at a decent range, with his crappy sonar, that is less likely than the opponent tracking him, then he would have to accellerate very rapidly, move to that proposed blind arc and then move closer? I don’t know how much experience you have with ships, but it’s quite unlikely that they could be capable of that without coming in dangerous collision courses. And that all without being heard?!
So basically they would need the luck of being behind an American sub that is sailing at high speed. It can happen once, but it won’t happen that much.
Alpha and agile? Haha, no sub is really agile, their rudders are in front of their propellor, an inherent cause for not being agile. The LA was the first sub capable of turning 180° within 4 times its own length.(as reference, even the most bulky merchant ship has to be capable of that, be it a 400m tanker or a 300m container vessel, surface warships can turn sometimes within their own length)
So being Agile for an Alpha, I doubt it and if so, it would still have to bring him quite close.

From what I have heard, when the Alfa boats put their foot down, they could be detected from over a thousand nautical miles. Basically, the Russians pursued speed at the expense of silencing, where the Americans went for silence over speed – both have advantages and disadvantages. As for keeping an Alfa in the baffles of an American sub for long, I would suspect this to be a somewhat tall tale…

Having a spherical bow sonar doesn’t mean that You have a 360 (or close to it) spatial coverage. The towed array also has nothing to do with ability to look over your shoulder. That’s the reason for having flanked arrays 😀 it compensates some of the blind ark on the sides, but still there’s blind zone even for the most advanced subs. Alpha captains claim it to be so agile and quick that it was able to get into the blind arch of enemy sub before torps were fired. Russian sources claim that one of Alphas is known for having tailed an Amer sub for 22 hours. The Amer captain was not able to shake her off until Alpha was recalled. I guess this was early eighties.

Yes the ’70s, and who was the most likely opponent back then? Indeed USN, and which boats did USN have? The Sturgeon class, with bow mounted sperical arrays, towed arrays and lots of other equipement. Their Sonar was practically aimed at any direction. As you said, Lira was “on paper” a deadly combination with Skhval, take in account that Shkval has a rather short range and the fact that Lira is not that quiet as you mentioned yourself and what does that mean? Yes indeed, on paper, like many things, that’s what it means…

Exact maximum submerged speed for Projekt 661 Anchar (NATO designation Papa) was 44.7 knots. The damage was superficial and was repaired quickly, as nobody expected her to be so quick, her expected speed was around 38 knots.
Come on Neptune, You have a nice bearing and fire solution only if Your sonar is facing the right way, remember it’s 1970’s we are talking about. Lira was meant to be “interceptor” like MiG-25, using Alfa together with Shkval was rather deadly combination, at least on paper. What the Soviet Union did not manage to do was to create underwater early warning system like SOSUS, the ones they had were limited just for approaches to their bases. Thus Liras lost their advantages as they were not meant to creep silently and acquire the target on their own but rather to rely on receiving bearings from other sources and then home in on the target before it can react.

Papa could make as many as 45, I think that is the official number for the World Record nowadays. On the other hand she did lose and damage some of her top gear at that speed, which is not healthy.
8kts is still to fast to be silent, Alpha was at no speed really silent, that’s something you create when you have three props.

Even a U-Boat of WW2 was used for intelligence gathering purpose , And you are telling me that Alphas are not good at it .

You are talking about a time where ASW was hardly incorporated, some depth charges, yes, a rudimentary thing called ASDIC and early Sonar, yes, but no (well except from some pioneer starter) helicopters with dipping sonar, ASROC rockets, torpedoes with huge range and own seeker and so on. A WWII boat was the beginning of the submarine age, when lots of forces underestimated the threat (much like they underestimated the threat from aircraft to battleships). Now that’s a different case, Alpha would be up against the best ASW networks in the world. With a lot of goodies to find it.
The Soviets had indeed that SOSUS for protection of their bases, but if it were so stupid and easily bypassed, why would they ever take the effort to make one? Once again read that book, they indeed tried to use Merchant ships as noise blockers, but that didn’t help much.
As for getting through it nowadays, that’s logical SOSUS isn’t used for submarine searching anymore, they use it for Whale research, with much different operators on the controls.

Snake, I don’t see your point, if that Alpha is dashing at you, it is practically deaf, for you it’s excellent, very good reception, very good bearing and a nice sound for your torpedo to home into. What do you want more as a sub skipper? You don’t think the Alpha will cross the atlantic by dashing for 5 minutes, then stopping, waiting to slow down, cause be sure, at 45kts, you need a LONG time to get down to a reasonable speed… And then speed up again, slow down again. I don’t think so.

As far as I know the Alpha wasn’t the fastest Soviet Sub.
Reports I have read credit Alpha with a speed of 42 knots… still fast enough to evade interception for the time period described, but not as fast as the Papa class at over 43 knots.

Gathering intelligence should be done silently, if you run away then at 45kts and are heard over 100miles away,

You are assuming that as soon as the Alfa leaves the port it does a 45kts , Its an option with Alphas to sprint at higher speed , It doesnt mean she cant do 8knts.

Neither were Alpha’s electronics advanced enough to be any good in that role. Add to it that her diving depth is about the most hyped thing on the net.

Even a U-Boat of WW2 was used for intelligence gathering purpose , And you are telling me that Alphas are not good at it .

Their Titanium alloy would allow her to dive deeper than 600m , But again as I said its an option she can choose to exercise depending on the situation and threat , Its not that she she will travel that deep every time she does a cross atlantic voyage.

As for SOSUS, it was actually “underhyped”, you’ll really have to read that book I sent you, you get an idea on how good it was. Why do you think Russia so badly wanted their own SOSUS? because such things can’t hear a silent sub? Quite useless against US then!

The Soviets had employed this underwater microphone in its own bastion territory to protect its own SSBN and to take care of uninvited guest, The Soviets had no empire to take care off to bug the whole ocean floor.

As I told you I had spoken with some one who was in a very good position to know about SOSUS, and as I mentioned it was effective in certain areas , If the need be the Soviet could easily bypassed the SOSUS in war time , As many sudden apperance of sub trailing the US fleet will show you that they could bypass it

The tactics for Alpha’s was “dash, stop and listen”. It’s pretty long hope to hit a sub at standstill with a torp which has been fired away quite a long time ago, because Alpha will hear it coming.

Gathering intelligence should be done silently, if you run away then at 45kts and are heard over 100miles away, then your mission was quite useless as they know you were there and might have an idea of what was going on. Neither were Alpha’s electronics advanced enough to be any good in that role. Add to it that her diving depth is about the most hyped thing on the net. The design flaws were obvious, the reactors were crap, the demands were a super small, fast and low crewed-boat, they achieved the target, but made some very bad compromises. The reactors as mentioned were crap and appeared to be not shielded enough, so they added some bulkheads to the design. This created a problem as their submarine was already finished when those flaws were discovered/thought about. The result, they made those bulkheads concave, bent, around the forward and aft compartment. This creates a much reduced diving depth as normally thought as transverse bulkheads are the most important strength members in any ship design. By bending them, you lose much of your strength and run the risk of getting the collapsed. And yes they sometimes dove as deep as mentioned, but only sometimes, more regularily they operated at only 400m, which is a depth well within the reach of most ASW weapons.

As for SOSUS, it was actually “underhyped”, you’ll really have to read that book I sent you, you get an idea on how good it was. Why do you think Russia so badly wanted their own SOSUS? because such things can’t hear a silent sub? Quite useless against US then!

I feel the US Hydrophone or SOSUS were just highly hyped , There were many instances where the Oscar,Victor & Akulas have passed it and suprised the NATO/US commanders by their presence at unexpected place.

Soviet were well aware of the SOSUS network , and it mostly of a Scare Mongering thing by US rather then a realy effective system . Not to say it was useless , But its usefullness was limited in Nature and effective only at certain places.

The Alphas usefullness what that its diving depth and its faster speed , In that it could reach a crises place much quicker and Gather Intelligence and pass it on .
And if need be leave the area as quickly as possible.

No body is looking at a scenerio where the super fast Alpha would be taking on a Super Silent western sub , Dosnt make sense.

Alphas were rubbish, the NATO chiefs were scared of it, but they were probably the only ones. The US skippers were quite sure they’d win the battle as they could hear the Alphas coming from over 100miles to even several hundred miles, the torpedos could be fired well in advance, meeting the Alpha instead of chasing it.
They were failed, the ones that were to defend the Bastions were the Akula and Victors. The silent ones, much more dangerous when you don’t hear and know where your opponent is, with an alpha that was a different case.

And sometimes they indeed tried to hide a more silent submarine behind a noisy one, but then the speed of Alpha would have been useless and its survivability chance probably near zero. Add to it that it would basically deny the silent Russian sub to make out where the US one would be too, as its hydrophones would be deafened by the Alpha’s noise too.

the bastion being the white sea , and a super strong ASW patrol at the mouth I dont see how USN subs could ever penetrate there and make it out alive.

the DeltaIV and Taifuns could just laze around below the ice floes there and unleash their fury if need be ?

I suspect you are right giving all the reactor problems…