The Cold War: A MILITARY History by David Miller

Author:David Miller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: eBook, Cold War
ISBN: 9781448137930
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1999-12-27T08:00:00+00:00

THE SOVIET NAVY

The Soviet navy’s first major post-war building programme included fourteen new Sverdlov-class cruisers, which began to enter service in 1951, causing considerable alarm in Western navies. They were fast, had a long range (9,000 nautical miles at 18 knots), and were well armed, with twelve 152 mm guns, twelve 100 mm anti-aircraft guns and ten torpedo tubes. They were considered to pose a major threat as ‘surface raiders’, following the pattern of German operations by ships such as Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Graf Spee and Scheer during the Second World War; these had caused considerable problems to the British, since they had required a large number of ships and aircraft to track down each of them. In addition to this, the Soviet cruisers were handsome, well-balanced ships and looked powerful – a factor of some significance, since it enabled them to create a major impression during numerous visits to foreign ports in the 1950s and 1960s.

Khrushchev cut back drastically on the surface fleet in his 1956 review, but allowed the navy to build four light cruisers (Kynda class) and twenty destroyers (Kashin class), which started to enter service in 1962. Both types created further alarm in the West. The main armament of the Kynda class comprised two quadruple SS-N-3 missile launchers, giving them a 250 nautical mile anti-ship capability, with one SA-N-1 anti-aircraft-missile launcher, guns and torpedoes for self-defence. The Kashin-class destroyers were the first major warships in any navy to be powered exclusively by gas turbines, and mounted a primary armament of two quadruple SA-N-1 anti-aircraft-missile launchers. Both Kyndas and Kashins also exhibited a Soviet trend that was to increase with time, mounting a plethora of antennas and sensors whose function and capability Western experts could for many years only guess at.

This trend continued throughout the Cold War, with the Soviet navy building a series of powerful, well-armed, well-equipped cruisers and destroyers. The Russians appear, however, to have always been fascinated by sheer size, and the culmination of their naval building programme was the Kirov class, three of which were commissioned between 1980 and 1988 (a fourth was completed in 1996). With a full-load displacement of 28,000 tonnes, these were the largest surface warships to be built for any navy during the Cold War and were intended to serve as flagships for surface-warfare groups, which would consist of missile-armed cruisers. The Kirovs mounted a heavy armament, consisting of a mix of anti-surface, anti-air and anti-submarine missiles, together with guns, torpedoes and three helicopters. Apart from their size and armament, however, one of their most impressive feature was the power plant, which consisted of two nuclear reactors plus oil-fired steam boost. Again, the superstructure of these ships was covered with antennas and sensors.

The Soviet navy also built three Slava-class cruisers,fn3 which, with a displacement of 12,500 tonnes, were among the largest surface ships of the Cold war. They were armed with sixteen SS-N-12 missiles mounted in four pairs on either side of the forward superstructure, making them look very menacing.

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