World navies comparative frigate strengths from 1939 to 1958.
| Year | USN | RN | Fr | Ne | USSR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 | 43 | 46 | 5 | |||
| 1941 | 22 | |||||
| 1945 | 482 | 598 | 35 | 6 | 48 | |
| 1948 | 13 | |||||
| 1950 | 11 | |||||
| 1951 | 36 | 44 | 16 | |||
| 1952 | 89 | |||||
| 1954 | 33 | |||||
| 1955 | 60 | |||||
| 1957 | 71 | 26 | 61 | |||
| 1952 | 18 |
Source: Friedman, Norman. The Postwar Naval Revolution. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986.
World navies comparative destroyer (DD) strengths from 1939 to 1958.
| Year | USN | RN | Fr | Ne | USSR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 | 127 | 100 | 57 | 8 | |
| 1941 | 42 | ||||
| 1945 | 372 | 108 | 15 | 5 | 45 |
| 1948 | 135 | ||||
| 1950 | 109 | ||||
| 1951 | 28 | 11 | 5 | ||
| 1952 | 211 | ||||
| 1954 | 26 | ||||
| 1955 | 140 | ||||
| 1957 | 212 | 19 | 19 | ||
| 1952 | 12 |
Source: Friedman, Norman. The Postwar Naval Revolution. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986.
Given the furor over Vladimir Putin’s irredentist claims to Crimea, Novorossiya, Narva, et al, there has been a great deal of rumbling about “a return to the Cold War” and a great deal of inflammatory language by Western politicians (Obama, McCain) who should know better. This represents an abject failure of diplomacy and a complete misunderstanding of how to deal with the Russian bear. Perhaps a view from 1976 will clear up the matter. We simply have to substitute the world “Soviet” for “Russian.”
The Meanings of ‘Peaceful Coexistence’
IT IS SAID, correctly, that the Soviet perception of “peaceful coexistence” is not the same as ours, that Soviet policies aim at the furthering of Soviet objectives. In a world of nuclear weapons capable of destroying mankind, in a century which has seen resort to brutal force on an unprecedented scale and intensity, in an age of ideology which turns the domestic policies of nations into issues of international contention, the problem of peace takes on a profound moral and practical difficulty. But the issue, surely, is not whether peace and stability serve Soviet purposes, but whether they also serve our own. Constructive actions in Soviet policy are desirable whatever the Soviet motives. [From an address by the U. S. Secretary of State].
HENRY A. KISSINGER
Source: Kissinger, Henry A. “The Meanings of ‘Peaceful Coexistence.'” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 35, no. 1 (January 1976): 8. Accessed
March 21, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3485130.
An interesting radio documentary from the BBC regarding Britain’s development of the Chevaline programme and the decision to keep Denis Healey out of the loop.
The Bomb, the Chancellor and Britain’s Nuclear Secrets
BBC Radio 4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zdj01
30-minutesPolaris A3TK Chevaline PAC and re-entry vehicle.
In the first edition of a new series, Mike investigates documents which suggest that Labour Chancellor Denis Healey was kept in the dark over plans to modernise Polaris, Britain’s nuclear weapons system in the mid-1970s.
Dubbed Chevaline, the upgrade programme was top secret and highly controversial, that would eventually cost hundreds of millions of pounds more than originally estimated. And all this at a time of economic hardship. Striving to keep his split party together on the highly sensitive issue of nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Harold Wilson restricted decision-making to a small circle of ministers.
But Thomson discovers papers which suggest that officials may have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that Chevaline was kept on track, proposing to withold key information from a sceptical Chancellor on the “need to know” basis. Was national security the real reason or were other motives at play?
Mike puts the claims to former Cabinet Ministers Tony Benn and Lord Owen, formerly David Owen, Foreign Secretary in the late 70s.
Producer: Laurence Grissell
Good grief. Healey, Benn and Owen. Those are names from the 1970s/80s for any Brit to conjure with.
Denis Healey interviewed for the programme.
Tony Benn interviewed for the programme.
David Owen interviewed for the programme.
On this day in history…
On 27 October 1981, the Soviet Whiskey-class submarine S-363 (a.k.a. U 137) struck an underwater rock in Swedish territorial waters, 2km (1.07 nautical miles) from the Swedish naval base at Karlskrona.
Soviet submarine S-363 (U 137).
The boat was stuck on the rocks for 10-days during a tense standoff that saw the Soviet Navy dispatch a flotilla of destroyers and frigates to the Swedish coast, and the Swedish armed forces scrambling aircraft, patrol boats and coastal artillery.
Soviet submarine S-363 (U 137).
The S-363 was finally hauled off the rocks on 5 November and towed out to international waters where it was returned to the Soviets.
Commemorative plaque at the location of the S-363 grounding in Sweden.
70-years ago today…
Großadmiral Karl Dönitz has 95 U-boats at sea. The Battle of the Atlantic was not over.
In the South Atlantic:
U-170, a Type IXC U-boat, KptLt Günther Pfeffer commanding, on its 2nd war patrol, torpedoed and sunk the unescorted Brazilian steam merchant Campos (4,663 GRT) 5-miles south of Alcatrazes Island, Brazil. The crew of 57 and 6 passengers took to the ship’s lifeboats, tragically two of which were struck by the ship’s screw, throwing the occupants to the water. 10 crew members and 2 passengers were lost.
SS Campos.
In the Black Sea:
U-23, a Type IIB U-boat, KptLt Rolf-Birger Wahlen commanding, on its 12th war patrol, torpedoed and sunk the Soviet motor merchant Tanais (372 GRT) anchored at Poti, Georgian SSR. The U-Boat was operating in the Black Sea with the 30th U-Boat Flotilla… having been transported overland to Konstanza, Rumania in 1942.
Type IIB coastal U-boat.
Setting a wartime record:
U-196, a Type IXD U-boat, KKpt Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat commanding, returned to Bordeaux, France… thus completing the longest patrol by any submarine during the Second World War: 256-days from 13 March to 23 October 1943.
KKpt Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat.
Attacked in the Atlantic:
U-190, a Type IXC U-boat, KptLt Max Wintermeyer commanding, on her 3rd war patrol, was surfaced ahead of convoy GUS-18 when attacked by the US Navy Gleaves-class destroyer USS Turner (DD-648). The Turner attacked the surfaced U-boat with her Mk 12 5-inch/38-caliber guns. When the U-190 submerged, the Turner attacked with depth charges… shock waves from which disabled the destroyer’s radar and sound gear. By the time Turner was able to resume her search, U-190 had escaped.
USS Turner (DD-648).
Royal Navy suffers double disaster during Operation Tunnel:
During Operation Tunnel, HMS Charybdis, a Dido-class cruiser commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1941, Captain George Arthur Wallis Voelcker, RN commanding, was sunk off north coast of Brittany, France in position 48º59’N, 03º39’W by 2 torpedoes from the German Elbing-class torpedo boats T-23 and T-27 (not MTBs, but torpedo-armed destroyers). 464 men died (including the commanding officer) and 107 survived.
HMS Charybdis.
During the same action, HMS Limbourne (L57), a Hunt-class escort destroyer, Cdr Walter John Phipps, RN commanding, was heavily damaged by German torpedo boats T-22 and T-24. Damaged beyond repair, Limbourne was sunk by gunfire from HMS Rocket (H92) and HMS Talybont (L18).
HMS Limbourne.
Love, love, love those Oberon-class boats. First submarine I ever set foot on was HMS Opossum as a small awestruck lad. Loved them ever since. This troy about the RAN’s O boats is an absolute corker.
Cold War exploits of Australia’s secret submarines
The Oberon-class submarine HMAS Onslow at the Singapore Naval Base 1974. Picture: The Australian National Maritime Museum Source: Supplied
ON February 20, 1986, six senior naval officers came to the cabinet room in Canberra to brief prime minister Bob Hawke on Australia’s secret Cold War submarine operations in Asia.
Defence minister Kim Beazley had invited them to explain to Hawke what the navy’s ageing Oberon-class submarines were capable of, and what they’d achieved on dangerous, clandestine missions to Vietnam and China. Beazley wanted to lock in Hawke’s support for the costly and contentious plan to build six Collins-class subs in Australia.
The large and genial defence minister understood the strategic value of submarines as offensive and defensive weapons. When Hawke arrived, he looked like thunder and his crabbed body language signalled he wanted to be anywhere but hearing a presentation from the navy.
That was soon to change. Commander Kim Pitt began explaining he had been on patrol in HMAS Orion in the South China Sea from September 17 until November 9 the previous year; the focus of that patrol was Cam Ranh Bay on the east coast of Vietnam, then the largest Soviet naval base outside the USSR.
Pitt began a video that grabbed Hawke’s attention and immediately transformed his mood. The PM appeared transfixed as he watched dramatic and brilliantly clear footage taken by HMAS Orion as it slipped in behind and beneath a surfaced Soviet Charlie-class nuclear submarine heading into the Vietnamese port.
The video began with distant pictures of the Soviet submarine motoring towards the harbour, well outside the 12-nautical mile (22.2km) Vietnamese territorial limit. The video was shot through a camera in Orion’s periscope as the submarine loitered, barely submerged in the choppy sea.
Then Pitt took the Orion deep, ran in close behind the Soviet boat, and came up to periscope depth again. Now the video showed the Soviet submarine’s wake boiling and bubbling on the surface. Hawke watched, startled, as a clear image of the turning propeller appeared on the screen just above and ahead of Orion.
Pitt ran beneath the Soviet submarine, filming sonar and other fittings mounted along its hull. The remarkably clear pictures exposed the underwater secrets of Charlie-class technology. The only other way to get them would be for a western spy to penetrate dry-docks in the Soviet Union.
Pitt positioned Orion ahead of and beneath the Soviet submarine, slowed almost to a stop, and then allowed the Soviet boat to pass him while he filmed the other side of its hull.
Hawke grasped intuitively that this video intelligence would add immensely to Australia’s prestige in the US. It could be used to Australia’s advantage in negotiations with Washington and gave Australia a seat at the top table in the global Cold War intelligence collection game. For 45 minutes, Hawke asked questions about how the patrols were organised; their duration, their frequency, their success. He was told how the submarines recorded radio transmissions to deliver vital intelligence to the Western effort to track and identify the Soviet fleet.
The officers put up a photograph of a Soviet Kirov-class nuclear-powered cruiser, much admired by Western navies. US spy satellites had picked up the cruiser leaving its base in Murmansk and tracked it around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean.
The RAN sent the guided missile frigate HMAS Canberra to intercept the cruiser off Sri Lanka and follow it through the Strait of Malacca and up towards Cam Ranh Bay. The frigate took vital photographs and monitored the cruiser’s communications until it approached Vietnam.
Pitt, in HMAS Orion, was waiting, submerged outside Cam Ranh Bay with the submarine’s communications masts deployed to record the cruiser’s arrival. He recorded its procedures and protocols, which deepened Western understanding of Soviet naval communications and command and control systems, meaning the West might be able to jam them in the event of hostilities.
The cautious admiral Mike Hudson, chief of the naval staff, dismayed the submariners by telling Hawke that while the operation was professional and produced good intelligence, it was very hazardous. A submarine might be detected and possibly captured, with serious international consequences. “As we do more and more patrols, the likelihood of this happening will increase,” Hudson said.
Hawke rounded on him. “No, you are wrong,” he replied. “I’ve got a degree in statistics and I can tell you that the probability of detection does not increase as the number of patrols increase. They are discrete, one-off events and the probability of detection is constant.”
Beazley was delighted with the meeting. Hawke’s support for new submarines was locked in. The submarine officers were also triumphant. They had put together a show that had convinced Hawke, converting him from curmudgeon to champion.
They did not tell Hawke that Pitt had also video-taped a submerged conventional Soviet submarine going into Cam Ranh Bay. It was brilliant submarine seamanship, but some of his colleagues regarded it as dangerous and unnecessary and Pitt as “a bit of a pirate”. He later became director of submarine warfare.
The mystery boat operations were shrouded in secrecy as the submarines collected intelligence on the Soviet nuclear submarine and surface fleets and reinforced the US-Australia alliance. They also won Australian submariners their spurs in the Cold War’s global espionage game, as they showed uncommon bravery, dash and initiative on about 20 patrols between 1977 and 1992.
Their success ensured the Collins-class submarines were built and secured the future of Australia’s submarine service.
But the last patrol in the series proved a dangerous failure, with HMAS Orion at grave risk of detection and capture.
On October 22, 1992, she left Sydney Harbour and headed for Shanghai to gather intelligence on the Chinese navy, especially its new submarines. Orion’s CO was commander Rick Shalders, who later commanded Australia’s Collins-class submarine fleet.
The Americans wanted better intelligence on the Chinese navy, but US nuclear submarines were too big to be sent into the shallow waters of the East China Sea. Australia’s smaller O-boats were ideal for the task.
Shanghai was China’s biggest mainland harbour at the wide mouth of the Yangtse river; the water was shallow and murky, and busy with non-military shipping, including the local fishing fleet and ferries. The shoreline was heavily urbanised.
It would not be easy to stay unseen and undetected while barely submerged and trying to collect intelligence, and the consequences of detection could be grave for the submarine’s crew and for Australia-China relations.
Shalders’s trip to the area of operations was uneventful and the submariners were looking forward to getting their work done and getting back to the relatively safety of the open sea. Orion was equipped with the best photographic and electronic intelligence collection equipment; civilian language specialists were on board to translate Chinese navy transmissions.
But the patrol proved a nightmare, with the harbour crowded with fishing boats, many trailing long fishing lines and nets.
Shalders had to raise his periscope periodically to check the intelligence-collection aerials.
The fishermen constantly watched for signs of fish and could not miss minor disturbances made by Orion’s equipment and by the presence of the submarine not far below the surface.
They followed Orion around the harbour. Shalders could not surface and could not risk moving quickly away from the danger.
Things started to get desperate when Orion fouled the fishing lines and nets. One fishing boat started to sink by its bow as its net became entangled with the submarine. The fisherman saved himself by cutting away the net from the boat with an axe.
By now Shalders knew he was facing possible disaster. It was only a matter of time before the Peoples’ Liberation Navy became aware something was seriously amiss and investigated what was going on in the shallow water. Shalders and his crew faced the real prospect of detection, surrender, capture, imprisonment, trial and possible execution as spies. Relations between Australia and China would be in tatters. Shalders decided he had no choice but to abandon the operation.
Summoning all his skills, he took the submarine out of the harbour and into the relative safety of the East China Sea. The Australians returned home with nothing to show for their hair-raising experience.
The then chief of the naval staff, admiral Ian McDougall, a former submarine commander, told defence minister Robert Ray the O-boats were reaching the limits of their service lives and the patrols should be stopped because of the growing danger.
The submarine service was incandescent. It saw the patrols as invaluable for its reputation at home and abroad, and for continuing access to funding. The submariners wanted to preserve the skills they had developed.
The Defence Intelligence Organisation argued that despite the Soviet collapse there was an acute need to collect intelligence on the military activities of other countries, especially China, India and Indonesia, and that submarines were the most effective means. But Ray accepted McDougall’s advice and ordered an end to the patrols.
A senior submariner, commander John Dikkenberg, met Hawke’s successor as PM, Paul Keating, to argue for reinstatement of the patrols. Keating listened carefully, but would not over-rule his defence minister.
Four years later, when Ian McLachlan was appointed John Howard’s first defence minister, he asked to be briefed on the cancelled patrols. The navy urged their resumption and was given the OK for a carefully controlled and limited mission off Indonesia to re-establish intelligence-collecting skills.
Bronwyn Bishop, then minister for defence science and technology, also accepted that skills were being lost and gave her blessing to resumed patrols. Six more patrols were undertaken, mainly monitoring Indonesian military communications around Indonesia and East Timor. The Howard government wanted more information on Indonesian military activities in Timor, where Fretilin guerillas were still fighting for independence.
The new Abbott government is considering whether to acquire a fleet of 12 new submarines, which would represent Australia’s largest defence project. If it does, the proud Cold War history of the O-boats will have helped persuade decision-makers that submarines, despite their daunting cost, can be very good value indeed for taxpayers’ dollars.
The Smetlivy is a Kashin-class destroyer commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1969. Laid up for modernization in 1990, the Smetlivy returned to service with the post-breakup Russian Navy in 1995. At 44-years of age, the Smetlivy is the last Kashin-class destroyer in Soviet… sorry… Russian service.
Russia Sends 1 More Warship to Mediterranean Sea Fleet – Official
Russian destroyer Smetlivy.
MOSCOW, September 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will send another warship to the Mediterranean Sea next week, a high-ranking Russian Navy official told RIA Novosti Friday.
The Kashin-class guided missile destroyer Smetlivy from the Black Sea Fleet is due to leave the port of Sevastopol on September 12-14, the official said, adding that it is to join the Mediterranean task force “on a rotational basis.”
A group of warships, including the large amphibious landing ships Novocherkassk and Minsk, as well as the electronic intelligence ship Priazovye joined the Mediterranean fleet earlier on Friday, he said.
He also said the Slava class guided missile cruiser Moskva will reach the Mediterranean Sea, where it will take over from the Admiral Panteleyev destroyer, on September 17, and on September 29 the missile boat Ivanovets and the guided missile ship Sthil will reach an area off the Syrian coast.
Russia has strengthened its naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea for a possible evacuation of Russian nationals from Syria, Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov said Thursday.
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said earlier on Thursday that the country’s increased presence in the Mediterranean is “a legitimate, natural and predictable reaction to the situation developing” in the region. However, he stressed that Russia’s naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea does should not be interpreted as an indication that the country plans to take an active role in any regional conflict.
70-years ago today…
Allied losses:
Soviet minesweeper T-904 (557 GRT) struck a mine laid by U-625 (Kptlt. Hans Benker commanding) in the Yugorsky Strait.
Allied successes:
USS Pompon (Lt.Cdr. E.C. Hawk commanding) torpedoed and sunk the Japanese cargo ship Thames Maru (5871 GRT) and torpedoed and damaged the Japanese troop transport Kinsen Maru (3081 GRT) north of the Admiralty Islands.
HMS Safari (Lt. R.B. Lakin, DSO, DSC, RN commanding) sunk the Italian minesweeper FR70/La Coubre (120 GRT) with torpedoes and gunfire west of Elba.
HMS Unrivalled (Lt. H.B. Turner, DSC, RN commanding) sunk the Italian tug Iseo (80 GRT) with gunfire 1-mile south of Cape Vaticano.
Near misses:
Soviet Malyutka class submarine M-112 fired 2 torpedoes at a German barge off Yalta. Both torpedoes missed their target.
HMS Tally-Ho (Lt.Cdr. L.W.A. Bennington, DSO, DSC, RN commanding) sighted two unidentified U-boats in the Atlantic (one at position 45°50’N, 05°17’W, the other at 45°54’N, 05°18’W)
Operation Gomorrah begins:
The saturation bombing of the German port city of Hamburg began on 24 July 1943 and lasted for 8-days and 7-nights. The Royal Air Force conducted night raids while the USAAF carried out daylight raids. During the raids, firestorms occurred, creating an 1,500 °F (800 °C) inferno with 150mph (240 kmph) winds. Over 42,000 German civilians were killed during the raids.
Entering the fray:
HMS Tantivy (Cdr. Michael Gordon Rimington, DSO, RN commanding) was commissioned into the Royal Navy.
HM S/M Tantivy (Navy Photos/Mark Teadham)
Naval Matters 