Cold War Anti-Submarine Warfare

432 pages

Dan Conley

This book contains a wealth of detail of Allied ASW systems, organisation and tactics during the era of the Cold War. Furthermore, two annexes set out comprehensive details of USN, RN and Soviet sonar systems and ASW weapons. Also, there are an extensive number of pages of notes setting out the author’s information sources.  However, it is not a book which can easily be read in succeeding pages, rather one to be referred to in researching specific information.

The early chapters of the book concentrate upon the ASW legacy of WW2 and the immediate two decades post war. Clearly the Soviet diesel submarine capable of bursts of speed of more than 14 knots was considered a potent threat which could not be adequately countered by conventional un-guided weapons fired from an escort’s launcher. Hence the development of ASW homing torpedoes and nuclear depth bombs. The author somewhat labours these technical challenges by describing in great detail the features of the different USN and RN ASW weapon and sonar systems of the immediate post-war era.

The book began to engender my personal interest in describing the early 1950s Project Hartwell studies which among other recommendations, strongly advocated the development of the SOSUS system. Once established, this system soon demonstrated remarkable results, reflected in extremely long-range tracking of Soviet submarines, particularly the nuclear versions, sometimes well over 1,000 miles. I personally recall in 1974 when serving in Swiftsure undertaking trials to assess the capability of the new SOSUS array established to the west of the UK and operated from Brawdy, Wales.

Friedman goes onto describe the results of SSN versus SSN exercises of the early 1960s which firmly established the SSN’s primacy as an ASW asset, albeit the results he quoted need to be treated with a degree of caution. Indeed, several of Friedman’s source references I noted are of dubious accuracy. That said, I found his description of early Soviet nuclear submarine plants, which incorporated turbo-electric drive at low speeds, of great interest. However, did these typically suffer primary to secondary leaks in their steam generators after only 600 hours of operation?  His assertion that titanium was used in the pressure-hull construction of several submarines to save weight and not to increase maximum operating depth, was a revelation to myself.

The author describes the evolution of the Hunter Killer Group (HUK) consisting of an ASW carrier and escorts deployed in support of the carrier strike force. He describes the results of the Uptide series of evaluations in the Pacific in the late 1960s where various deception plans were tested, employing an opposition of noise-augmented SSNs, to assess the best tactics to avoid detection and subsequent attack. These were set in context of the assessed capability of the Soviet Ocean Surveillance System. The results were of mixed success against Sturgeon-class SSN opposition. With the demise of the HUK in the 1970s, Friedman goes onto describe how Direct SSN support under the control of the Battle Group OTC evolved only to be replaced by the concept of Associated Support where the SSN assigned to support the Battle Group remained under the control of the shore-based Submarine Operating Authority. By the early 1980s and the advent of Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman’s Maritime Strategy, both these concepts had fallen out of favour, not least because of communications difficulties and the possibility of blue-on-blue engagement. Meanwhile the fitting of towed arrays to the West’s submarines and ASW escorts had enabled very long-range detections on Soviet first and second  generation submarines.

The author extensively discusses the probable Soviet submarine force strategy during the 1980s, with the perceived priority of protecting the homeland and its SSBN force, and the secondary objective of attacking the Atlantic Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs). The West had already demonstrated the capability of trailing SSBNs for prolonged periods with the potential to destroy them on the outbreak of hostilities. Friedman then follows with discussion of the Maritime Strategy and its cornerstone of on the outbreak of hostilities attacking and destroying the Soviet Navy in its littoral, with the West’s SSNs deployed in the vanguard.

Finally in the closing main content of the book, Friedman sets out considerable analysis of ASW actions in the Falklands War. The RN expended much ASW effort – submarine, air and escort – and ordnance in seeking to detect and destroy the one operational, modern Argentinian submarine, San Luis, thus demonstrating the difficulties of neutralising an enemy diesel submarine operating in a poor sonar environment. On the other hand, the torpedoes fired by San Luis against Task Force vessels all missed, allegedly because of a fire-control defect.

In summary, Friedman is to be complimented by the amount of extensive research and detail contained in this book.  However, over half of the core content of the book is devoted to the WW2 ASW legacy and the immediate post war era until the early 1950s. There are, therefore, inevitable disappointing voids in the author’s narration of ASW during the closing phases of the Cold War, such as the challenges of conducting ASW under the ice. The author also makes scant reference to the highly significant benefits of submarine intelligence gathering operations, including gaining Soviet submarine acoustic signature information and capturing vessel characteristics and sonar system detail by means of the underwater look. Additionally, there are few references to the synergy of operational analysis and tactical development.