The United States decided to leave the aircraft carrier Nimitz in the Middle East - and directly linked this decision to some " threats from Iran." With a high probability, in the same group with the "Nimitz" is the submarine "Georgia", a couple of weeks earlier entered the Strait of Hormuz. The lessons Washington wants to teach Iran also matter to Russia - and here's why.
The US Navy's Ohio-class nuclear submarine Georgia entered the Strait of Hormuz - that is, a point in direct proximity to the coast of Iran - on December 21, 2020. With a high probability, together with the" Nimitz " it is still somewhere nearby. It is one of three Ohio-class submarines that have been redesigned as Tomahawk cruise missile carriers and combat swimmers. The Ohio is not the newest boat, but it is very low-noise. And the most important thing in relation to these three carriers of "Tomahawks" is the strength of their impact.
Each of these boats carries 154 cruise missiles. That's a lot. For comparison, today all surface ships of the Russian Navy have a total salvo of 160 Kalibr cruise missiles. If we add to this the submarine forces based on the full load of the Severodvinsk PLA with the same missiles, it will be 210. In other words, the salvo of one "Ohio" can be considered almost the same as that of our entire fleet, or rather, all our fleets combined.
The fact that we are talking about a submarine is also important because it-unlike an aircraft carrier-can be brought to the area of combat use covertly. None of the potential U.S. adversaries have significant anti-submarine forces. Using stealth, such a boat can approach at close range, under the very shore of the enemy. Remaining undetected, it is capable of firing a salvo sufficient to demolish a large naval base with ships located in it or a couple of rather large air bases. And this is with missiles in non-nuclear equipment. And if ever again there will be nuclear?
And the short distance from which this salvo can be executed will reduce to almost zero the time that the attacked side has to organize the defense. The course of the missiles can be laid out to bypass the air defense zones, the boat itself is mobile and can attack from an area not controlled by coastal radar stations, and its missiles will not be noticed by anyone until the very moment of hitting the targets. It is these capabilities that the United States is now demonstrating to Iran.
Lessons for Russia
What does the appearance of the Georgia submarine in the Persian Gulf teach us?
First, the untraceable carrier of a large number of cruise missiles is a powerful factor in any balance of power. A salvo of such a boat is possible at any time when it is off the coast of the enemy, and this salvo for the Iranians would be absolutely sudden.
Russia also has underwater cruise missile carriers. The full salvo of the Russian submarine "Severodvinsk" is more than three times inferior to the salvo of "Georgia", but it is still very powerful. But will the Russian submarine be able to stay off the American coast as stealthily as the American one - off the coast of Iran? This is a big question. So far, our boats can't operate as freely as the Georgia, and nowhere else. The possibility of detaching our attack boats from tracking by the enemy is not provided. Moreover, in their ammunition there are no anti-torpedoes provided for by the design, nor modern means of countering enemy torpedoes. But there is no guarantee that Severodvinsk will not have to bring down its missile salvo on some enemy in the very near future.
The second important point is that it is time for the Russian Navy to think about keeping enemy boats away from our shores. Or at least control their movements. This is not a simple task, but it is still solvable.
Today, the Americans are quite capable of deploying such missile carriers on our shores. Even worse, they are able to covertly bring other "Ohio" – with ballistic missiles-to the attack. When hitting a "flat" (low) trajectory, the approach time of these missiles will be less than the reaction time of our aerospace defense forces and the Strategic Missile Forces. We do not have any possibility to repel such volleys and are not expected, and the new American W76-2 combat units provide sufficient accuracy to compensate for possible deviations of missiles from the course. The growing inadequacy of American politicians forces us to consider such scenarios seriously.
The only way to deal with such a threat is to track the missile carrier and have forces and means ready to destroy it if an appropriate order is received. An American walk on the Persian Gulf should serve as a good reminder of all these things.
Another important "bell" is the combat swimmers on the American submarine. The Americans have a long and successful history of listening to our communication lines laid on the seabed. And the installation of equipment for this "wiretapping" was carried out by combat swimmers. "Georgia" may well carry them, and there is no guarantee that in the Persian Gulf they did not perform some task that remained in the shadows against the background of demonstrating to Iran the presence of an aircraft carrier and such a submarine near its coast. And again – the only really working way to avoid problems with all sorts of "seals" is to track their carrier.
Ultimately, the voyage of the "Georgia" to the shores of Iran requires paying attention to the anti-submarine, mine and anti-sabotage forces of the Russian Navy. Moreover, we have before our eyes a "mirror example" of how our submarines threatened the territory of the United States, and the American anti-submarine forces spent decades to neutralize this threat.
An underwater confrontation of the Cold war
The Soviet Union had created a major strength of the missile troops is only the beginning of 1970-ies. Before that, at first, our country had a very small number of R-16 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and until 1963, the USSR did not have the ability to strike an ICBM at the United States. All that the missile forces had for this task was five "starts" for the R-7 rocket, which had to be prepared for launch for at least two hours. They would not have survived the first US strike.
The USSR had just under two hundred strategic bombers capable of reaching the United States, dropping a nuclear bomb, and returning. But without a devastating missile strike that collapsed the enemy communications and destroyed most of the air defense forces, machines, Tupolev and Myasishchev were very limited, and chances to return home from sorties low. But the main thing was that the bombers first had to survive a nuclear attack by the enemy, who basically knew their locations.
What was the basis of nuclear deterrence until the early seventies? Submarines armed with ballistic missiles. First, diesel-electric submarines of Project 629 with three ballistic missiles each went to the shores of the United States. The short range of the D-1 and D-2 missiles forced the boats to approach a few hundred kilometers to the American shores and carry out duty there. Even the expression was "walk under America", under the very shore. Since 1964, they were joined by the first nuclear – powered missile submarines of Project 658. These boats also initially carried short-range D-2 missiles.
And the boats fulfilled their task, providing a guaranteed possibility of a retaliatory strike against the United States even after a hypothetical missed first strike against the USSR.
Even after the Strategic Missile Forces gained strength, Soviet missile-carrying boats continued to go on patrol in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, being at a range from which their missiles could reach the territory of a likely enemy.
The Americans have invested in anti-submarine defense simply unthinkable means and decades of time, having achieved very serious success. But let's ask ourselves – if they didn't have to spend time and money on an incredible scale of defense in the ocean, what would they spend it on then? Would we like this "something"?
Underwater challenge
Today, on the one hand, we face the same problem that then faced the United States-enemy submarines can threaten us right off our shores. Unfortunately, neither anti-submarine aircraft are produced in Russia (there are a ridiculous number of Soviet-made Il-38 and Tu-142M), nor helicopters (Mi-14 and Ka-27PL are not mass-produced). The number of new ships capable of performing anti-submarine defense tasks is small.
On the other hand, everything will be difficult for us in the offensive as well. New submarines such as " Ash " and "Ash-M" are not hunters of enemy submarines, they are carriers of cruise missiles, which themselves need cover from a stealthy and fast torpedo boat-killer, but we also do not build such. And anti-submarine forces that can protect the boat until it is lost in the world's oceans are also needed for offensive operations. In fact, having missile carriers capable of delivering a powerful blow to any enemy ("Severodvinsk" and soon " Yaseni-M") we do not have the capacity to ensure their actions. In turn, we also have nothing to prevent the enemy's submarines from operating freely. Our fleet could handle one or two, but there won't be one or two of them.
The demonstration of the "Georgia" in the Persian Gulf hints to us that it is time to seriously concern ourselves with the issues of submarine warfare. So far, the Americans are only scaring, and not us, but Iran. Regardless of whether they can scare the Persians or not, we should be prepared both to create such threats ourselves and to prevent the enemy from creating them for us. Past examples show that we could at least play such games in the past, albeit in the nuclear version.
Alexander Timokhin