Can Anyone Here Answer Some "Red Storm Rising" Questions For Me?

And I guarantee you the Soviets modified their SOP to ensure that couldn’t happen again.

 

True but I'm absolutely certain that the U.S. and other NATO navies continued to improve their techniques. Plus the 1980s the U.S. Navy was approaching its Cold War era height in terms of training, technology, and effectiveness while during the 1980s the Soviets would start to experience a serious crunch in resources and funding.

 

In regards to spy and surveillance satellites, most people have this idea that a satellite can "scan the Earth" much like starships in Star Trek can scan the surface of a planet.

That isn't true. When it comes to looking for something particular on the Earths surface like a bunch of ships or a rumored military base, a satellite can pretty much only look for something it is told to look for in a particular location. In addition, satellites for the most part have little or no ability to adjust their orbits significantly. This means their paths are utterly predictable right down to the second. If you know where one is then you can avoid it.

 

RORSATs most definitely scan whole large sections of ocean at a time. They don’t need to adjust theor track if they already have sats looking at the area north of Norway.

 

They're still following a predictable track. If you know when and where something is looking for you then its avoidable.

 

Carriers don't move that fast and RORSAT's can cover thousands of square miles of ocean.

 

Why couldn't the RORSAT launched to find the NATO fleet in 1981 find it then?

 

Were they in the area of the Soviet Northern Bastion, aka the Soviet’s most patrolled sea territory?

 

I do know that the Soviets knew when they left U.S. waters, the size and composition of the fleet, and its destination. The RORSAT was launched while they were en route to the GIUK gap.

At the time the RORSAT was launched two other Soviet satellites were already looking for the NATO force.

For one thing the force maintained complete radio silence and even the operational orders were hand delivered to the group commanders. Admiral James "Ace" Lyons conceived of and coordinated the mission.

 

1. NORPAC 82
According to old USSR standards positions of all US carrier groups wear to be reported every 24 hours.

Enterprise was tracked every day.
Midway was unexpected on the theatre, Russians lost track of Midway group for 3 days (beginning from Japan), this is the scope of screw up of the Russian side.
Within these three days a visual was established, but the observer was tasked with tracing Enterprise, the report received low priority and was discovered only afterwards.
Something like on Sept12 morning, Fleet HQ gave order to “find” Midway. By the end of the day Intel pinpointed Midway location, destroyer and 3 Hunter-Killer subs wear dispatched, on the other day (14th sept) they established visual, and stayed in visual till US left the area.

The Russians consider this to be a screw up, some call this a Russian Perl Harbor, but we are not talking about US carrier groups roaming around Kremlin in complete stealth. We are talking about loss of tracking of one specific carrier with outdated air wing for 3 days. And it took less than a working day to discover its position after a specific kick from HQ.

2.
In 1981 (August Sept) An armada of 83 (US, British, Canad, Norway) ships crossed the GUIK gap and stayed there. They wear identified by Russian long range recon. The Norwegian Sea, was crossed not by the armada, but by small detachment of a Cruiser + 3 other ships, they went East around Cape North and stayed in Barents Sea for 9 days. Individual Nato ships and subs do it all the time, it is international waters.

3. The low orbit satellite scans the dedicated strip of land, they are fast, simple, cheap, have poor life length, but a lot of fuel to maneuver. You cant “order” the satellite to search for something specific. The raw dataflow is sent to Earth where it is analyzed. On the ground you can search for something specific.
But first versions dropped high res photos in capsules (not data link) (like 12 capsules total load) it took a lot of time to find the capsule and deliver it to the HQ.

 

1) You're taking the Russians words at what they were able to track?

2) The NATO force still got within strike range of the Kola without being detected or tracked.

 

The US article state that Midway was not detected for 4 days. Russian article state that Midway was not detected for 3 days. The detection was done by radio surveillance, Midway had no idea it was detected until Russian Destroyer shows up (or Russian sub was detected, this part is not cowered).
I consider both stories to matching each other, which is surprising. Normally I consider both sides to be liars by default.

Armada did not cross the Norwegian Sea. They stayed West of Norway.

The Cruiser + 3 smaller ships entered the Barents Sea. Strike range of a cruiser is around 70nm or so, Russian territorial waters are 20nm. If the Cruiser came within range than it did, if not, than it did not. Do not know.
Was the cruiser not detected? Only by a miracle. Around 1960-1980 (roughly) USSR holds the biggest fishing fleet in the world. No way to sleep in heavy fishing area for 9 days without anyone noticing you.
There could be two types of miracles, yes.
1. Extremely heavy storm which will ground areal recon and scare the shipping… Although a sub will pick sound of your screws from 100km easily, you cannot shut down your machine in a storm. And the areal recon will fly in from another field…
2. There entire story is somehow connected to a mole in US HQ. Someone said something about Russians knowing every US move. This means that Russians would do everything in their power to demonstrate how unaware they are.
But no one is actually saying that the cruiser was not detected? As far as I understand.

 

I was referring to F-14s from the Eisenhower intercepting and conducting mock attacks on Soviet Badgers while they refueled fully 1,000 miles from the carrier something like twice their typical combat radius. It was my understanding that this meant that the carrier based attack planes could strike Soviet bases from the carriers position at that time.

And yes the NATO force did follow a storm front at least part of the way. Why is that significant? Storms do occur pretty often and using a storm is expected much like a defending regiment using terrain for cover during land combat. It doesn't diminish the accomplishment.

 

Might find this worth reading.

RETREAT FROM RANGE The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation

https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/CNASReport-CarrierAirWing-151016.pdf

During WW ll an Essex class carrier air wing ( 90 ac) combat radius was 758 nautical miles. (nm)

In 1956 a Forrestal class carrier air wing combat radius was 1,210 nm.

In 1986 a Nimitz class carrier air wing of ( 98 ac) combat radius was 908 nm.

In 2006 a Nimitz class carrier air wing (62 ac ) combat radius is 496 nm.

Holey green amphibious ****...a WW ll Essex class aircraft carrier air wing had more range than todays air wing on a Nimitz class carrier !!

The article explains why.

 

Without even reading it I would think the replacement of the A-7s with F/A-18s which have about half the combat radius of the older plane. But I'll go read it.

 

The U.S. Navy no longer has a deep strike capability with the retirement of the A-6 Intruder and G.H. Bush's Sec of Def Dick Cheney who canceled the A-6 replacement, the A-12 Avenger.

When they sent the KS-3 Viking's to the boneyard the only way you can refuel FA-18's in the air is by using other FA-18's as air tankers.
To launch an entire carrier air wing for a deep strike attack, you lose 1/3 of your FA-18's that have to be used as air tankers instead of carrying bomb loads.

 

I think the USN fell in love with the F/A-18s legendary reliability after putting up for years with the routinely having 20% or more of the F-14s down over maintenance issues. That and they liked having an "iconic navy only aircraft" (it is the aircraft of the Blue Angels).

Personally, I think they should've bought a 12 plane squadron of A/F-117Xs (F-117A variant) for each carrier air wing. It was projected to have a 980 nautical mile unrefueled combat radius. It would restore the lost range of carrier air wings in one fell swoop. ​

 

I have read both 1985 and Red Storm Rising, and they are very different books.

It must be remembered that the authors have to be realized when looking at them.

Sir John was a career Soldier, from 1933-1968. With service in WWII in the Middle East and Africa before moving up to fight in Germany. He continued to serve throughout the British Empire until he was appointed to command the NATO Northern Army Group, one major reason was his skills, and being able to speak 10 languages fluently.

Tom Clancy was an Insurance Broker, who had an interest in Naval tactics and equipment. A lot of the book Red Storm Rising was based upon a series of wargames he and Larry Bond played based upon the Harpoon game system (created by Larry Bond).

And there are vast differences that must be realized between these books, and the real world.

For one, Sir John never anticipated when he was writing his book that shortly after publication, Iran would fall and a Revolutionary Islamic state would take it's place. A lot of the key raids in his book had Iran as a key starting or ending point. Something that would have been impossible in a real 1980's war. But overall I thought it was a very good book.

RSR however shows it's primary interest is Naval action, because that was the interest of both authors. The land segments seem almost as an afterthought. And even though it was set in 1988, it completely ignores some key weapon systems. For example, I do not think there is any mention of US-NATO air defense systems at all. Even though both HAWK and PATRIOT were already in service when the book was written. And while the PATRIOT anti-ballistic missile capability had not been developed yet, it's ability against cruise missiles was already in place (shooting down a cruise missile is no more complex than shooting down a conventional fighter).

Both are interesting books, but definite relics of their time. But I still dust each of them off every few years to reread again.

 

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The Hornet was never "Navy Only". In fact, the first squadron in service was the Marine Corps VMFA-314. The Navy would not activate it's first Hornet squadron for over a year after that.

 

Navy, Marines. Those two services are not nearly as distinct from each other as the Navy, Air Force, and Army. The Navy is particularly sensitive about flying what they see as "Air Force" planes. And vice versa the Air Force hates flying Navy planes even worse.

 

In contrasting Hackett's "The Third World War: The Untold Story" (I prefer his sequel/updated version for obvious reasons) and Clancy/Bond's "Red Storm Rising" I feel that Hackett preferred to do a "by the book" Soviet invasion and war. In other words, the Soviets simply crashing across the North German Plain in the most obvious type of conflict imaginable.

I believe Clancy and Bond wanted to create a lot more "wild cards" in their book. The Soviet seizure of Iceland, the Soviet overpowering the Nimitz led NATO fleet, the crushing airstrike NATO delivered the first night of the war, Operation Dolittle.

I think the reasons were two fold:

1) Clancy & Bond realized that unexpected things happen in wars and wanted to introduce those uncertainties and surprises in their war.
2) It occurred to me only years later that because Clancy apparently wanted the Soviet Navy to be a worthy opponent for the NATO navies that they had to introduce a huge game changing event in favor of the Soviets such as the seizure of Iceland and the subsequent incredibly successful Soviet attack on the carrier groups.

To me Palmer's "The War That Never Was" is better than both. Vastly underrated.

 

I do not really think so.

We need to know where the Badger was at the moment of refuel and attack. I failed to find this information. If refuel was done around Bingo fuel, the Badger could be 2000nm away from its base (recon versions should be roughly 4000nm range).
Besides. Whatever that poor Badger has done to US Navy, sending 83 ships after a single bomber is overreacting!

It is a bad idea to attack harbor of Murmansk from S part of Norwegian sea.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...graphs/a-cold-war-conundrum/pg9.gif/image.gif
You need to do 1300km (2600 total), cross Norway, Sweden, Finland, do a 200km run above Russian territory and approach Murmansk from the most defended direction… Above Murmansk, you will have no fuel, you will be forced to fly economically, you will have minimal on weapons to save weight and drag, you will be greeted by Mig25 that are twice faster than you, have better radar, full load, full fuel, operating in in friendly AA and Radar in complete data link (Mig25 can).
This is doable, why not, but such an approach is the most favorable for Russians, not US, do not expect any of your planes to return.

Now compare this with another approach (If you want Murmansk gone):
send a single sub with 10 Tomahawks. That’s it.

 

IIRC it was an entire flight of Badgers that the F-14s intercepted and made mock attacks upon while they refueled.

 

You ignore midair refueling.

 

The paper takes that into account and how the carrier based refueling assets have declined dramatically with the elimination of the KA-3 and then the KA-6.