In assessing the outcome of the war at sea, which continued unabated until the NATO counter-offensive checked the enemy’s advance in the Central Region, it is necessary to consider the aims of the respective naval commanders, the extent to which these were achieved, and at what cost. In the first place, it may be said that in failing to interdict more than 25 per cent of the immediate seaborne reinforcement sent from North America to Allied Command Europe, the Soviet Navy failed to support the Red Army decisively. SACLANT and JACWA between them had for their part decisively supported SACEUR. As to the war at sea in general, the losses of warships, aircraft and submarines on both sides, during the first phase, had left the balance little changed since the outbreak of hostilities, although at a lower level. Losses had been heavy, and there were virtually no reserves. Replacement by new construction would take years.

NATO did enjoy one advantage over the Russians, however. It remained a good deal simpler for the NATO navies to redeploy their existing surface forces than for the Soviet Navy to do so. Several important US units from the Pacific were soon on their way to the Atlantic, to replace elements of the Strike Fleet which had been sunk, some by air but more by submarine attack, during the withdrawal of the force from the Norwegian Sea. But the Soviet Baltic and Black Sea Fleets, despite the seizure of the Baltic Exits and the transfer of Black Sea units to the Mediterranean, were unable to support each other. NATO maritime strike aircraft in Britain, ‘the unsinkable aircraft carrier’, and NATO submarines in the Mediterranean, were a constant discouragement to Soviet naval movements. Soviet naval and air forces in the Middle East did succeed, for a time, in dominating the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. But a combined US, British and Australian force, operating in the Indian Ocean, eventually neutralized them. Again, losses on both sides were heavy.

The movement of oil, food, raw materials and war equipment to north-west Europe was strongly opposed by Soviet submarines and maritime strike aircraft. But attrition of the Soviet forces was such as to wear down gradually the weight of attack. In 1974 Admiral Gorshkov had made this point: ‘The underestimation of the need to support submarine operations with aircraft and surface ships cost the German high command dearly in the last two wars.’ Now his own country had made the same strategic error. Had the submarines been capable of operating submerged in large groups, as the German U-boats had done on the surface in the Second World War, there is little doubt that their campaign would have succeeded. As it was, the submarines could be dealt with in ones or twos — though nearly always with the loss, to missile attack, of one or more anti-submarine vessels. The escort carriers, frigates, patrol ships, helicopters and maritime aircraft had been built, as a matter of great urgency, during the period 1979-85. Of critical importance to JACWA had been the contribution of the Federal German Navy, which, with the strong support of the NATO Council, had been greatly strengthened during the period. The Federal German government, recognizing the supreme importance of the safe and timely arrival of the convoys bringing US and Canadian reinforcements to the Central Front, had increased its light naval forces and naval air forces in the Baltic. This had permitted the release of frigates to work with the additional UK escort carriers.

When the outcome of the 1985 war as a whole can be assessed, it may be that the downfall of the USSR will be attributed, ironically, to Gorshkov, the greatest Russian admiral of all time, whose forceful and successful advocacy of ever-increasing Soviet sea power led the comrades to disaster — when the seas got too rough the Bear drowned.

Even on land the Soviet Union appeared to have overreached itself. In the all-important central front of Western Europe, the Red Army had counted on very early and decisive success. This success had eluded its commanders. Instead they were faced with a check to their offensive and serious misgivings about support at home.

CHAPTER 18: The War in Inner Space