The Silent Deep

by James Jinks

  This posed a problem for both the US Navy and the Royal Navy. By withdrawing their SSBNs the Soviets effectively turned the tables on the West.143 Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s the short range of Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missiles demanded that Soviet SSBNs take up patrol positions in the Western Atlantic, thus transiting through the chokepoints and home waters of NATO’s northeastern flank where they were subject to detection and possible shadowing, Soviet submarines deploying in the Arctic had no chokepoints to transit. Their operating areas were now considerably more familiar to Soviet submariners than they were to NATO’s. US Navy and Royal Navy SSNs seeking to hunt down Soviet SSBNs now had increasingly to transit through the chokepoints of the Davis and Denmark Straits, and operate at greater distances from US and UK bases, where operating experience was relatively poor. The considerable advantage the Royal Navy and US Navy enjoyed in air and surface anti-submarine warfare also all but disappeared, as neither was effective in the new strategic environment under the ice. This had important implications for the region.

  The Maritime Strategy, and the Soviet response to it, conceptually transformed the Arctic from a natural scientific laboratory and region of occasional and exceptional activity into a possible battle-space on a par with the Northern Pacific or the GIUK Gap.144 Had World War III come it would have seen combat of great ferocity. Beginning in the early 1980s, Royal Navy and US Navy SSNs were routinely deployed into Arctic waters to develop their battle plans and wartime capabilities. Numerous submarines participated in a series of joint United Kingdom/United States anti-submarine warfare operations in the Greenland Sea under varying conditions of ice cover, to test the capability of US Navy and Royal Navy SSNs to detect, intercept and shadow Soviet submarines operating under the ice. The first of these SUBICEX operations, as they were known, took place in 1979 when HMS Sovereign and USS Archerfish took part in a series of exercises. The second took place in 1981, when HMS Valiant went up against the USS Silversides in order to find out whether the Royal Navy’s oldest class of SSN was capable of operating under the ice with minimal additional and material preparations.

  Going under the ice was relatively straightforward, but detecting and classifying submarines operating underneath it was challenging. Sonar conditions under the ice were often excellent, meaning there was a high probability of long-range detections. However, the reflection of target noise from the huge number of ice keels often caused difficulties, and in contrast to the familiar chokepoint operations in the GIUK Gap where Soviet submarines would be transiting to their patrol areas, Soviet submarines operating under the ice were already patrolling and were therefore much quieter, more alert and unpredictable. Detecting and attacking Soviet submarines patrolling under the ice was full of what Tom Le Marchand, the CO of HMS Valiant, described as ‘Problems, problems, problems.’

  We have established that the target is within range but he is probably too quiet for passive homing weapons; if we go ‘active’ there will be excessive reverberations, not to mention the distinct probability of the weapon homing on to an ice keel, or even striking one accidentally en route to the target; maybe it’s better to track him until he leaves the ice cover, if ever he does; or maybe he’ll fire his missiles before I can attack him. Maybe …145

  Le Marchand concluded that it was ‘clear that many problems need to be solved before under-ice warfare can be waged with anything like the confidence that open ocean temperate ASW generates’. But he recognized that the ‘strategic importance of the Arctic inner space is evident, and it is equally evident that neither East nor West can afford to resign control of that area to the other’. He concluded that ‘nothing will replace or make up for the value of … all-important operational experience. And it is here where one faces the nagging suspicion that we have some catching up to do.’146

  Soviet interest in the Arctic region was beginning to be reflected in the latest submarine designs. In the early 1980s, the Soviets produced yet another version of the Delta design, the ‘Delta IV’, which was significantly larger and quieter than its predecessors and capable of carrying a larger missile, the three stage RSM-54/R-29RM (NATO designation SS-N-23 Skiff).147 The first of class was laid down in 1981, commissioned in December 1984 and was followed by seven others. The Soviets also commissioned the first submarine designed specifically to operate under the ice. With a surface displacement of 18,797 tonnes, and a submerged displacement of 26,925 tonnes, the Project 941 ‘Typhoon’ SSBN (as featured in book and film The Hunt for Red October) was the largest submarine in the world and its unique design differed considerably from that of any submarine built by the US Navy and the Royal Navy. Constructed from two full size parallel pressure hulls, each 149 metres long and 7.2 metres in diameter, with a twenty-tube missile compartment placed between the hulls, in two rows, forward of the fin, the Typhoon’s twin propellers were housed in shrouds to protect them from ice damage and the submarine’s large displacement allowed it to punch through thick ice to launch its powerful new missiles, the RSM-52/R-39 (NATO designation SS-N-20 Sturgeon), equipped with ten MIRV warheads.148 The first of the ‘Typhoon’ submarines, TK-208, was laid down in June 1976 and commissioned in 1981. Six more were built between 1983 and 1989.149

  The ‘Typhoon’ was a crucial Western intelligence target and in the early 1980s, HMS Superb became the second Western submarine to successfully detect and collect intelligence on it. In December 1986, another of the Royal Navy’s SSNs, HMS Splendid, reportedly conducted the first long-term trail of ‘Typhoon’ when its towed array became entangled with the Soviet submarine. Splendid ended the trail and returned to Devonport, where her commander faced a naval inquiry. The incident, which somehow leaked to the press, was the first public demonstration of the Submarine Service’s active participation in Forward Operations in peacetime against Soviet SSBNs.150 It led to a series of exchanges in the House of Commons, when the Labour MP Tam Dalyell suggested to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, John Stanley, ‘that it would be helpful to the House if the Hon. Gentleman’s speech could include some reference to what allegedly happened in the Barents Sea with the towed array sonar, so that we can discuss the matter on the basis of information rather than newspaper reports?’151 Martin O’Neill, the Labour Opposition’s Shadow Defence Spokesman, then linked the Splendid incident to the Royal Navy’s participation in the Maritime Strategy:

  If the United Kingdom – and, I presume, the United States – have a presence in the Barents Sea, that will surely threaten the security of the Soviet Union’s SSBNs, increase the threat of a Soviet first strike and thus threaten crisis stability. In terms of NATO-Soviet relations at such a sensitive time, when we are supposed to be close to reaching an accommodation with the Soviet Union – there has already been the prefacing of the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow – it is foolhardy to be blundering around in the Barents Sea.152

  ‘There seems to have been a major change,’ continued O’Neill. ‘Until now we have not been aware of British boats being involved around the Kola Peninsula.’153 He urged the Government to ‘be more forthcoming about these issues’ and ‘to admit that there has been a change in British involvement in the NATO strategy’.154

  Stanley followed the practice of previous governments and insisted that ‘there is no way that we could be drawn into commenting on submarine operations’. It was left to the Social Democratic Party’s Defence Spokesman, John Cartwright, to suggest that the ‘idea that a Soviet Typhoon submarine would have deliberately severed the towed array sonar equipment is extremely implausible. Even if the equipment could have been recovered – which is a very big “if” – it would have been of limited benefit to the Soviet Union.’155 Cartwright suggested that a more likely explanation was that ‘HMS Splendid may have been operating under … a merchant vessel whose anchor severed the cable of the towed array sonar.’156 He argued that:

  Those in our attack submarines, who have the vital task of tracking Soviet ballistic missile submarines, also carry out an impor
tant task on our behalf. It is vital to be sure that we are not asking our submariners to undertake unreasonable risks. It has been suggested to me that the HMS Splendid incident is not an isolated occurrence and that there have been similar incidents involving HMS Spartan and HMS Sceptre.157

  Cartwright called on the Minister to ‘give us an undertaking that if those men are put at risk as a result of what they are being required to do, their procedures and methods of operation will be reviewed’. ‘We want that job carried out,’ he said, ‘but we do not want our submariners taking unreasonable risks on our behalf.’158 No such undertaking was given. Bizarrely in 1987 British scientists studying weather patterns in the Arctic allegedly found remains of the towed array entangled in the rib cage of a 45-foot humpback whale. Experts said it must have drowned as the weight of the 250-foot-long equipment prevented it surfacing for air. It was found on Jan Mayen Island, hundreds of miles from the encounter between the submarines.159

  THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

  The Soviets did not confine themselves entirely to northern waters, but continued periodically to enter the Atlantic and Pacific to probe the West’s anti-submarine capability, attempting to detect and compromise the Royal Navy and US Navy’s SSBNs. By the mid-1980s, many of these Soviet submarines were able to remain undetected because of improvements to their noise levels. In October 1986, a US Navy SSN, the USS Augusta, was trailing a Soviet SSN in the North Atlantic when it inadvertently collided with an undetected Soviet ‘Delta I’ SSBN. The Augusta returned to port and suffered $2.7m in damage, while the Delta was reportedly able to continue on patrol.160 Far more worrying was an incident in late March 1987, when five front-line ‘Victor III’ SSNs deployed from the Soviet Northern Fleet bases and moved into the Atlantic. As soon as the Victor IIIs departed from their ports they were immediately picked up on SOSUS and classified as L-015; L-018; L-019; L-020 and L-021. As they continued into the Western Atlantic, the US Navy and the Royal Navy mounted a major combined ASW operation in order to follow them and maintain the operational security of both Royal Navy and US Navy SSBNs. ‘We had just about everything we could move out there,’ recalled Toby Frere. Royal Navy towed-array frigates deployed, alongside SSKs with towed arrays and a number of Royal Navy and US Navy SSNs, including the USS Sea Devil, USS Dallas and HMS Superb.

  Northwood was responsible for providing regular information about the location of the Victor IIIs to the on-patrol Polaris SSBN, a task that was complicated by the fact that very few people in Northwood knew its exact location. ‘We knew by exception where he wouldn’t be,’ remembered Frere, ‘but we didn’t have a clue where he was. All we were doing was keeping tabs on the mob and feeding him the information in real time, where they were. Then it was up to him.’161 The search was so intensive and so demanding that the RAF’s Nimrods used their entire yearly supply of sonobuoys in the space of a few weeks. But the Royal Navy and US Navy were able to track the Soviet deployment. ‘We held those submarines almost continuously from when they came round North Cape’, recalled Martin Macpherson, the Operations Officer at Northwood, ‘all the way down the Norwegian Sea, lost them briefly as they went through the gaps because of the water conditions, regained just south of the gaps, watched them all the way through our really high point of interest, West of Ireland and out into the Atlantic. We watched them go down to about 48 North, watched them turn west and go out to the States. We held almost continuous contact.’ Throughout the deployment the US and the UK were able to maintain firm contact with four out of the five Victors. ‘The fifth one,’ recounts Macpherson, ‘although of the same class was obviously very much quieter than the others. Now it may be that he was a particularly well-maintained, well-managed submarine. He was always known in the trade as the Prince of Darkness, because he was so difficult to detect.’162

  The Victor IIIs continued to the east coast of the United States and attempted to locate US SSBNs. They then turned back to the North Atlantic. To guard against a possible second attempt at detecting the Royal Navy’s patrolling SSBN, Northwood intensified its efforts to track one of the quieter and more elusive Victor IIIs, which may or may not have been the Prince of Darkness. HMS Trafalgar, then under the command of Toby Elliott, was in Bermuda at the time of the Victor deployment and was ordered by Northwood to make best speed back to Faslane. When Trafalgar arrived in late April, the Victors were operating to the west of Rockall in what appeared to be an anti-SSBN operation west of the United Kingdom. There was no evidence that they intended to resume their transit north. Trafalgar sailed and started a search of the Hatton-Rockall Basin before receiving orders to sail south to intercept one of the Victor IIIs, designated L-019, which the USS Dallas had been trailing for some time. After thirty-six hours’ searching in cooperation with RAF Nimrods, Trafalgar detected the Victor III.

  Trafalgar’s crew immediately recognized that this particular Victor III was ‘a worthy adversary’. One former Royal Navy officer who at the time analysed Soviet submarine operations could recognize the distinctive features of the Prince of Darkness, ‘the competence and the quality, that you weren’t just up against A. N. Other,’ he said. ‘It’s not so much that he had a distinct predictable or forecastable style, it was just that it was of a different level to his peers.’163 As Elliott wrote:

  The trail was never easy. L 019, when patrolling, was slow, with an extremely quiet narrowband signature with large bow and stern nulls, had virtually no detectable broadband signature and adopted a policy of random and complex stern arc clearances or local area searches interspersed with short, but slow transits between search areas. Even when transiting, and at a slightly higher speed, there was still no detectable broadband signature and the narrowband signature remained impressively sparse. Determined tactics were necessary to maintain, and regenerate, contact on this very quiet modern Soviet submarine.164

  Trafalgar started to trail the Victor to the west of Rockall, following it for seven days before breaking contact and heading south. The Victor appeared to be in patrol mode and was moving slowly north towards the Iceland–Faroes Gap. Although the boat was quiet, Trafalgar’s crew quickly determined that the Victor III conducted complex stern arc clearances at four to six hour intervals. After one such evolution, Elliott, concluding that the Victor III’s CO and crew might have been lulled into a false sense of security, decided to carry out a simulated attack on the Victor, converting Trafalgar’s trail into a firing position. ‘I intend to “pick him off” when and if the opportunity presents itself,’ noted Elliott, who slowly moved Trafalgar into a favourable position on the beam of the Victor III and brought his weapon system into Readiness State One – ready in all respects to simulate an attack.165 Once Trafalgar had obtained a good fire control solution Elliott fired two simulated Tigerfish torpedoes that later on board analysis concluded would have hit their target.

  As Trafalgar continued to trail the Victor III, the waters surrounding the Iceland–Faroes Gap started to become increasingly busy, with a total of eight submarines: the Victors, USS Sea Devil and HMS Superb, all making for the gap. In the aftermath of Trafalgar’s simulated attack on the Victor III, it had become ‘increasingly difficult’ to maintain a constant trail of the Soviet submarine and at one stage it became ‘so marginal that there was a real risk of losing contact altogether’. Detection problems were increased by the effect of the complex oceanographic conditions that prevailed in the vicinity of the Icelandic Front and technical problems with Trafalgar’s 2026 sonar, which had been experiencing ‘lockouts’, freezing for periods of up to fifteen minutes. At one stage, as Trafalgar searched for the Victor III, the two submarines came to within 1000 yards of each other.166

  As Trafalgar moved through the colder but more stable waters of the Norwegian Sea it was able to maintain intermittent contact with the Victor III, which appeared to be conducting a slow search to the northeast. Although the technical problems with Trafalgar’s sonar suite had been repaired, deteriorating oceanographic conditions resulted in yet anothe
r close pass – 600 yards – an opportunity Elliott used to carry out another firing exercise. Trafalgar continued to trail the Victor III, but it also detected the tonals from a second submarine, which was later classified as another of the Victor IIIs. The two submarines appeared to be cooperating and conducting a submarine exercise, taking it in turns to transit and patrol. Again, due to the challenging oceanographic conditions maintaining contact with both Soviet submarines proved difficult and Elliott was forced to conduct a number of manoeuvres to regain contact. One of these resulted in yet another close pass, but in contrast to the previous two occasions one of the Victor IIIs altered course and speed, indicating that it may have counter-detected Trafalgar. Elliott immediately ordered Trafalgar to break contact and move out of the area.

  The tactics employed against the exceptionally quiet, well-handled Soviet submarine unsurprisingly created close-quarters scenarios, but Elliott ensured that Trafalgar’s crew was prepared and able to anticipate them. He came away from the patrol with a number of conclusions. First, that ‘The “Trafalgar” class has again demonstrated its effectiveness against modern Soviet submarines, both in terms of the sonar advantage and, if the evidence from the close passes is to be believed, noise quietening.’ Second, ‘The “Victor III” Class SSN, if L 019 is representative, is impressively quiet.’ Third, ‘Detection ranges on modern noise quietened Soviet submarines are reducing, making them difficult to prosecute.’ Fourth, ‘Determined tactics are required to maintain, and regain, contact when trailing such submarines.’ Fifth, ‘Such determined tactics will lead on occasions, to close quarters situations with CPAs [Closest Points of Approach] of less than 1 Kyd [kiloyards]. With preparation, and anticipation, these situations can not only be controlled but also turned to tactical advantage.’ Elliott’s final words were ‘for the performance and conduct of all my people during a challenging patrol in which from time to time the close proximity and unpredictable behaviour of L019 has made life somewhat daunting – they have been magnificent’.167