The Silent Deep

by James Jinks

  Lane-Nott also found himself questioning his view of the Soviet Union and Soviet submariners: ‘I think I had a view that the Soviet submariner had almost a blind faith in their state system and the Motherland and their ability to come on top. I had no idea if this was true, but in conversations I had much later with Admiral Yerofeyev, the Northern Fleet Commander, and his Deputy, Vice Admiral Suchkoff, and a Deputy Fleet Commander, Rear Admiral Titarenko, this indicated to me that they were equally committed to their Communist system, as I was to mine. We had to counter that and all three of them told me they were fearful of the professionalism and grit of the Royal Navy.’47

  When discussion turned to the business of fighting, the Russians had some interesting views of the Royal Navy and the Submarine Service and the part it would play in any conflict. Despite the many public pronouncements throughout the 1980s about the Royal Navy’s role in the Forward Strategy, the Soviets said that while they knew they would fight the Americans, they never thought they would have to fight the British. ‘I don’t think they were just being nice to us,’ recalled Branscombe, ‘maybe they were. Somehow they perceived that … we weren’t identical to the Americans. They were paranoid about the Americans but they didn’t seem to be so concerned about us.’48

  Lane-Nott agreed. ‘They really saw the Americans as their real issue,’ he recalls. ‘They thought we were incredibly professional but they saw us almost like an irritant, we were a pest that was always nibbling around the edges. We were not seen as the main issue. But they knew we were there and they knew that they could never find us and they knew that we were good. They were always worried about what we had got and what we hadn’t got and they knew that we were very close to America so they worked on the principle that everything that went to America came to Britain and vice versa.’49

  These honest conversations had their limits. When Admiral Oleg Yerofeyev asked Lieutenant Commander John Drummond how close the Royal Navy had come into Russian waters, the swift reply was ‘I’m afraid I cannot discuss operations that I’ve done in the past.’50 Branscombe was also asked ‘What’s it like to be inside the three-mile limit legally?’ He said nothing.51 Lane-Nott was able to ask Vice Admiral Suchkoff about the incident in the Clyde in 1973, when HMS Conqueror had sailed at short notice to ward off a ‘Victor’ class SSN. Suchkoff knew of the operation and when Lane-Nott asked him why the Soviet submarine had acted in the way it did, by turning and speeding straight towards Conqueror, Suchkoff was very honest. ‘The reality of life is that we didn’t know what you would do,’ he said. ‘Our only tactic at the time was to be aggressive because we just did not have the ability to detect you before you detected us.’52

  The Russians were surprisingly open, taking the British on tours around a number of vessels, including some diesel and nuclear submarines. ‘Their equipment was visibly less sophisticated than ours,’ recalled Branscombe. ‘If you asked me for a professional opinion it was a generation or so behind and this was quite a new submarine that we were looking at. But it was robust. Their maintenance was clearly good, as opposed to the surface ships, which were a complete disgrace. They had clearly been neglected for some time. But that submarine would have been a submarine that I would have been happy to take to sea.’53

  A year later, the Royal Navy returned the hospitality by hosting the first Russian submarine to visit a British port since the Second World War. A Russian diesel electric ‘Kilo’ class submarine, 431, spent five days alongside HMS Dolphin, Gosport, where the Russian Deputy Fleet Commander, Admiral Titarenko, was given a limited tour of HMS Trenchant. ‘As a former submariner he clearly enjoyed his few hours on board,’ said Trenchant’s CO, Commander Philip Mathias. ‘But for security reasons, it was not always possible to answer his rather searching questions.’54 The developing RUKUS (Russia–UK–US) confidence building discussions in the early 1990s also saw mutual visits first to HMS Triumph at Devonport and then the Victor III Tambov at Severomorsk.

  SUBMARINES OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

  Did the underwater Cold War ever really end? The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was meant to signal the end of hostility between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. But at sea both the Royal Navy and the US Navy continued to keep a close eye on the activities of the now Russian Fleet. On 11 February 1992, the USS Baton Rouge was tracking a Russian ‘Sierra’ class SSN as it entered international waters off the Kola Peninsula. The Russian submarine surfaced directly underneath the Baton Rouge, causing minor damage to both vessels.55 Just over a year later, on 19 March 1993, the SSN USS Grayling collided with a ‘Delta III’ class SSBN while operating in international waters in the Barents Sea.56 Unlike similar incidents in the Cold War, both collisions were heavily publicized, much to the frustration of the US Navy. The newly elected US President, Bill Clinton, was furious.57 The Russian President Boris Yeltsin cited both incidents as one of the few ‘irritants’ in US–Russian relations during a summit in April 1993. Clinton personally apologized, described the collision as a ‘regrettable thing, and I don’t want it to ever happen again’ and ordered a ‘thorough review of the incident as well as the policy of which the incident happened to be an unintended part’. As a result US rules about when its SSNs conducted operations against the Russians were reportedly reviewed and revised.58

  Despite Yeltsin’s complaints, the Russian Navy continued to conduct its own operations. In the early 1990s, HMS Tireless was deployed on Operation ‘Dogrose’ against one of the Russian Navy’s most modern operational ‘Akula’ class SSNs, which had deployed south of the GIUK Gap. The Akula was a source of great concern as it appeared to be operating to the west of the UK in an anti-SSBN posture, attempting to detect the Royal Navy SSBN that was on deterrent patrol. After deploying from Devonport for the Denmark Straits and briefly withdrawing to replace a faulty towed array, Tireless’s crew concluded that the best means of detecting the very quiet Akula was to establish a trail on a nearby ‘Delta III’ SSBN which was slowly transiting back into the Barents Sea. After sprinting northeast Tireless established a firm trail on the Delta III and followed it for forty-six hours, closing at regular intervals to carry out four simulated Tigerfish firings. While trailing the Delta Tireless observed four possible delouses by a second, far quieter submarine, which Tireless’s crew suspected was the Akula. The Delta III was equipped with third-generation noise reduction techniques but was relatively easy to trail. The Akula was reportedly fitted with advanced fourth-generation noise reduction techniques, was very quiet, very well handled and, in comparison to the Delta, very difficult to detect. Although some intelligence on the Akula was obtained as it deloused the Delta III, a fault with the replacement towed array, which increased the risk of counter-detection, forced Tireless to abandon any hope of prosecuting the Akula. It moved away and returned to Devonport.59

  The Russians continued to attempt to track the Royal Navy’s SSBNs throughout the early 1990s. In late 1992, two ‘Akula’ class submarines were deployed west of the UK during HMS Vanguard’s sea trials. Two years later, in December 1994, three ‘Trafalgar’ class SSNs, a US Navy SSN, Royal Navy towed-array frigates and US SURTASS vessels were all deployed to protect HMS Vanguard, which was on its first deterrent patrol, as well as HMS Victorious, which was preparing to sail for sea trials. A ‘Victor III’ SSN, designated Hull 36, had previously been tracked for a three-month period by Maritime Patrol Aircraft and towed-array frigates as it conducted operations in the North Atlantic. Although the Russian submarine had returned to its Northern Fleet base in late 1994, by early December intelligence indicated that it was due to sail and conduct a delouse operation with a ‘Delta’ class SSBN south of Jan Mayen. The Victor duly left its Northern Fleet base in early December, was picked up on SOSUS and designated L-031, intercepted the Delta and then moved south into the Royal Navy’s Northern Fleet Exercise Areas where it appeared to loiter.

  On 24 December 1994, HMS Torbay, the Royal Navy’s Immediate Readiness SSN required to sail at short notice, set out
from Devonport on Operation ‘Porringer’, a reactive covert ASW operation, with orders to locate and trail the Victor and determine the nature of its operations. Although Torbay’s crew knew that they could sail at short notice at any time, the notification to do so on Christmas Eve came as a shock and lowered morale. But Torbay’s company accepted their own loss of Christmas and New Year without complaint and focused on the job at hand and spent until early January sweeping the waters around the Northern Fleet Exercise Areas for the Victor III. Locating what by all accounts was a well-handled, slow and quiet modern Russian submarine was very difficult and after finding nothing Torbay moved out of the area to take part in a pre-planned NATO operation. ‘The end of a very frustrating two week operation,’ wrote Torbay’s CO. ‘L-031 has a lot to answer for.’60 As HMS Torbay withdrew, HMS Talent, which had taken over as the designated Immediate Readiness SSN on 29 December, sailed from Devonport on 4 January and spent eighteen days searching for the Victor III. Despite an exhaustive search Talent also failed to locate the Russian submarine and with so little information available on other Russian submarines operating in the North Atlantic, Talent sanitized waters for HMS Sceptre and HMS Trenchant, which were due to leave the UK for other operations and returned to Devonport on 22 January.61

  By mid-January, the Victor III had been at sea for sixty-one days and had managed to avoid detection for the last eleven. A US SSN, the USS Albuquerque, had joined the search as had a third ‘Trafalgar’ class SSN, HMS Tireless, which sailed from Devonport in late January to relieve HMS Talent. Northwood’s worst-case fears, that the Victor III was lurking in the Northern Fleet Exercise Areas awaiting the sailing of HMS Victorious for sea trials, appeared to be well founded. As Tireless entered the waters around the Exercise Areas, SOSUS detected the Victor III operating about ninety nautical miles south of Tireless’s position. Tireless started on a cautious approach to close and intercept the Russian submarine, assisted by cueing information from SOSUS and numerous over flights from Maritime Patrol Aircraft also engaged in the search.62 As Tireless moved in to intercept the Victor III it struggled to maintain contact with the extremely quiet Russian submarine. Shortly after arriving in the Victor III’s reported position, Tireless was forced to suddenly alter course 60 degrees to port in order to avoid a potential collision. As Tireless swung around to port the Victor III broke to starboard. Once the risk of collision had passed Tireless steadied on a course of 190 degrees while the Victor III passed at around 300 yards on Tireless’s starboard quarter, before heading north-north-east. Tireless remained in contact with the Victor III for the next seven hours, collecting intelligence information, before breaking off to transmit an update to Northwood. After reporting, Tireless failed in its attempts to relocate the Soviet submarine and it was later picked up on SOSUS moving north having apparently been forced deep to avoid the large number of Maritime Patrol Aircraft operating in the area. The Victor III then altered north and transited back to its Northern Fleet base. Reflecting on the operation, Tireless’s CO concluded that ‘The encounter with the “Victor III” has served as a reminder that the “Trafalgar” class SSN remains a most capable and reliable ASW platform, capable of conducting extended covert operations in adverse conditions.’63

  Just over a year after Operation ‘Porringer’, another ‘Victor III’ class SSN was detected lurking off the west coast of Scotland. It appeared to be blocking the northern entrance into the Clyde, waiting for one of the Royal Navy’s SSBNs to depart on patrol. The then Flag Officer Submarines, James Perowne, was forced to bring an inbound SSBN returning from patrol into Faslane through the northern approaches to the Clyde, while an outbound SSBN, departing on patrol, went out using the southern route. What no one knew at the time was that a Russian submariner on board the Victor III was suffering from a severe case of appendicitis. As the SSBNs moved in and out of Faslane, the Victor III suddenly altered course and moved out of the Royal Navy’s Northern Fleet Exercise Areas at high speed. On 29 February, the Russian authorities made an unprecedented call to the British Embassy in Moscow and asked for assistance. An RAF Nimrod from RAF Kinloss and two Royal Navy Sea King helicopters eventually located the Victor III approximately fifty miles northwest of the Isle of Lewis. A Lynx helicopter from HMS Glasgow, which was operating nearby in a major naval exercise, airlifted a Medic to the submarine to assess and prepare the casualty for evacuation. The Russian submariner was eventually winched on board a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter and transferred to hospital in Stornoway where he made a full recovery.

  As Russia descended into financial collapse in 1992–3, it struggled to put its own submarines, especially its SSBNs, to sea. In June 1994, the British Government announced that it had de-targeted Moscow and St Petersburg and that ‘the guidance computers on UK strategic missiles no longer routinely hold targeting information’.64 The Major Government also reduced the number of operationally available warheads for the Trident force. A year later, in 1995, the Royal Navy’s heavy involvement in SOSUS was scaled back when the main UK facility at RAF Brawdy closed and its functions transferred to a Joint Maritime Facility located at RAF St Mawgan which was fully integrated in the US Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System. The facility continued to track submarines and watch over the North Atlantic until 2009 when its functions were transferred to Dam Neck, Virginia, in the United States. By the end of the twentieth century the operational tempo of the Russian SSBN fleet significantly declined, and in 2002 the Russian Navy failed to put a single SSBN to sea.65 With the disappearance of much of the Russian threat at sea the Submarine Service entered a period of vulnerability. When the New Labour Government published its Strategic Defence Review (SDR) in July 1998 it announced further reductions in the size of the submarine fleet so that by 2006 the force would consist of 14 submarines: 10 SSNs and 4 SSBNs.

  The SDR also made a number of further changes to the SSBN fleet. It considered radical measures such as taking the ‘Vanguard’ class off patrol altogether and separating the warheads from the missiles. However, the Government concluded that both measures could undermine the deterrent effect of the weapons system and also lead to escalation in the event of a crisis.66 But improvements in the strategic landscape allowed the Government to reduce the number of warheads carried on each submarine from 96 to a maximum of 48.67 The SDR also cut the British warhead stockpile from the ceiling of 300 operationally available warheads to fewer than 200.68 When set against the earlier reductions under the Conservative Government, overall the destructive power of the UK deterrent had fallen by more than 70 per cent since the end of the Cold War. ‘This is the minimum necessary to provide for our security for the foreseeable future and smaller than those of the major nuclear powers,’ declared the Blair Government.69 The alert status of the deterrent was also reduced and the ‘Vanguard’ class submarines embarked on patrol with their missile systems at several days’ notice.70 The patrol cycle was also relaxed so that just one SSBN was on patrol at any one time. SSBNs also started to conduct secondary tasks while on patrol, such as exercises, ‘without compromising their security’.71 In November 1998, HMS Vanguard became the first Royal Navy SSBN to visit Gibraltar.

  In 2001 the Royal Navy Submarine Service celebrated its centenary.72 But as past and present submariners gathered, the Service was hit by an entirely new crisis, one that would once again challenge the professional skills of all those involved. In May 2000, a serious fault was discovered in the primary cooling circuit of HMS Tireless while the boat was operating in the Mediterranean. The submarine was forced to abandon its patrol and return under diesel power to Gibraltar, where the reactor was made safe and the leak temporarily plugged, while teams of engineers and specialists from Rolls-Royce assessed the defect and developed a means of repairing it. The MOD explored the possibility of returning Tireless to the UK using a heavy transporter ship, but concluded that preparations to do so would have taken much longer than the projected repair programme.73 The safest and most practicable solution was to carry ou
t the necessary repairs while the submarine was alongside in Gibraltar.

  After initial inspection it became apparent that a flaw in the pipework was generic and had arisen from a design/manufacture fault from the original construction programme.74 The Government carried out a full inspection of all Royal Navy SSNs and determined that the defect was evident in five, four of which were already alongside undergoing repairs or maintenance.75 By early 2001 only HMS Triumph was ‘ready for operations’ while the remaining ‘Swiftsure’ and ‘Trafalgar’ class submarines were kept at ninety days’ or more notice for operations while they underwent defect repair or long-term maintenance. The MOD hoped that eight submarines – HMS Superb, HMS Sceptre, HMS Splendid, HMS, Trafalgar, HMS Tireless, HMS Torbay, HMS Turbulent and HMS Talent – would be available for operations by the end of 2001, while the remaining three – HMS Sovereign, HMS Spartan and HMS Trenchant – remained in longer-term maintenance or refit.76 HMS Tireless left Gibraltar on 7 May 2001, almost a year after first arriving alongside.

  POWER PROJECTION

  By the end of the twentieth century changed political circumstances and the priorities of Western nations led the Submarine Service to make a decisive break from its Cold War emphasis on anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic, towards what was termed ‘littoral operations, power projection from the sea and the ability to influence the land battle ashore’.77 This process began in the mid-1990s, when the Submarine Service increased its capacity to carry out two roles for which it had previously had only limited capability: to attack land targets, which, in the past it had primarily confined to assaults on coastal facilities; and the ability to deploy and extract Special Forces behind enemy lines, a capability that the service had nearly lost with the retirement of its conventional submarines.