Novgorod AU

12. Naval Development 1945-

After the WWII, Novgorod faced new situation where its former allies and partners in war were now openly hostile and the confrontation of the socialistic and capitalistic world was more apparent than ever. In somewhat the situation reminded of the pre-war era but with this time both sides fully geared up for war and in the face of new revolutionary technologies and strategies that had transformed the way of the warfare for good.

From naval aspect Novgorod standed upon the second largest navy in the world but with heavy constrain of 5 years of fighting and limited support and services most of the fleet was in desperate shape. It was also inferior against the western equalent despite the otherside having similar wearing out issues. For Novgorod, the proplem was that its tradditional shipbuilding and repair facilities in both Leningrad and in Dalny had been cut of from the operational use of the fleet for most of the war and despite new shipbulding sites at Severodvinsk and Komsomolsk-Na-Amur had raised to substitute these, the lack of the Dalny and Leningrad had huge impact. For the imidiate post-war years, great deal of effort was put on restoring those facilitites.

New shipconstruction was completely in halt as the whole nation and the entire world engaging in the war for that matter was still recovering of its impacts. There were heavy demand of letting the soldiers return home and take over civil duties in the massive rebuilding campaign but also there was a need to sustain detente against the western powers in the new world order.
Most of the military effort was put on developing nuclear weapons to catch up the lead which USA had managed to gain. Both Novgorod and Soviet Union got their first atomic bombs ready in 1949.

For naval point of view the rapid development of nuclear weapons was the main driving forces behind the post-war naval developments. In the initial years the role of the navy was set to be defensive against possiple western attacks and amphibious landings to the rear areas (the primary operational area was tought to be in the western europe) such as in the pacific and northern coast. To achive in the task, the RKKF main focus was in adequate carrier strike force capable to counter the enemy naval assets. It was however aknowlidged that at least in the forseeable future the shipbuilding capability was not able to outproduce the western counterparts and need for force-multipliers was paramount. Nuclear weapons were sought to be the awnser and the emphasis on the carrier nuclear strike ability was initially focused on attacking the enemy carrier task forces.

During the 1950's the emerging of missiles as a primary carrier of nuclear weapons had huge impact on the whole role of the fleet. Despite Novgorod never went similar “revolution in military affairs” as the Soviet Union the capabilities and possibilities of strategic missiles were fully endorsed however. Their greatest effect on the fleet were the ability to launch them from submarines which had two major affects: Emerging of strategical nuclear submarine force in RKKF and the counter-moves caused by the existence of the western strategical submarines.

Novgorod was in the forefront to adopt nuclear propulsion to both submarines and surface ships and in the former the development went paralel with the adaption of nuclear strike ability with ballistic and cruise missiles. The ballistic missile submarine concept prooved out to be the most viable solution and its importance raised to such levels that in the 1970's it had overtaken the carriers as the most important strategical asset of the fleet.

First generation ballistic missile submarines required constant patrol alongside the enemy coastline but as the missile technology advanced, the submarines no longer had to go on long patrols away from friendly waters but were able to remain in the so-called “bastions” near home were to launch intercontinental ballistic missles. This evolution also shaped the form and role of the ASW operations.

With introduction of United States first generation Polaris missilesubmarines, the whole RKKF was forced to change its priorities towards ASW operations. Large Carrier strike forces were no longer considered to be worthwhile nor were expected to be able to fund them in the urgent need of new ASW units. Whole new set of weaponry and sensors were developted alongside with new operational tactics and concepts. Most of the existing fleet including the carrier force were modified to ASW operations and whole new type of shipsclasses emerged. The ASW role remained the main surface ship operational role troughout the 60's and 70's but with the transition towards longer range missiles and enemy submarines no longer venturing into Novgorods home waters, the ASW role transformed into supporting role of RKKFs own SSBN force. The ASW units were now to protect the so-called “bastions” where the SSBNs would operate from enemy hunter-killer submarines.

After 1960's the it was no longer expected that the confrontation of the two opposing blocks would turn into full-scale nuclear war but that the conventional warfare would still be the most possible outcome of use of military forces abroad. Both sides expected that the Cold War would be fought trough series of proxy-wars, third-party nations would enegage in military confrontations with the superpowers acting behind their own proxys. This also ment that the need to spread the ideology and gain allies and friendly nations all agross the world became important. This was especially important in the third world after demise of the old colonial powers.

From Naval perspective this new approach to warfare brought the need of power-protection. In 1962 Soviets and USA came in the brink of Nuclear confrontation over Cuba where the Soviets had placed strategic missiles capapble of hitting mainland USA. With superior naval forces, USA was able to blockade Cuba and despite Soviets appeals, Novgorod was unwilling to challenge the USN openly. The situation dissolved peacefully but left the socialistic block humiliated and clearly illustrated its inferiority in conventional naval operations. This sparked revival of the Carrier production in Novgorod and overall re-evaluation of the fleet opeational role. The ASW role still remained priority but alongside it new power-protection role was envisioned. This led to revival of amphibious operations which were give remarkably small attention after WWII despite their great achivements in the Pacific theatre.

Alongside with anti-air, ASW and strategical missiles, Novgorod had also developted anti-ship missiles to be launched from surface ships and submarines. However it was not until the 1967 sinking of Israeli destroyer Eilat by Egyptian missile-boats with Soviet P-15 Termit SSMs that fully revieled their effectivity. In RKKF this had almost as huge impact as the emerging of the submarine-launched Ballistic missiles decade before. Development of Anti-ship missiles were boosted and it was toughted to be the key to solve the disparity proplem against the wester fleet by giving the RKKF a force-multiplier that would tilt the balance to its favour. Almoust all available surface units were modified to give SSMs and new type of small missile ships were developted to operate in the Baltics where the narrow and concealed area gave such ships almoust perfect operational enviroment.

The main focus in SSM development was however to field long-range heavy SSM capapble to engage US carrier task forces. Massive development underwent not only to design the missile but with accurate-enough over-the-horizon targeting system. The missile that eventually emerged was the Meteor, supersonic SSM which was initially targeted with data from specialized aircraft using the Uspekh targeting system but later with Legenda satellite targeting system. Both systems were co-developted with the Soviets.

Introduction of the Meteor missile cut short of the revival of the large carrier construction. The massive Project 1160 Orel aircraft carrier remainded one-of ship and its follow-on units of the Project 1153 were reduced in size and given the Meteor missile system as well. In fact the original concept of the Project 1153 was to be sort of missile cruisers with Meteor SSM as the main armament. It was carry specialized targetting aircrafts alongside with fighter escort for air defence. In practice this concept was never fully adopted and the ships operated as normal aircraft carriers.

Where as carrier production was down-scaled, the surface ship development went into different direction culminating in the massive project 1165 nuclear missile cruisers designed to carry the Meteor missiles. The main unit to carry the Meteor was however the Project 952 SSGNs which were assigned into “first-strike” operations to shaddow USN carrier forces around the globe.

Another new development from the 70's that shaped the composition of the fleet was VSTOL aircrafts. Soviets had introduced Yak-38 VSTOL planes on their Project 1143 carriers and RKKF had also tested the domestic I-36 VSTOL plane in seaborne operations. It was considered attractive solution for amphibious support roles as the plane in theory did not need large carriers to operate but were able to take of even from destroyer-size ship. Similar development was done in the western block as well. Altough the I-36 was subsonic attack plane, it prooved that the VSTOL plane concept was viable in seaborne aviation and sparked the development of a supersonic VSTOL fighter that could change the whole carrier-brone aircraft operations. With VSTOL fighters with similar capability as conventional fighters, it would allow dispersion of the flightdecks into smaller light carriers which in turn would be cheaper and more economical than large super carriers.

In 1982 Novgorod laid down first of the two new light carriers that were to operate the new I-41 VSTOL fighters. The ships were based on the Soviet Project 1143 hull. Total of 3 units were build. They replaced the Project 1153 class in production and it were to follow several even smaller carriers similar size to the WWII era light-carriers. However the Cold War intensified after Ronald Reagan took over as US Precident and emerging talks about naval restrictions were canceled. Reagans policy was openly hostile towards the Soviet Union and Novgorod and secretly seeked to drive the two factions into armsrace that which the stagnating socialistic economies would not cope. In naval field it ment major boost in US shipbuilding pace.

Novgorod itself under new leadership decided to awnser and the carrier production was once again revived with the laid down of two Project 11437 class super-carriers. Alongside the carriers, shipbuilding industry was in fully geared up mode producing new surface units and submarines with unprecendent pace. In retrospect it reminded the great naval race prior to the WWI in 1914.

Unlike in 1914 the war never came. The Reagan plan succeeded as both Novgorod and Soviet Union were in the brink of bankrup at the end of 1980's. In 1988 there were already clear indications that the naval production and military industry as whole was not able to cope with the huge demand. The political situation had also changed. Soviet Union was forced to reduce its commitment in the eastern europe and spread of anti-socialist revolts spread all agross. It culminated in the fall of DDR in 1989 of which Novgorod was ready to prevent with force but backed down in the last minutes after Soviets reluctancy to back up Novgorod. After the re-unification of Germany, the whole Warshaw Pact collapsed in its large-scale form. In 1991 Soviet Union itself fell. It left Novgorod alone in the Sosialistic pact itself in nearly banktrupt state. In the start of 1992 special conditions law was issued which effectively ended almoust all military expenditures. The naval construction was stopped completely. The end of Cold War was nearly as dramatical event to the Novgorod as were the 1917 Revolution.

During the 90's the naval operations seized and most of the fleet was in ports rusting away due lack of funds to keep the ships operational. Only the newest and most important units were attempted to kept in serviceable conditions. Almoust all pre-1970 laid down units were scrapped. In meanwhile Novgorod tried to keep up open and friendly relations towards the west and to the newly emerged post-soviet Russia and former soviet republics. However situation started to change at the end of the decade culminating in the 1999 Kosovo crisis where the Novgorod leadership, partly becouse of internal pressure backed up openly Yugoslavian side and sended strong naval formation to the Mediterranean Sea. Despite being a show-off operation to the outside world, it revealed painfully what the years of negelect had done to the fleet. The flagship of the Northern Fleet, carrier Orel broke down even before leaving the Barents Sea and the operational status of the whole fleet was questionable.

The events of the Kosovo Crisis put a motion inside Novgorod to revival military spending and maintenance which was now possible after economical situation had improved in the new situation. For navy it ment that most of the commisioned ships were now fully maintained and new construction had begun once again. Construction of ships left in the shipyards since 1992 were returned. Troughout the first decade of the 2000's completely new units were laid down as well. New technologies were adopted such as Stealth and greater system-integration and modular construction.

Where as the initial new construction were based on the Cold War era designs or modifications of those, in the 2010's completely new designs begun to emerge. There were great effort to minimalize the ammount of hull and hull types as well as system fits. Tradditionally Novgorodian ships have been designed with its initial system fit making modernisations and refits difficoult and expensive. The new hulls such as the Project 12441 SRKs and Project 11630 Destroyers however were designed specially to be able to have almoust all of their major system replaced and modernised without too much effort.

With the international situation intensifying since 2014 due Russian re-annexing some of its lost break-away lands and Novgorod backing up its tradditional ally there have been talks of a new Cold War. However the complexity of the wolrds economical and political situation makes it impossible to divide into similar two-block stand-offs as the previous Cold War manifested there have been clearly raise of military spending agross the world and signs of new naval construction race between Novgorod, Russia, China and the Rest of the World.

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