Soviet ASW Developments

Abstract

The Soviet Navy or VMF (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot) exhibited no great overt interest in ASW prior to the development of American SSBNs.¹ It had no long ocean sea-lanes to protect, and the primary naval concern was to interdict enemy forces approaching the homeland from ocean areas. In the early 1950s US naval carrier aircraft were given a nuclear strike capability, and the Soviet Navy increasingly concentrated on systems and exercises to counter that threat. With the appearance of the Polaris missile submarines in the early 1960s, Soviet declaratory policy designated anti-SSBN warfare as a major naval mission.² Open-ocean ASW-specialised surface ships, aircraft, and submarines were acquired, and their numbers were sufficiently adequate by 1973 to allow ASW to form a major part of large exercises outside home and near waters.³