Cold War Command: The Dramatic Story of a Nuclear Submariner

7 Submarine Activities in the Cold War

In October 1973 Lieutenant Dan Conley joined his first nuclear submarine, HMS Swiftsure. This vessel and her sisters were being constructed in response to the relentless build-up of the Soviet fleet and the increasing level of confrontation under the sea which had its beginnings at the start of the Cold War in the late 1940s.

After the Second World War the Soviet Union embarked upon a construction programme geared towards establishing a very large submarine force, which culminated in the 1970s with more than 350 boats. Potentially, the Russian submarine fleet had the capability to choke off lines of communication in the Atlantic and Pacific and to win at sea without pursuing an all-out war on land.

Consequently, a technological race started between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, where each had the respective aim of gaining and retaining superiority in this highly charged undersea confrontation. This, for the nations of the Western alliance, was crucial: if the alliance lost superiority at sea it would have lost the Cold War.

This arms race, besides incurring great expenditure of national treasure, cost the lives of several hundred submariners on both sides, as technology was pushed to the very edge of operational safety. Each side constantly jockeyed for position, both in equipment design and capability, and in operational performance at sea. In the end by the late 1980s, losing the extremely expensive technological challenge, the costs of this arms race contributed directly to the Soviet Union’s collapse. Staring into the abyss of financial bankruptcy, it was impotent to prevent both the break-up of its eastern European empire into constituent republics and the demise of what had been its all-powerful Communist Party.

In the post-war development of their conventional submarines, the Western naval powers, chiefly the United States, Britain and France, built up forces of submarines designed to destroy other submarines. These would be part of the vast armada of ships, aircraft and helicopters ranged against the Soviet submarine threat at a time when the memories of the experiences of the crucial war against the German U-boat were still fresh in the minds of military planners. Submarines have the advantage of stealth and with it the ability to approach and attack an enemy submarine undetected. Also much less vulnerable than ships and aircraft, they can deploy forward to choke points in the enemy’s backyard where maximum damage can be achieved. The new prime role for the West’s submarines was also reinforced by the consideration that in the first two decades after the war the Soviet surface navy was not seen as a major threat.

The anti-submarine role required streamlining of hulls and removal of guns and other external fittings both to reduce radiated noise, making the boats more difficult to counter-detect, and to improve sonar performance. A number of Second World War submarines were also enlarged to be able to take greater sized and more powerful main motors. This programme in the USN was known as the Greater Underwater Propulsion Programme (GUPPY), which gave the boats a maximum submerged speed of 15 knots instead of the 8 to 10 knots previously. This increase in speed further improved their anti-submarine capability. The Royal Navy converted eight boats of the wartime ‘T’ class to GUPPY-equivalent performance.

In their urgent quest for higher speeds and performance — as from 1943 onwards their U-boats were losing the sea battle — Germany developed experimental boats propelled by a fuel which made its own oxygen. Several boats of the Type XXII class were built, propelled by engines fuelled with concentrated hydrogen peroxide (high test peroxide — HTP) which does not require air to combust, but the war ended before they could be deployed. Exploiting this German technology, in the late 1950s the Royal Navy built two 800-ton prototype submarines which were HTP-propelled. However, although the two boats built, Excalibur and Explorer, reached speeds of 26 knots dived, the HTP proved to be highly volatile. Many fires and minor explosions occurred, so much so that Explorer earned the nickname ‘Exploder’. Fortunately, this hazardous technology was overtaken and made redundant by the advent of nuclear power at sea; this would revolutionise submarine propulsion. However, it did not entirely eclipse the modern diesel submarine, which is still a very potent weapon in littoral waters and, of course, is much less costly to build and maintain than the nuclear version. Several classes of the West’s modern diesel boats are fitted with air-independent propulsion (AIP) using fuel cell technology. This can give them several days’ duration at slow to moderate speeds without the need to surface or snort. If the potential threat nations acquire similar technology for their submarines, these boats, being extremely quiet and having extended endurance with AIP, would present a very difficult threat to counter.

In parallel to exploring the use of HTP for propulsion, the Royal Navy also tested this type of fuel in torpedoes, but this dangerous experiment came to an abrupt and violent halt in 1955 when a HTP-powered torpedo exploded in the submarine Sidon. At the time of the incident she was alongside in Portland Harbour, a fact that probably mitigated the death toll, but thirteen of her crew were killed and she sank at her berth. In 2000 a similar explosion aboard the Russian submarine Kursk occurred whilst she was at sea; the Kursk was totally destroyed with the loss of her entire crew of 118.

In 1955 the world’s first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus became operational. Despite its public image, nuclear power was to prove a much safer submarine propulsion. The Nautilus introduced a revolutionary change in submarine technology and capability. Fast, manoeuvrable, virtually unlimited in range and with no need to surface or snort, paradoxically, the nuclear submarine was to become particularly potent in the anti-submarine role, and was to be accorded very high priority in the West’s defence expenditure.

The first Soviet nuclear submarines were commissioned in 1959, but their nuclear plants were much less safe than their American counterparts. The crews of the first classes experienced many accidents and were exposed to high levels of background radiation. In expanding their submarine fleet, the Soviet Navy developed a number of differing types, each with a distinct purpose, all of which had to be met and outclassed by the navies of the Western alliance. In particular, they built both nuclear and diesel submarines (abbreviated SSGNs and SSGs respectively) which mounted anti-ship missiles which had the specific role of destroying the West’s strike carrier forces. The earlier versions of these types had to surface to fire their missiles and, accordingly, were very vulnerable to attack when preparing for weapon launch.

As their nuclear fleet expanded, there were numerous classes and designs with little heed to achieving the benefits of commonality and standardisation. The Soviets pursued quantity rather than quality and their first-generation boats were very noisy and crude in design. Furthermore, their missiles used very hazardous liquid fuel propellant, essentially German V2 missile technology, always risky in a submarine environment. Additionally, their crews were mainly conscripts, often of varied ethnic and language backgrounds and on the whole were poorly trained. In summary, the Soviet submarine fleet was afflicted by a range of serious shortcomings which militated against safe operation and consequently a number of boat losses and major accidents were to occur.

In 1959 the United States Navy commissioned their first SSBN, the USS George Washington. She was armed with the solid fuel Polaris ballistic missile and was followed by forty similar submarines. These were built with an average construction time of less than two years in comparison to the seven or eight years it now takes to build this type of submarine. The Polaris programme was a tremendous technical and engineering achievement involving large numbers of highly skilled technicians and craftsmen and numerous American companies, both large and small, which collectively contributed successfully to the monumental effort involved. Because the Polaris missiles had a maximum range of only 2,500 miles, the boats were based in ports which were relatively close to their patrol areas, with facilities being established in the Holy Loch (Scotland), Rota (Spain) and Guam in the Pacific.

The establishment of American nuclear missile sites in Turkey was to the Soviet psyche a close pressing of its borders, a threat it found intolerable and which it countered by the establishment of launching sites for nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. In turn, this produced a reaction in America, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. This unequivocal nuclear threat to continental America produced an equally uncompromising response from Washington. President John F Kennedy imposed a naval blockade of the island of Cuba, aimed at preventing the Soviets shipping in the missiles and other arms. During the weeks of escalation of tension, the world stood at the brink of nuclear war. The manifestation of their worst fears in the holocaust of Mutually Assured Destruction appeared to people across the globe to be very possible. Eventually, however, Nikita Krushchev and his Politburo backed down and ordered their ships to put about and head back from whence they had come. The missile sites already built were dismantled and the world breathed again. As a quid pro quo, the USA disestablished their Turkish missile sites. However, it had been a dreadful warning, and called from the Americans leadership and coolness almost unparalleled in human history.

During the weeks of uncertainty and in response to the American blockade of Cuba, lacking substantial surface warships which were capable of operating at a long distance from the homeland, and realising that their nuclear submarines were not reliable enough to deploy at such long distance, Moscow sent four Foxtrot-class diesel submarines into Cuban waters. Each of these was armed with two nuclear torpedoes which they were authorised to use if attacked by American forces. All four boats were detected by US anti-submarine units and to coerce them to reveal themselves and surface, practice depth charges were dropped onto them. These charges had only a small amount of explosive, but on detonating under the water they made a loud report. In the dreadful conditions onboard the Russian submarines, which were entirely unsuited to operating in tropical waters with temperatures nudging into the 50s, oxygen levels low, and the propeller and sonar sounds of numerous anti-submarine warships above them, such explosions were very unnerving. One of the Foxtrot commanders seriously considered firing a nuclear torpedo at the harassing forces, but was persuaded by his political officer (at the time all Russian submarines carried an officer appointed by the Communist Party) not to do so. Had the submarine captain destroyed an American warship using a nuclear weapon, the inevitable American retaliation might have led to total war. This was the nearest the two Cold War superpowers came to a nuclear exchange.

To the Soviets the crisis highlighted the limitations of their existing naval power and under the stewardship of the head of their navy, Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, they thereafter built a navy capable of global power projection, spearheaded by a force of nuclear submarines, which culminated in numbers and capability in the late 1980s.

In 1963 the Royal Navy commissioned HMS Dreadnought, the first British SSN. Although built at Vickers Barrow, in order to hasten its entry into service the hull design and entire propulsion plant were of American origin. This very beneficial transfer of technology had been negotiated by Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was First Sea Lord during the period 1955–59 and who had excellent relations with his American opposite, Admiral Arleigh Burke. The first nuclear submarine of British design was HMS Valiant, which entered service in 1966. Although also constructed and fitted out by Vickers, her powerful reactor was of American design but built in Britain.

Great Britain was to build up to a force of twenty nuclear submarines in the 1980s but, contentiously, at a cost to the remainder of the Royal Navy. In particular, there were limited resources available to expend on air defence for the Fleet, including its anti-aircraft missile systems and carrier-embarked fighter aircraft. This vulnerability was to be emphatically demonstrated in the Falklands War, when the fragility of the Royal Navy’s air defences resulted in the loss of important ships, which severely prejudiced the conduct of the operation and very much threatened its successful outcome.

During the late 1950s it was evident that Britain’s V-bomber nuclear strike force with its freefall bombs was becoming increasingly susceptible to destruction before reaching its targets. Accordingly, a much less vulnerable stand-off capability to deliver the nuclear warheads was sought and, after desultory efforts to develop a home-grown version were abandoned, the RAF put its hopes upon the American Skybolt air-to-ground missile programme. This was cancelled in 1962 and, unless an alternative to the V-bomber was urgently developed, the United Kingdom faced the prospect of an ineffective nuclear deterrent.

At a meeting between President Kennedy and Prime Minister MacMillan in Nassau in the Bahamas in October 1962, the former agreed that the United States would provide Britain with Polaris missiles and technology. Six years later the first British SSBN, HMS Resolution, the lead vessel in a class of four, deployed on patrol on time and on budget. In 1969 the V-bomber force was stood down from providing quick reaction alert to counter the threat of nuclear attack. Since that date there has been at least one British SSBN on patrol at sea, ready to fire its missiles at short notice. From the mid 1990s Trident submarines assumed the role of providing the United Kingdom’s independent deterrent.

Meanwhile, in the 1960s the SSN, the nuclear attack submarine, had established itself as the West’s premier means of countering the Soviet submarine threat. Stealthy and fitted with first-rate listening sonars, they were to have marked acoustic superiority over their Soviet opponents. A further big advantage to the West was the very highly classified seabed sound surveillance system (SOSUS), listening and tracking acoustic arrays established on the seabed in the deep water of strategic areas of the oceans. SOSUS exploited an acoustic phenomenon known as the deep sound channel. It was capable of detecting the presence of a potentially hostile submarine over immense distances, sometimes exceeding thousands of miles on early classes of Soviet nuclear submarines. Nevertheless, it had its weaknesses: it was not feasible to set up in shallower or more confined seas, such as the Mediterranean, and could have been easily destroyed or debilitated in war. Furthermore, it lacked the ability to acquire an accurate bearing and therefore made the exact positioning of a submarine impossible.

In consequence, the location of a SOSUS contact by anti-submarine forces could take a long time, sometimes without success.

When in the 1970s the West’s SSNs were fitted with passive listening sonars towed astern on long arrays, British and American boats gained the ability to make long-range acoustic detections of Soviet submarines. At this time the counter-detection capability of Russian submarines was very limited, enabling NATO submarines to follow or, in the jargon, trail, Soviet boats for prolonged periods undetected, sometimes for weeks or even months. Trailing of Russian SSBNs was a priority because it both gathered intelligence on their mode of operations and conferred on the pursuing submarine the ability to destroy its quarry before it was able to launch a nuclear strike in the event of hostilities. Thus successful and persistent trailing offered a further advantage in this risky but essentially defensive counter to any Soviet aggression. But the boot was occasionally on the other foot: Soviet counter-detections did occur and a Russian commander could become aggressive, turning directly towards the following submarine and making use of speed and active sonar to harass the hunter — now turned prey.

For their own part, the Soviets explored different avenues of submarine technology. In the 1970s they introduced the Alfa-class SSN. Highly automated, with a small number of crew (about forty instead of the 120 typical in British or American nuclear submarines), the Alfa was far faster than its Western counterparts. With its high-power liquid metal cooled reactor it could do over 40 knots, whilst its titanium hull enabled it to go to more than twice the operating depth of the West’s deepest diving submarines. However, the liquid metal cooled reactor incurred severe technical problems and there were costs for its performance in terms of safety and quietness. Furthermore, the titanium hulls were immensely costly and consequently this class of boat was not successful.

Of course, the Soviets did not sit on their hands regarding the West’s superiority and what they could not develop themselves they sought through espionage. In the 1950s they established a spy ring, the ringleaders — Lonsdale, Houghton and Gee — at Britain’s Portland Underwater Research Establishment acquiring access to very valuable sonar technology. Perhaps most damaging was the Walker/Whitworth spy ring operating in the United States from 1968 to 1985. These individuals, being communications specialists, were able to select and pass ultra-secret signal traffic to the Soviets, in the process revealing the extent of the West’s huge acoustic and anti-submarine superiority. In response, the Russians undertook a noise-quieting programme in their newest classes of submarines as a matter of the highest priority. Later Russian submarine classes have consequently been much quieter and the West’s marked acoustic advantage was eroded from the mid 1980s onwards.

From the late 1940s the United States Navy deployed submarines on intelligence-gathering operations in the seas off the main Soviet Union naval bases in the Barents Sea and in the Western Pacific in the Sea of Okhotsk and off Vladivostok. Submarines operating covertly in the midst of Soviet naval forces provided hard intelligence which could not be gained by satellite surveillance. Furthermore, unaware of the intelligence-gathering submarine’s presence, the Soviets undertook weapon tests which otherwise they would not have carried out in the overt presence of a NATO warship or aircraft. Besides gathering information on Soviet weapons and tactics, an objective of these operations was to provide early warning of a military build-up which could be a precursor to hostilities.

A submarine has several intelligence-gathering techniques at its disposal using visual, electronic and acoustic equipment. The underwater hull survey is a particularly challenging procedure, whereby a submarine takes station right underneath a ‘target’ warship as she makes way through the water, positioned below her keel at a depth where the raised periscopes are about 15ft below the warship’s hull. Moving along the length of the hull, very close visual observation is gained of its features including sonars, propellers and other underwater fittings. This technique can also be employed on ships at anchor, but the anchor cable is an obstruction which clearly has to be avoided. If attempting this on a surfaced submarine there is also the risk of it diving unexpectedly on top of the observing submarine.

During intelligence-gathering missions, some occurring at close range, it was inevitable that collisions happened, particularly between two submarines. These may have amounted to no more than a glancing blow, but severe damage was sometimes inflicted. Despite these high risks, no submarine has been lost in this way, nor is it believed that any fatalities have been incurred. Nevertheless, an unexpected underwater collision is a very alarming experience to those involved.

The Royal Navy started to participate with the United States Navy in the Barents Sea operations in the 1950s and in due course extended their intelligence-gathering to Soviet naval forces in the Baltic and Mediterranean. For diesel boats the long snort passage to the Barents had its own challenges. In the winter months their crews incurred the stress of prolonged periods at periscope depth, conducting surveillance in conditions of near permanent darkness and in often violent seas. The control room watchkeepers worked in a very dark environment, the only illumination being their faintly red-lit systems and equipment dials. To allow their eyes to adjust quickly to varying levels of lighting, off-watch officers endured living in constant red lighting in their wardroom for weeks on end.

Events which occurred during these operations, routine or otherwise, were and still remain very highly classified, tightly controlled and not discussed even within the submarine community. However, inevitable leaks of information occurred from time to time within naval circles, for example the presence of HMS Sealion off Nova Zemlya in the early 1960s to gather information upon Soviet nuclear bomb tests.

In 1968 a Royal Navy SSN was for the first time committed to Barents Sea operations. Unlike their American colleagues, the Royal Navy designated a single specially-equipped submarine for the task, rather than affording a number of submarines the experience. Fitted with specialist listening and observation devices, this practice allowed the nominated British submarine crew to build up expertise in intelligence-gathering in these Arctic waters while minimising the additional costs incurred in the equipment fit.

The first British SSN dispatched on this task was HMS Warspite. In October 1968 she was involved in a collision with a Soviet Echo-class missile submarine. The Russians subsequently reported that their submarine was operating normally when it suddenly began listing to starboard, its hull shaking. The boat was consequently rapidly surfaced, whereupon her commanding officer spotted another submarine’s silhouette through his periscope. With the conning tower hatch jammed, the crew used a sledge-hammer to open it, and it was several minutes before the commander could climb to the bridge, by which time the stranger had disappeared. Back at base, Soviet repair crews discovered a hole in the Echo’s outer casing, described as so large that ‘a truck could easily have driven through it’. On the basis of identifying navigation light remnants and some metal fragments stuck in the wreckage, the Soviets concluded that they had been hit by a foreign submarine. Meanwhile, Warspite limped back to Faslane with a badly damaged fin and the cover story that she had hit an iceberg.

In due course Warspite was replaced by Courageous as the designated and specially-fitted submarine for operations in the Barents Sea. During one patrol, whilst gathering data on an anti-ship missile firing, the latter’s specialist Russian linguists, who were tuned into the radio frequency of an attendant destroyer which had VIPs embarked, reported extreme alarm onboard the destroyer when in error the missile hit it instead of the target barge. After Courageous there has been at least one Swiftsure- or subsequently Trafalgar-class boat designated for Barents Sea intelligence-gathering operations.

Among the nations of the NATO alliance, this elaborate game of cat and mouse was not solely the preserve of the British and Americans. Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia have also conducted submarine intelligence-gathering patrols, demonstrating their own considerable achievements with remarkable resilience and skill.

Apart from the gathering of very valuable and exclusive intelligence, the experience of patrol operations provided NATO nations’ submarine crews with invaluable training, manifesting the West’s will and ability to confront successfully Russian naval forces in war. Indeed, it is remarkable to consider the West’s submarines were the only element of its military forces which during the Cold War operated undetected as close as five yards from the opposition.

By the 1970s the Soviet Navy was much larger, more capable and had truly global reach. Besides maintaining a substantial permanent naval force in the Mediterranean, with normally a large number of naval warships anchored off Libya, the Russians periodically deployed significant numbers of submarines into the Atlantic, demonstrably projecting their own sea power and potentially seeking out NATO SSBNs. Moscow also established a network of intelligence-gathering auxiliaries, known as AGIs, stationed off naval bases of interest. These invariably shadowed Western naval forces when they were undertaking major exercises. Almost permanent residence was taken up off Malin Head, the most northern point of Ireland, by one such auxiliary, its purpose to monitor American submarines proceeding to or from their depot ship in the Holy Loch, and British boats on passage to or from Faslane and the Clyde.

The Russians also embarked upon a very comprehensive oceanographic research programme, gathering extensive hydrographic and ocean features information, constructing and operating a large number of oceanographic research vessels to achieve this. Besides enhancing the ability of their own submarines and ships to exploit the environment to the best strategic and tactical advantage, the programme potentially offered methods of detecting the West’s submarines other than by acoustics, including wake detection or disturbance of the sea’s micro-organic structure. However, achieving successful detections using such methods remained elusive.

With the advent in the 1980s of the massive 26,000-ton Soviet Typhoon-class SSBN with its missiles of much greater range, the Soviets started to withdraw their ballistic missile submarines from the Atlantic to home waters into so-called bastions — specifically protected areas — or under the Arctic ice pack. On the West’s part, with the introduction of the much longer range Trident missile, America began to close its forward SSBN bases, in 1992 ending their presence in the Holy Loch.

These changes marked a new period of Cold War submarine operations. An expensive stalemate seemed to guarantee the peace of the world as the pioneering days passed into memory. Nevertheless, these had been remarkable. In 1958 the USS Nautilus made a passage under the Arctic pack ice from east to west, leaving the Pacific and heading through the Bering Straits between Alaska and Russia and leaving from the ice in the Greenland Sea. She was the first submarine to do so and the following year USS Skate surfaced at the North Pole. Since then there have been many British and American submarine operations under the ice, including torpedo test firings, the latter demonstrating the SSN’s capability to engage and destroy the enemy successfully in this environment. Equally, Russian submarines became adept in operating under the ice, including surfacing through the ice to conduct ballistic missile firings.

Most of the Arctic ice pack is about 8ft thick with pressure ridges going down to around 50ft and the thickest ice an SSN can penetrate is about 6ft. Particularly in the summer, there will be areas of open water known as polynyas, and as the areas of sea ice contract owing to climate change, the frequency of these is increasing. In winter, polynyas, having refrozen, with their thinner ice features offer the SSN a surfacing location should they need to do so.

However, operating under the ice does have its risks, with sometimes a margin of only 25ft between the ice cover above the submarine and the seabed below it. During early American submerged passages of the shallow Bering Straits, one submarine encountered ice all the way down to the seabed and found itself in a canyon with ice closing in on all sides. Her commander had to stop and, using the boat’s ability to hover, reversed course whilst stationary, during which the crew hoped and prayed that they could then get out the way they came in. Under the ice any accident or technical failure, such as loss of propulsion or navigation systems, can have very dangerous consequences. A serious fire on board a submarine in this environment is a particular hazard, forcing the submarine to surface through the ice or in open water to clear out the smoke. Such a fire occurred under the Arctic pack ice aboard the British SSN HMS Tireless and two of her crew lost their lives in consequence. If a submarine becomes stuck under the ice owing to catastrophic loss of propulsion, even if she is able to communicate her plight and position, a swift rescue would be impossible. The assembly of assistance in such circumstances must inevitably be a race against time insofar as the boat’s crew are concerned.

Throughout this period, both sides were pushing the bounds of technology and losses were inevitably going to occur. Accidents and fatalities are an increased risk in submarines and only add to the normal hazards of seafaring. Shortly before the Second World War the submarine HMS Thetis flooded during post-build sea trials and most of those on board were lost, and in 1950 HMS Truculent was involved in a collision with a merchant ship in the Thames Estuary. Most of the crew were killed when it sank. As related in an earlier chapter, the submarine Affray disappeared in the English Channel in 1951 with the loss of its entire crew. The wreck was subsequently located off Alderney, but the cause of the tragedy has never been established.

In August 1949 the first of the American intelligence-gathering operations in the Barents Sea ended with loss of life when the diesel boat USS Cochino, in very heavy seas and in company with her sister vessel the USS Tusk, suffered a battery explosion. The Cochino subsequently sank and seven crewmen died during the rescue operation by the Tusk. The incident emphasised the very unforgiving environment of the stormy North Norwegian and Barents Seas.

The United States Navy lost two SSNs and their entire crews in the 1960s

— Thresher in 1963 and Scorpion in 1968. The USS Thresher had emerged from refit to undertake trials in the western Atlantic when she suffered a major flood in the engine room. A seawater pipe joint had fractured and the effects of the flooding caused the nuclear reactor to shut itself down automatically. With the main propulsion lost, owing to the weight of the flooding water, the boat slowly slid backwards into the abyss. Her ballast blowing system was not fit for purpose and after a short period of use its valves froze up, rendering useless the submarine’s only means of reaching the surface. As the Thresher sank deeper and deeper, her hull compressed and the rate of descent increased. It must have been a terrifying death for the crew, watching their gauges register an accelerating increase in depth and unable to do anything to reverse it. The submarine imploded into very small pieces at a depth of over 2,000ft, where the hull was under more than one million tons of pressure. Although the wreck of Scorpion has been located in 9,000ft in the mid Atlantic, the cause of her loss remains uncertain, although, as related in an earlier chapter, a battery explosion may have resulted in the boat plunging below its collapse depth.

As stated previously, the Soviet submarine force was large and had many different classes of submarine, most of which embarked weapons that had dangerous features. Moreover, its crews were often poorly trained and their boat manning levels inadequate. Quoting one Soviet submarine captain who took his Northern Fleet-based Victor-class submarine to the Mediterranean, lamenting the incompetence of members of his crew: ‘During the deployment the crew did their best to kill themselves and three achieved it.’ In November 1970 the Russians lost a November-class SSN in the Bay of Biscay. This was the first of several of their nuclear submarines to sink, adding to the post-war loss of six diesel submarines.

As well as outright losses of Russian submarines, sometimes involving the death of the entire crew, many serious accidents occurred. Amongst the worst examples of a hazardous boat was the K19, a Hotel-class ballistic missile submarine. This boat featured in the film K19: The Widowmaker starring Harrison Ford, the theme of which focused upon a very serious reactor accident which killed several of her crew. Incidentally, one of its crew members, a cook named Vladimir Romanov, having made a significant amount of money on leaving the Soviet Navy, in due course became the owner of Scottish Premier Division football club, Heart of Midlothian.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic losses was that of SSBN K219, some six hundred miles northeast of Bermuda in 1986. Looking very similar to the American George Washington class, this type of submarine had been given the NATO code name Yankee. The K219 suffered a missile explosion when the weapons officer allowed fuel leaking from one of the missiles to come into contact with seawater. The missile effectively ignited in its tube, blowing the hatch open, spilling out its nuclear warheads, and killing several of its crew. The submarine subsequently surfaced, but it was so badly damaged by the explosion that it sank a few days later in deep water, taking its remaining fifteen missiles and warheads with it. Two years after the K219’s sinking, the Russians dispatched a survey ship to investigate the wreck using a deep-dive mini-submarine. The K219 was discovered sitting upright on the seabed, but it is rumoured that its missile hatches were open and the missiles and warheads gone.

Despite their ingenuity, the Russians lost the technological race of the Cold War, particularly in respect of submarine operations, almost bankrupting themselves in the process. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, their submarine-building programme all but halted and although in recent years the Russian Federation has again started constructing submarines and warships, its navy is a shadow of its former self. The old Soviet submarine force is now a big environmental hazard, with nuclear-contaminated submarine hulks dumped in many places, including the Kara Sea. At the time of writing, its force level is now just over fifty submarines, down from the 350 or so at the height of the Cold War. Nevertheless, very capable and potent vessels are coming off the stocks and there is no room for complacency in the West.

The Royal Navy also now has a much smaller submarine force consisting of four SSBNs and seven SSNs, compared to the thirty boats it had in 1989. This small force is still highly capable and the Tomahawk cruise missile has given British SSNs a new role of land attack in post-Cold War conflagrations such as Iraq, Kosovo and Libya. Meanwhile, the British government is committed to replacing the four current Trident-armed SSBNs as they come to the end of their lives in the 2020s. However, for a variety of reasons, construction costs are increasing almost exponentially.

On the American side, many submarine bases have been closed or downsized, and from its peak level in the 1980s of forty SSBNs and ninety SSNs, the United States Navy has contracted for fourteen Ohio-class and about fifty SSNs, including four Ohio-class boats converted to launch Tomahawk missiles. As in Britain, submarine construction and equipment costs have risen significantly and issues of affordability cast doubt whether even this force level will be sustainable in the future. SOSUS has been stood down as an operational system and is on a care and maintenance basis.

For the foreseeable future, the West’s nuclear deterrent will primarily be vested in SSBNs. Meanwhile, its submarine forces continue to conduct operational patrols, monitoring and intelligence-gathering among the naval forces of potential threats, such as Iran and China, in addition to maintaining a watch on Russian activities.