The Soviet Naval Challenge
HERALD, GEORGE W.
The Soviet Naval Challenge Paris The world does not know how close it often comes to general war. Two weeks ago, for instance, four Soviet warships were caught right in the middle of a gun battle...
...Reports that the Algerians may lease the former French base of Mers-el-Kebir to Moscow have so far remained without foundation...
...and the Levantine coast, east of Cyprus...
...Although the French Navy under the command of Admiral de Sciti-vaux is no longer officially integrated into nato, it remains resolutely pro-Allied and plays a significant role in this defense effort...
...While they are not exactly nostalgic for Trafalgar, they argue with some reason that the "lake" is simply too small for the two superpowers to fool around in...
...The vessels of the Sixth Fleet are dispersed over a large area and difficult to locate...
...and 10-12 submarines, one with a nuclear launching capability...
...To meet this situation, nato headquarters in Naples maintains a naval base on Malta for British, Italian, Greek, and Turkish ships, two tactical air forces in Vicenza, Italy, and Izmir, Turkey, and various commands of land troops in the area...
...Egypt has blocked the Suez Canal, and the straits at Istanbul mainly serve as a passageway for Soviet ships...
...The U.S...
...The concept was perpetuated by the British, who turned the inland waterway into a highway for trade with India and Hong Kong...
...The modern jet aircraft carried by the fleet have a striking radius of over 1,000 miles...
...Marines reinforced with armor and artillery...
...The Russian fleet no longer has any true naval base of its own in the region, since it has been obliged to abandon the elaborate submarine pens and other installations on the island of Saseno, off Valona, Albania...
...Sixth Fleet, however, is still the key striking force...
...In view of the Soviet infiltration in Egypt, Syria and Algeria over the last two years, some nato Allies strongly suspect this is Moscow's aim, and as long as Russia's objectives are unclear the tension in the area is bound to continue...
...Navy gradually took over many of the tasks previously assumed by Britain, the Mediterranean remained a "Western lake...
...Malta has become independent...
...Soviet vessels did not hesitate to weave their way right in between the American warships, at times coming within a few yards...
...During the naval exercise "Eden-Apple" last fall, for example, the French aircraft carrier Foch was dispatched from the Atlantic to participate in the maneuvers...
...In the case of the Soviet fleet, ships have been continually coming and going, if only to make it more difficult for the West to keep track of them...
...Ever since Roman times, the Mediterranean has been considered Mare Nostrum, "our sea...
...Its presence has become a fact of life for nato and has obliged the Allies to change their whole strategy...
...Navy base in Spain...
...Of the three gates to the Mediterranean, only Gibraltar remains under British control...
...That day will probably never come...
...Today, the Russians find themselves at last strong enough to try and make their old dream come true...
...In the best capitalist tradition, the Russians are out to conquer foreign markets...
...Armed like a cruiser and equipped to fire guided missiles, the Moskva, after the model of the American lph, also has enough space to carry marine landing troops...
...The United States, Britain and Italy form the nucleus of the new command...
...Or will there eventually be room enough to accommodate everyone in the inland George W. Herald, a frequent contributor here, is a veteran foreign correspondent now based in Paris...
...following the Communist defeats in the Spanish and Greek civil wars, they have made no new attempts to change domestic regimes around it...
...For the past 18 months, it has had to rely mainly on the harbor facilities of Port Said and Alexandria in Egypt, and Latakia and Tartous in Syria...
...The French seem especially to long for the era when they and the British had the more or less exclusive use of the Mediterranean as a playground for their sailors...
...Nonetheless, a general pattern has emerged over the past few months: At least 30 and sometimes up to 60 Russian craft are present in the Mediterranean at all times...
...the Balearic Islands, east of Gibraltar...
...By displaying their naval power, they want to establish a long-disputed right of passage...
...The British have already contributed a squadron of Shackle-ton reconnaissance planes and will soon put an aircraft carrier at marairmed's disposal on a permanent basis...
...As long as the game is on, de Gaulle will side with the West, but he fervently hopes for the day when both the U.S...
...The very nature of naval vessels—unlike such fixed entities as harbors, airfields and fortresses—requires that they remain constantly in motion...
...In this context, it is significant that the tonnage of their merchant marine has tripled since 1960, and is expected to double once more by 1980...
...According to Allied intelligence data, the Soviet Mediterranean Naval Command recently had 50-odd naval vessels moving about the eastern Mediterranean on one given day...
...Under these circumstances, the Soviet Navy has systematically developed self-supporting fleets independent of shore facilities...
...Task Force 62 is a 2,000-strong landing team of U.S...
...Since 1967, the Soviets have thus anchored and refueled in shallow waters outside territorial limits near such places as the island of Alboram, north of Morocco...
...Rota, the main U.S...
...That means the Russian Navy has stopped and rested in many cases right under the noses of the Allies...
...Just how serious is the menace, and what is being done to cope with it...
...By George W. Herald sea that has frequently been called the "cradle of civilization...
...Scared by such provocative acts, many Mediterranean countries would like to see Mare Nostrum returned to its "original owners...
...Its job is to coordinate air surveillance throughout the Mediterranean and keep track of Soviet units, both surface and submarine...
...Thus the West's old nightmare that the Russians may one day be able to threaten the "soft underbelly" of Europe has come true...
...If an artillery shell had hit one of the Russian vessels, Moscow could well have seized the pretext to intervene, and Port Said, by a fateful chain of circumstances, might have become a new Sarajevo...
...Its most important mission, though, is antisubmarine work...
...Since 1961, France has left the military structure of nato...
...20 auxiliary units, such as tankers and supply vessels, plus 10 intelligence trawlers...
...Even after World War II when the U.S...
...A perplexing incident occurred during recent Allied maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean...
...five destroyer escorts...
...Moscow's major handicap is that it does not possess a single aircraft carrier in these waters, nor for that matter even one air base from which its Navy could be covered...
...They are protected by a highly sophisticated early warning system, with radar-equipped destroyers fanned out around carriers to detect potential enemies, and constant aircraft reconnoitering several hundred miles away from the main task force...
...two cruisers, one equipped with guided missiles...
...Moreover, since the beginning of 1969, French reconnaissance squadrons have been cooperating on a continual basis with Maritime Aircraft Mediterranean (marairmed), a nato outfit officially activated on November 21, 1968...
...Task Force 61 is a squadron of amphibious craft—attack, transport and cargo ships, mine sweepers and various assault vessels...
...It is divided into four task forces...
...This does not mean all these ships are there now, or that they have not been joined by others...
...It indicates, too, that the new techniques of auxiliary support make it possible for Moscow to conduct a more aggressive naval strategy than in the past, particularly through greater emphasis on long-range submarines, landing craft and new types of vessels, like helicopter carriers...
...the Galite Islands, off the north Tunisian coast...
...In fact, the most interesting Soviet ship in the Mediterranean is the Moskva, which so far has only one sister vessel, the Leningrad...
...seven destroyers, six equipped with guided missiles...
...Another little-known fact is that France recently rented 4,400 pounds of enriched uranium to Italy for fueling its new nuclear-powered navy vessel Enrico Fermi...
...By establishing a full-scale naval presence in the Mediterranean, Moscow has challenged nato's southern flank...
...A similar difficulty exists in the case of permanent naval bases...
...Finally, Task Force 63 takes care of the logistics, functioning all at once as a mobile grocery store, repair shop, hardware depot, and fueling station...
...and Greece and Turkey, two nato members, have almost gone to war over Cyprus...
...Their main goal, dating from Tsarist times, has been to attain a high degree of oceanic mobility...
...The threat of such a sudden conflict persists not only in Egyptian waters but in many other areas of the Mediterranean where the Soviet Navy is on the prowl...
...Like the British, they regard the Mediterranean above all as a path to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean...
...Thus Soviet landing operations would have to be carried out under dismal conditions, as far as the vital element of air support is concerned...
...These included the helicopter carrier Moskva...
...Sixth Fleet and the Soviet Navy will go home...
...All these Soviet efforts have created an entirely new situation for the West...
...It is Russia's first major helicopter carrier, capable of transporting 20-30 helicopters and launching them from four pads...
...This explains why it is using so many auxiliary vessels in the Mediterranean: They are virtually floating bases that permit the Russians to operate at great distances from home, and without regard to the friendliness of nearby countries...
...That is at least one reason why they are pressing so hard for a break in the Middle East stalemate, and why the French support them...
...Most experts believe that Allied resources in the Mediterranean are more than sufficient to respond to any action that the Soviet fleet might undertake...
...The Russians and Americans are in the Mediterranean to stay, for both feel they have a legitimate stake in the area...
...Admiral Martin, the Sixth Fleet's commander, tried in vain to warn the interlopers off by signals and loud hailer messages in Russian...
...Like its Soviet counterpart, it has no shore base and is able to sustain itself continuously at sea by means of supply vessels...
...At present, the Sixth Fleet consists of approximately 50 ships, 25,-000 men and 200 airplanes...
...Are Moscow's new ambitions as a maritime power bound to lead to an East-West clash...
...But the power equation could be changed if the Russians managed to gain military or political control over part of the Mediterranean coastline...
...Only when he ordered his units to adopt full-speed sailing on a zigzag course did the Russians finally decide that the game was becoming too risky, and vanish on the horizon...
...Kithira, south of Greece...
...the Hurd bank, east of Malta...
...Yet the Russians do not necessarily see the waterway as a prize in itself...
...three mine sweepers...
...The principal one is Task Force 60, made up of two large attack carriers, two cruisers with surface-to-air missiles, rocket-launched antisubmarine weapons, and antisubmarine helicopters...
...The changes in control began at the start of this decade...
...An early reopening of the Suez Canal, the French claim, would be the best way to take the sting out of the Soviet naval presence in the area and turn the Mediterranean back into a sea of peace...
...four amphibious craft, one of them an Alligator capable of landing either 1,200 men or between 40-50 amphibious tanks...
...Two weeks ago, for instance, four Soviet warships were caught right in the middle of a gun battle the Arabs and Israelis were waging across the Suez Canal, in the sector between El Kantara and Port Said...
...the Gulf of Hammamet...
Vol. 52 • March 1969 • No. 6
