Questions about Baltic tactics

[Mgellis]

A few questions that I hope folks can help me with...

I understand that in a World War III situation, the Soviets would want to seize control of the Baltic AND be able to transit to the North Sea. What I'm trying to figure out is how they would go about doing this. I'm trying to visualize how the Soviets would try to deal with the problems posed by the Baltic.

During the Cold War, of course, the Warsaw Pact controlled the entire southern shore of the Baltic. But the Baltic is so narrow that it would be hard to protect ships from missile boats, aircraft, etc. Was the plan simply to start with massive strikes and destroy as many ships, planes, etc. as possible as quickly as possible?

After the Cold War, would this still be the plan...with the assumption that they would need to make a lot more strikes because they're facing more opposition?

As for the transit...how on Earth did the Soviets think they were going to be able to get to the North Sea? The choke points around Denmark look like a nightmare. Was the plan, again, simply "Unless we have total air superiority, and have cleared out any artillery and NATO ships that could hit our ships, there's no way our ships can make it out of the Baltic...I guess we'll just have to kill them all. And keep our ships in port until we have done that. Except for the missiles boats we are willing to sacrifice to take out their missile boats because we know most of them will not make it back." ???

Sorry if these are dumb questions. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the tactics the Soviets would have used.

Thanks in advance.

[Blast33]

Are you familiar wit this map?

There is more on the internet about the Sovjet amphibious assault plans.

IMG_0068.jpeg (1.11 MiB) Viewed 276 times

[SunlitZelkova]

As far as the North Sea goes, this is something that would be the domain of the Northern Fleet just as much as it would be one of the Baltic Fleet.

Because of the poor characteristics of many early ballistic missile submarines (Zulu V, Golf I, Hotel I), they were assigned to targets in Europe instead of North America. Given some of their missiles were quite literally just Scuds launched from submarines, the North Sea would have been one launch location. I'd imagine that one option on the table would be to deploy surface forces and bombers in the area during the conventional phase of the conflict to try and clear it for the missile subs.

[HalfLifeExpert]

A few questions that I hope folks can help me with...

I understand that in a World War III situation, the Soviets would want to seize control of the Baltic AND be able to transit to the North Sea. What I'm trying to figure out is how they would go about doing this. I'm trying to visualize how the Soviets would try to deal with the problems posed by the Baltic.

During the Cold War, of course, the Warsaw Pact controlled the entire southern shore of the Baltic. But the Baltic is so narrow that it would be hard to protect ships from missile boats, aircraft, etc. Was the plan simply to start with massive strikes and destroy as many ships, planes, etc. as possible as quickly as possible?

Everything really depended on the WP assault into Denmark, which would have been the primary role of Polish ground forces, supported by Soviet troops and DDR Naval Infantry. I'm not sure how many airborne/air assault forces would play a role, because they might be concentrated on other sectors or partially held as an operational reserve.

The intent would have been to rapidly seize the Jutland Peninsula and the various Danish islands including Copenhagen. Assuming continued Swedish Neutrality, that would probably give the WP nominal access to the North Sea, as the Norwegians would naturally be concentrated up north. The WP would probably want to also seize the Kiel canal, but I doubt that would happen, as I think the Bundeswehr would do all they could to sabotage it.

The Danish and W. German navies would have to be wiped out, naturally, and several of the approaches would be mined. I think the WP could succeed in overrunning Denmark, but it would not be as rapid as they plan for. As much as Moscow would want a repeat of 1940 for Denmark, there's no way the Danes would allow that to ever happen again.

As for the transit...how on Earth did the Soviets think they were going to be able to get to the North Sea? The choke points around Denmark look like a nightmare. Was the plan, again, simply "Unless we have total air superiority, and have cleared out any artillery and NATO ships that could hit our ships, there's no way our ships can make it out of the Baltic...I guess we'll just have to kill them all. And keep our ships in port until we have done that. Except for the missiles boats we are willing to sacrifice to take out their missile boats because we know most of them will not make it back." ???

Personally, I think that breaking out through the Skagerrak was a pipe dream, even if Denmark was overrun. Early on in Cold War One, it could have been seen as an essential thing to do from a land-warfare standpoint, due to left over WW2 thinking which was of course losing relevance in the Nuclear world.

As for the latter half of Cold War One, I think continued preparations for the Danish assault could have been for a few reasons:

1) Seizing Denmark could have been considered more of an offensive-defensive purpose than as a springboard for a breakout. The advantage for the WP in seizing Denmark, realistically, would be to prevent a NATO move INTO the Baltic rather than a Soviet breakout. Additionally, neutralizing the Danes would ostensibly secure the northern flank for Soviet & DDR forces in Northern Germany.

2) The campaign being the chief role for the Polish forces could have been retained for political reasons, so as to make the Polish Communist leadership feel like they were contributing more, rather than just being reserves for the Soviet army.

3) An additional front would have the value of diverting NATO forces from central Germany, which both sides always considered to be the decisive theatre. Not pushing into the Jutland penninsula with the Polish Army would leave the Danes, some W. Germans, and probably British forces on the flank to the north.

After the Cold War, would this still be the plan...with the assumption that they would need to make a lot more strikes because they're facing more opposition?

I don't think it was ever really on the table after 1991. The frontlines have been pushed so far back that it's not really in the cards to try a breakout from the Baltic. And now, the situation is almost completely reversed there, with practically the entire shores of Baltic Sea being NATO territory, save for the short coasts of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad. I think the best the Russians can hope for there is just to inflict attrition losses on NATO forces moving up to reinforce Finland, Poland and the Baltic States. The current Russian Baltic Fleet's best hope would be to sortie it's diesel subs past the Gulf of Finland before hostilities commence.

[Blast33]

It took a while to find it, but this is an interesting read for the Soviet timeframe:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1982-02-08.pdf
Quite detailed from page 9 onwards.

[SunlitZelkova]

Post-1991 there were most certainly no plans to end any conflict with Russian troops in Calais. The focus of Russian defense policy switched to internal security and maintaining influence and/or control in the post-Soviet sphere, which is of course what the war with Ukraine is all about.

The Russian Armed Forces simply don't have the logistical capability to do something like overrun Western Europe. I think it is often forgotten how weak Russia is in comparison to the USSR, so much to the point that it openly dropped its no first use nuclear policy because of the weakness of its conventional forces.

[Quixotic1917]

Based on the force composition of the Baltic Fleet and existing translated plans documents, it appears the plan was more or less to "bastionize" the Baltic in a similar manner to the Okhotsk or Barents, but rather than bastionizing it for SSBNs, to bastionize it for the benefit of internal lines to bolster the central front and then prosecute a campaign of sea denial (not sea control!) over the North Sea.

The Baltic Fleet was very heavy on light combatants, diesel-electric submarines, and aviation and very light on surface combatants. The action in the Baltic to clear it would've been swift and decisive, ideally lasting less than a day. The more sea you deny beyond the Baltic is largely a bonus at that point, each day you spend delaying or hampering the arrival of American reinforcements is a victory in Fleet terms.