Received your book the other day…Very nicely done, and looking forward to your next title. I think once more word gets out about the quality of your research, you’ll realize great success. I’m hopeful that you’ll do a book on the Fleet Air Arm during the post-WW2 era.
To expand your Castle analogy for the Barent's Sea. Behind the walls of a castle, There are usually things like blacksmith's shop's, stables, granaries and barracks.. These buildings are often up against the curtain wall of your basic castle. You do not want flaming projectiles and the other nasty things in a siege coming over the walls. Granary destroyed, less food for everyone. Barracks totaled, your troops now have nowhere to rest out of the weather. Blacksmith trashed means no repairs to weapons or armour. This is why everyone tries to fight away from the castle. The castle walls and what is behind them, is the Soviet's Barent's Sea. Losing those building's is not an instant victory for the attacker. It does however, makes victory for the attacker much more likely in the long run. Even if the Soviet SSBN's escape from the Sea. They will have to transit to alternate firing locations. While moving, thats a large part of the Soviet deterent unable to be used as a direct threat.
The proposition of an invasion, from the sea, of the USSR's remote Arctic coast, reminds me of the proposition that the IJN could somehow have landed a significantly sized IJA ground force in Northern Australia in 1942. More particularly, not such much depositing it there, but what it was meant to achieve after it debarked.
My perspective of SNA comes from the period that I served in the U.S. Navy. During this period, the only real consistent “blue water” capability was the utilization of SNA. We were basically trained that the Soviet Navy’s primary function was to protect and support their submarine force, specifically their SSBN bastions. The other mission was anti-carrier warfare using SNA and long-range acft with anti-shipping missiles. The Soviet Navy also employed SSG/SSGN to launch anti-ship missiles. This culminating in the Oscar-class, however, SNA maintained their role of maritime patrol and long-range ASW ( Tu-142/Bear F ). Soviet (Russian)Naval Aviation is still a very important part of overall Russian defense strategy.
I think it depends a lot on where the carriers are when war breaks out. If one of them is stuck in the Black Sea or the Baltic when war breaks out, I think it's going to get taken out by German land based aircraft fairly quickly. If it's up North or in the Pacific, that's going to be very interesting indeed. In the Red Fleet, it's going to be an asset for the Northern Convoys at the very least. I'm not so sure about the Pacific theatre though, given how the Soviets basically stayed out of it until the Japanese fleet had been eliminated.
1:19:20 It feels strangley comforting when I'm worldbuilding for a SciFi Novel and I arrive (accidentally?) at similiar strategic conclusions to the realworld. But then again, "fighting OUTSIDE your own backyard is always a good idea" seems like such a basic concept not even Sun Tzu bothered writing it down.
Q: I have thing for a fictional Red Rosomak (ie. Wolverine, optionally padlewheel) training carrier on the Caspian, with German cooperaton, not unlike they historically did with the secret German panzer program, resulting in a more Soryu like Graf Zeppelin as well as a similar, 15-20k ton soviet carrier on the Black Sea and a 25-27k ton baltic one. Airgroups were to be heavily based on the I-15/153 family, with maybe moving towards retractable gear and closed canopy, like the F3F, with heavier emphasys on fighters - but equipped with the RS-82 rockets for light strike/AAA suppression. IDK, what would have been the torpedo wing. Maybe some push-pull, two (RADIAL) engined biplane?
Some comments: Russian navy conundrum is dating back to Crimean war (the original one, 1850s) How do we stop maritime superpower (UK back then) from landing everywhere from Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka to Arkhangelsk, to suburbs of Petersburg, to , well, of course Crimea. It kinda repeated itself in western intervention troops in the Russian Civil War 1917-1921. Regarding fleets capital ship continuing being carrier. Battleships were in the same place once. Until Kuantan happened.
Given the large number of amphibious raids conducted by the British in Norway during WWII, I am sure that Stalin had every reason to worry about landings on the White Sea coast. He and a number of his fellows, had to be worried about raids large scale and small, against their extensive coast, for intelligence gathering and sabotage.
Soviet Air Craft Carriers. One thing that may be a result of it would be the fitting out of the Graf Zeppelin wouldn't be delayed and Zeppelin would enter Service in 1940 and Flugzeugträger B would be most likely finished and enter Service in 1942. If Graf Zeppelin survives Weserübung, it would be a Desaster for the Soviet as it would hamper the Nordic Convoys massivly as well. And Having Graf Zeppelin there to scout would prevent some Desasters of the Kriesmarine. The Soviets can't operate Carriers against the Kriegsmarine as Germany had landbased Strike Aircraft in Norway. While Germany would have another tool against the Convoys. The Black Sea and Baltic is to small to operate one against the Luftwaffe and would be pushed in the Eastern Parts till some Bombers found them. Only in the Pacific the Aircraft Carrier would survive, where they didn't had a War going, but still using up ressources. So all in all it would be far worse for the Soviets having one. Only possible thing that would be viable is that the Soviets "sell" the Aircrafts Carriers to the US for 1-2 years while Saratoga and Enterprise are alone and "buy" them back when the Essex arrives. Together with Russian Officers which are "Engineering Observers" it would give the Soviets a lot of Expertise they may need later and some Carriers maybe build in the early 50's.
Interesting, but not sure I follow the land based aircraft argument preventing operation, as afterall that is what the British did in the Mediterranean, and whilst they got damaged - compared to the operations they successfully carried out it, it was both viable & worth it. Furthermore Northern Norway/Arctic is not as air power friendly as the Mediterranean is by a long shot - far fewer bases & far more difficult to supply. I think I'll respond properly in scuttlebutt 7 Yours sincerely Alex
actually answered this one in the video... basically it's because of the comprimises needed to be both a Short Take Off aircraft & a Barrier Assisted Recovery aircraft...
How viable would a carrier be in the northern fleet in the forties? One in the Pacific might be interesting to how the Japanese would react to that during their border conflict with the Russians in 1939.
In the 40s well that's the interesting thing, if it's infrastructure is set up in the 30s it will probably be fairly sustainable and along with cruisers, provide a level of soviet cover for the Artic convoys, may even make the Royal Soverign's experience less arduous
They had... doctrine? EDIT: Minus ASW helicopters on everything. EDIT 2: And a whole bunch of long-range patrol stuff. EDIT 3: Do you even Kuznetsov bro?
Well canada produces canadair cl 415, now cl 515 under viking, afaik cl are waterbombers, but also intended for maritime rescue, recon and antisubmarine warfare in theory. Not sure does rcaf uses them tho, i know here in croatia they are operated by our airforce, and they were used at least once for a big ship fire in open ocean, a vehicle carrier bound for venice or trieste, full of trucks from turkey or perhaps greece, can't recall, huge ship, canadairs saved the day that time, while croatian, slovenian and italian tugs cooled down the hull, the blaze inside has been taken care of by canadairs, and thus prevented huge ecological disaster off the bay of kvarner, the northwestern part of adriatic.
