Our country has built a modern Navy and sent it out into the ocean in order to support our own state interests and to reliably defend us from attack from the vast ocean sector.

-Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union
S. G. Gorshkov

Introduction

The decades of the 60's and 70's saw the Soviet Navy make its largest leap forward both in quantity and in quality.  Three men were responsible for this change.  The first was Nikita Khrushchev who appointed Admiral Gorshkov to develop a new method of dealing with a superior Western navy armed with nuclear weapons.  The method involved submarines and warships armed with nuclear missiles.  In this way they could deter a larger more advanced force in an economical manner.  The disadvantage to this was that he also believed that large fleets in the style of World War Two would be obsolete with the advent of nuclear weapons.  This led to a dramatic reduction in the number of ships in the Soviet Navy. 

The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated that the Soviet Navy's reliance on nuclear weapons alone was incapable of challenging the United States navy on the high seas.  This led Leonid Brezhnev abandoning the 'nuclear only' doctrine in favor of a steady, but massive build up of the military.

During the following years many new classes of guided missile ships were launched.  They were characterized as being smaller than their Western counterparts, but with far heavier armament.  The singularly offensive nature of the Navy led many in the West to say that the Soviet Navy was a 'one shot' fleet with little flexibility.  

The Soviet submarine fleet also expanded dramatically.  Boats with nuclear power, guided missiles, and ballistic missiles had priority.  This resulted in a substantial portion of the Soviet nuclear threat being based in the water, a problem that would worry NATO planners until the end of the Cold War.

Admiral Gorshkov had achieved his first objective of making a fleet that could deter the West from reckless adventurism, but stated that he now wanted a 'balanced fleet' with carriers, submarines, and a variety of other ships that would allow the fleet to undertake a variety of roles.  

By the end of the 1970's the 'balanced fleet' was coming closer to fruition.  The Kirov heavy missile cruiser was introduced giving the Soviet Navy a massive anti-ship capability.  While the Ivan Rogov class amphibious assault ship allowed the Navy to land troops on a scale that they had not been able to do before.  The Berezina class replenishment ship showed the West that the Navy was serious about being able to sustain its operations for extensive periods of time.

Major Developments

In 1963, the year after the Cuban debacle, Admiral Gorshkov ordered the Soviet Navy to sea.  It is a navy with little open ocean experience and few friendly ports to put into overseas.  This would soon change.  By mid-1964 the Soviets had a permanent presence in the Mediterranean sea.  They would also soon establish anchorages in Cuba (in 1969), Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Yemen.  A Soviet presence in Egypt was established in 1967 to prevent Israeli advances on those areas.  In addition to providing security for Egypt, these bases allowed the Soviet naval aviation assets fly over the eastern Mediterranean without overflying Turkey or Greece.

By the end of the decade, the growing global reach of the Soviet Navy was matched with an increased level of experience.  It also marked a dramatic increase in the number of days that the Navy operated in a given region.  The amount of time spent in the Mediterranean in 1976 increased four times over 1967.  The fleet also operated in the Caribbean sea and Indian ocean with regularity.

There were setbacks to the progress of the Navy however.  The loss of Egyptian bases in 1972 limited the ability to project power in the eastern Mediterranean.  Even with this loss the Soviet position in the Mediterranean was much stronger in 1972 than it had been a decade earlier.

In 1975 the Soviet Navy held another grand exercise called Okean 75.  This exercise was smaller in scale than Okean 70, but still involved 120 ships operating in various theaters of operation.  It included anti-submarine maneuvers, sea lane interdiction, convoy escort, amphibious landings, and long range aviation missions.

Naval Aviation

Long range naval aviation formed an integral part of the modern Soviet navy.  Tu-142 'Bear' aircraft were optimized for naval use during this period and helped to find and target enemy vessels.  They spent a great deal of time shadowing Western navies on maneuvers, especially  carrier battle groups.  In wartime they would serve to guide missiles or anti-shipping aircraft to these targets.  

Another major change was the move towards carrier based aircraft.  While the earlier emphasis of naval aviation was on land based aircraft, the ‘balanced fleet’ envisioned by Admiral Gorshkov saw the beginnings of Soviet carrier based aviation.  This first came about with the introduction of Moskva class helicopter carriers in 1967.  Several years later the Kiev carriers were deployed.  These ships gave the Soviet fleet more flexibility and a much greater ASW capability. 

In addition to traditional aircraft, the Soviet Navy began to operate vertical take off and landing (VTOL) and test wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) machines.  The Yak-36 'Forger' operated from 'Kiev' class carriers.  This small VTOL aircraft marked a new dimension of the Soviet Navy - carrier based jet aircraft.

The Naval Infantry

The Naval Infantry did not occupy a place of high prestige during this time, in fact, it had been disbanded in 1947.  In 1961 the force was reborn by a change of policy.  The new force was was a very small organization that numbered only around 12,000 men with an additional 8,000 providing coastal defense duties.  It was expected to be used to outflank hostile forces and link up with Army units.  In time of war the Naval Infantry force would be augmented by units drawn from the Soviet Army.

In the event of an amphibious landing the Naval Infantry would be taken to the beach in these ships and hovercraft supported by the 6-inch guns of the Sverdlov class light cruisers.  They would arrive on the beach in BTR's, BMP's, and in PT-76 light tanks.  After the beach had been secured the new 'roll-on/roll-off' ships would allow for reinforcements to arrive quickly.  It was clear that the Naval Infantry was on its way to becoming a modern marine force.