I’ve always wodered if the Black Sea is off limits to nuclear subs. It is geographically close to the Russian heartland, and it is accessed by a narrow waterway (the Bosphorus), which is within Greek and Turkish territorial waters. Does anybody know? The Russians get very upset when any US Navy warships enter the Black Sea-yet, it would be a good place to launch missiles from.
Interesting question.
Bump
I am not an SSBN operator, but I do work with folks who examine ballistic missile attack scenarios on a pretty regular basis. It seems to me that the answer is likely “no.”
The Navy is very careful with their submarines, especially the ones carrying nuclear weapons. Putting SSBNs in a waterway with only one exit would be suicide, because a single destroyer could box you in, and ASW aircraft could take their time hunting you down, while the SSBN crew went through dwindling food supplies.
The range of America’s SLBMs is such that the Black Sea doesn’t buy you anything that you don’t already have with the Arctic Ocean, except shorter time-of-flight. Given that only Moscow is really covered by any kind of missile defense, time-of-flight doesn’t have much payoff for the incredibly high risk.
Just my opinion, but I doubt that anyone with first-hand knowledge will be allowed to chip in.
ETA: the Russians have a fleet in the Black Sea (imaginatively named the Black Sea Fleet) which is chock-full of ASW assets intended to keep SSBNs out of the Mediterranean… so going into the lion’s den would probably be a one-way trip.
Having transitted the Dardanelles twice (in a guided missile light cruiser, not a sub), I can offer only the following refs because “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships”.
See the old posters: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slips.htm
But, one rule of the art of war: Be where the enemy does not expect you to be.
The 1936 Treaty of Montreux established jurisdiction of the Turkish Straits and does prohibit the passage of aircraft carriers thru it in time of war, according to one cite (no mention in cite of subs). One interesting exception to the anti-aircraft carrier rule can be read at that cite site
http://www.battle-fleet.com/pw/his/Soviet_Aircraft_Carrier_Varyag.htm
BTW, the Dardanells is the strait between the Med and the Sea of Marmara. The Bosporus is the strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea.
Correct.
Is the Bosporus deep enough for submarines to go through ? If not, then the Russians wouldn’t have any subs in the Black Sea.
We were told that Carriers and SSBN would never operate in locations like the Black Sea and Persian Gulf. This was around 1985. Since then I saw my carrier and others operate in the Persian Gulf*.
However, I still cannot see any reason for a SSBN to be in the Persian Gulf or Black Sea. Getting into and out of the Black Sea is worse than the Persian Gulf. So, I still doubt that even a Carrier would try to operate in the Black Sea, never bind a SSBN.
Jim
- I was already in the IRR and thusly at home when the USS Ranger was operating in the Persian Gulf for Desert Storm. I had many friends still on board however. It was a WTF moment for me.
The OP might like to read the almost wholly execrable novel Nimitz Class which describes a (fictional) clandestine transit by a sub.
Read Blind Man’s Bluff. While it may not answer this question, it may give you more insight into how risky & dangerously our subs (allegedly) used to operate. It sure opened my eyes.
One thing you certainly shouldn’t get in this thread is a direct answer from a submariner. The subject itself (where subs operate) is off-limits.
I gave Blind Man’s Bluff to an ex-bubble head I used to work with. He came in the next morning bleary eyed (He read it all in one night). His comment was he thought most of that stuff was still classified. (BTW, his sub was mentioned in the book, and he was on board at the time of the incident that was mentioned)
Your thread is titled “Do USN SSBN Submarines Enter the Black Sea”, but the first sentence is “I’ve always wodered if the Black Sea is off limits to nuclear subs.” The first is a subset of the second. There’s no great reason for ballistic missile subs to enter the Black Sea - IIRC, they can hit any target in the Northern Hemisphere as soon as they leave port, and their standard practice is to avoid any risky behavior. There may be great reasons for attack subs to enter the Black Sea, such as intelligence gathering, but you’ll never hear anyone who has actual knowledge of such events talk about it.
I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of American submarines in the Black Sea at this or any other point in time.
This brings up a good point I’ve meant to ask for a while: why does any nuclear-missle sub ever go anywhere, really?
Since I presume the range of the ICBM’s they carry is sufficient to attack any target from pretty much anywhere, do they just cruise around the open ocean in an itinerate manner, occasionally varying where they navigate to so as to avoid allowing the enemy to predict their location?
Well the Black Sea is pretty big, and has no islands or big reefs. Seems like a good spot to just park the boat on the bottom, and wait for the encoded message. Does the anoxic-H2S layer pose a banger to submarines?Do the Russians and Iranians have subs in the Caspian Sea?
OP did not mention submerged transit of the straits. They could of course transit them on the surface. When I spent two years in/on the Med, it was *verboten * for subs to transit the Straight of Gibraltar while submerged but it would not surpise me…
Seems like you answered your own question. Hide and seek is harder if the hider won’t stay still.
What was it Rickover said? “There are two kinds of ships: submarines and targets.”