Defending the Indefensible - RN & RAF Cold Plans for Homeland Defence

 

The Joint Intelligence Committee is the pinnacle of the intelligence assessment machinery in the British Government. Based in the Cabinet Office, and staffed by a combination of civil service intelligence analysts and secondees from the UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) – e.g. MI5, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and GCHQ, the JIC produces intelligence assessment products that provide advice to Ministers and key decision makers on the threats facing the UK. These papers are written in incredibly precise language, with every word pored over for meaning, context and accuracy. The author, towards the start of his career, was an occasional contributor to the JIC process, and can attest to the care and attention paid to the process.

The JIC is an analytical body and not a policy making organisation, it provides intelligence assessment derived from multiple channels, including human, technical and signals intelligence, as well as open source reporting. There is a particularly close link with allies, and the Five-Eyes community participate in the process too, representing a truly unique intelligence partnership. The goal of JIC papers is to produce the considered position of the UK intelligence community on a threat or issue, and once issued, they represent the current UK position. This in turn provides the intelligence basis on which to plan against a threat, informing discussions on everything from what national policy should be, to what the implications are for procurement plans.

© UK MOD Crown Copyright

Throughout the Cold War the JIC played a vital role in assessing intelligence on the Soviet Union and providing assessments to Government on the risk of Soviet attacks. The bulk of later Cold War era JIC papers remain classified to this day, but despite this the occasional snippet can be found via other files. In this case, JIC papers were written in 1971 (ref JIC(A) (71) 24) and 1972 (JIC(A) (72) 17) and called “Possible scale and nature of Soviet attack on the UK” , although it has proven impossible to find an open copy in the National Archives. The majority of Cabinet Office and MOD files relating to this subject have been closed or retained by their departments, but even so, it is possible to find occasional glimmers of interest. Through a chance find in an unrelated file, it was possible to bring together enough material and references in the public domain to explain the 1972 assessment of the nature and scale of the Soviet threat to the UK and the MOD response.

The story begins in May 1972, when the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hill Norton instructed ACDS Policy to prepare a briefing on the differences between the 1971 and 1972 JIC papers on the “Possible Scale and Nature of Soviet Attack on the UK” and the implication of these differences. The broad difference between them was:

“The 1972 JIC report indicated a significant shift in the Russian philosophy about conventional air attacks on certain targets in the UK, and a less significant but measurable change in the quality and quantity of the Soviet capability”

Until this point UK thinking had been that in the event of war with the Soviet Union, there would be sufficient warning time to enable at least some mobilisation to begin of reserve forces and to begin the transition to war process, for example moving reinforcements by air and sea to Europe. When the war began there would be a conventional phase, most likely lasting up to 30 days (which drove a stores requirement for NATO to hold  no more than 30 days of stockpiles) before moving inexorably into a strategic nuclear exchange between the powers. There was some ambiguity on what role tactical nuclear weapons would play in this process, and whether they would be used by NATO during the conventional phase, or if they would only be released as part of a wider nuclear exchange.

A key assumption too was that any war with Russia would be multi-national, and that there was no chance of the UK being attacked unilaterally. This was vital as it meant that all UK planning was done on the understanding that resourcing needed would be through an international effort, and not just via the UK in isolation. This is relevant as it meant that some plans were made on the assumption that NATO would be there to assist in the wider defence of the UK.

One key assumption was that there was no specific threat to the UK mainland itself from invasion, and that Soviet land activity was likely to be limited to sabotage operations from Special Forces (Spetznatz) personnel and intelligence officers, rather than anything more substantial. It is telling that at no stage in Cold War history did the UK seem to seriously consider, or be concerned about, the risk of a Soviet invasion of UK territory as part of a wider war.

The key issue here is that in reaching this conclusion, it also highlighted that the Army had a very limited role to play in the defence of the UK homebase in wartime. This may sound paradoxical given the intended size of the Army in WW3 would have been approximately 300,000 strong. Yet in reality, the Army role was prior to war starting ensuring the security of around 400 Key Points (KP’s) and ensuring that the wider Army could mobilise, deploy to the Continent and sustain it for as long as possible. Numbers vary depending on which file you read, but the assumption seems to have been that something like 80% of the full war strength British Army was to have deployed to Germany, meaning that there would have been around 50-70,000 soldiers left in the UK once the war began – most of whom would be reservists guarding Key Points.  This isn’t to do down the importance of the Army, but it is brutally clear that UK planners saw the role of BAOR, even at full war strength as fundamentally being a speedbump for a maximum of 30 days, prior to either peace or nuclear release. Given that planners also assumed around 8000 casualties per day for the force in Germany, its clear that by the end of 30 days, BAOR would have ceased to function as an effective force and would essentially have been destroyed.

Given this combination of relatively low military threat and the fact that the bulk of ground forces would have been forward deployed, the MOD seems to have assumed that the Army had surprisingly little role to play in defending the UK against Soviet attack. By contrast, both the Royal Navy and the RAF had far more significant parts to play. The reason for this deduction comes from the JIC paper on the threat to the UK. The note to CDS advised that:

“JIC(A) ()72) 17 while stating “that we do not know how much importance the Russians attributes to targets in the UK” repeats the targets for nuclear attacks given in JIC(A) (71) 24 but makes the deduction from Soviet doctrine on the use of air power that  “the following are the targets most likely to be attacked in the UK in the event of conventional phase of the war:

a.      RAF and USAF bases with the object of destroying aircraft on the ground,  neutralising our nuclear capability and disrupting and destroying airfield facilities to prevent further use of the bases.

 

b.       Air Defence targets such as control and reporting centres and air defence radars.

 

c.       Transportation facilities concerned with the movement of reinforcements from the United Kingdom.”

In a nutshell therefore the JIC have now expressed the positive view that the Russians would not be so inhibited by fear of escalation that they would desist from including in a conventional air attack on the UK targets forming part of NATO’s nuclear capability; indeed they consider that the dual-capable UK and US air forces and their supporting facilities would receive high priority. Although this may still be theoretically compatible with avoidance of “strategic nuclear strike capability targets” the distinction is difficult to draw with precision and the implication of the current assessment is that there would be a significant lesser degree of Soviet restraint in a conventional phase than was implied before”.

This is a highly significant conclusion to reach. Previously it seems likely that UK understanding of Soviet intentions were that during conventional war, they would be unlikely to risk attack on any site that had links to nuclear capability for fear of a ‘use it or lose it scenario’ emerging, whereby NATO, feeling under threat of losing its critical tactical nuclear capability that may prove the difference in blunting a Soviet ground attack, felt compelled to strike. In other words, some forces and sites would be ‘off limits’ on the assumption that hitting them too soon would cause a nuclear attack.

The 1972 assessment revisited this assumption and seems to have received intelligence from unknown sources indicating a change in Soviet intent. Its not clear what the source of this could have been – maybe a high level HUMINT asset or possibly provision of new documents on Soviet military thinking. CIA releases from the period show a heavy reliance on analysis of ‘acquired’ doctrinal publications to indicate changes in Soviet thinking. Its possible that something similar may have happened in this case. Regardless of the source, it was clearly sufficiently credible to force a substantial reassessment of the threat to UK and US tactical nuclear forces from conventional attack.

© UK MOD Crown Copyright

The challenge for the UK was how to defend against this sort of threat – if the Soviets were prepared to engage in attacking UK and US tactical nuclear facilities, then it would put their wartime plans into significant risk – how do you hold the tactical nuclear forces at readiness for use, if the airfield is likely to have been taken out of use? There was clearly a need to bolster UK air defences, but make them relevant to the likely threat posed against the homeland – which was very different to the threat likely to be occurring in the air battles over central Europe, involving modern jet fighters in dogfights. In the UK air defence scenario the risk was instead likely to be older, less nimble long range bombers travelling some distance, rather than (for the time) modern strike aircraft.

Another challenge was how to protect the UK’s efforts to reinforce the Continent with land forces. The general assumptions at the time were that as tensions grew, NATO would look to reinforce its forces in West Germany and beyond, triggering a general mobilisation, recalling reservists and sending equipment over to hold the line with conventional forces. This would see a significant move, by sea, of Canadian and American troops and equipment across the North Atlantic and into mainland Europe, while the British Army of the Rhine would be mobilised up to full war strength through recalling reservists and sending formations to Germany. The result would be that many convoys, and ports / anchorages would be needed to host these reinforcement convoys and protect them.

The 1972 JIC assessment was pivotal then in determining that the Soviets were likely to focus greater effort than previously anticipated trying to target these reinforcements, potentially attacking them at sea, or in harbour, and trying to disrupt the general passage of troops. This would matter because with the well-oiled reinforcement plans delayed, there was a potential opportunity for the Soviets to break through, exploiting the gaps offered by the lower strength NATO forces, and forcing political leaders into deciding whether to sue for peace, or escalate into nuclear release. The Soviets could have gambled that, bereft of their reinforcements, NATO politicians would rather secure peace at any price, than run the risk of nuclear war. To that end, targeting reinforcements and resupply convoys would make good sense.

In an internal MOD level, considered at the highest levels of the armed forces, it was noted that the JIC 1972 assessment could have a significant impact on how UK defence policy, and commitments were fulfilled. It noted that although the Soviets possession of a conventional capability to attack UK ports and airfields was not new, the assumption had previously been that deterrence through NATO and a nuclear capability would deter this process and accordingly the MOD:

 “took minimal defence measures for the direct defence of the United Kingdom… there has always been a direct threat to this country were deterrence to fail. In the past it has generally been discounted on the basis that were it to develop, escalation to the strategic nuclear level would either have occurred or be so imminent that direct defence measures would be irrelevant.

If the change in assessment is considered to warrant a review of this philosophy, such a review would need to consider the significance of direct defence of the United Kingdom as a whole, since a significant shift of resources, from concepts of deterrence to concepts of defence would need to be covered”.  

 

As a result of these revised assessments, the decision was taken by the MOD to carry out further studies into the new threat, and in turn what this meant for the requirement for the armed forces to defend the UK. The result  was a pair of papers drafted by the RAF and Royal Navy, setting out the threat and in turn what could be done about it. These are vital as they set out in clear terms precisely the scale and nature of Soviet attack that was expected during the 1970s across NATO and what the British role was to have been in defending against them.

To set the scene for these papers, the The Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) were produced to provide an analysis on the threat facing the UK, to which the RN and RAF sought to respond and provide context on the necessary equipment and policy changes required to meet the new threat.

Soviet BADGER Bomber (Copyright wikipedia)

From an aviation perspective the DIS concluded, in support of the findings in the JIC (A) (72) 17 paper that the main air threat to the UK would come from long range bombers, primarily assigned to Soviet Naval Aviation. It assessed that there were 40 heavy and 450 medium bombers available for conventional missions in wartime, and that up to 30% of them would be assigned to target the UK. It then assessed that the BEAGLE bomber was unlikely to be used outside of the Baltic, while the BLINDER A could be used for conventional strike or support to amphibious forces. The BADGERS meanwhile was unlikely to be employed in a conventional capability due to the Northern Fleet assets being employed in an anti-shipping / anti-carrier role, and that “BADGER G of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleet would be very unlikely to exchange their ASM for iron bombs”.

The assessed ‘worst case’ daily sortie rate for air attacks facing the UK in the 1970s by Soviet forces then was considered by DIS to be:

“Northern Fleet: NIL

Baltic Fleet: 23 BLINDER, 27 BADGER

Black Sea Fleet (if used in support): 23 BLINDER, 17 BADGER”

By contrast the JIC assessment felt more hard over, suggesting that the UK could be subjected to a significant daily bombing increase from 245 tonnes per day to 700 tonnes per day dropped on the UK because: “up to 40 heavy bombers intended primarily for nuclear attacks against America “could be used for attacking the United Kingdom or European NATO countries during the conventional phase of operations”. Given the assessment that the conventional phase of the war may last up to 30 days, this would suggest roughly that up to  20,000 tonnes of conventional bombs could dropped before the war went nuclear – a not insignificant amount given that in the 6 years of WW2, the Luftwaffe dropped around 75,000 tonnes of bombs on the UK (12,000 landing on London).

There was some disagreement on the scale of the Soviet air threat to the UK based on how the aircraft would be used. It was felt by the Royal Navy that only a small number of aircraft would be used to target the UK in a conventional phase, with the remainder of airframes being held back for the nuclear phase of a conflict. There were also questions around the threat to shipping posed by aircraft, noting that much of these aircraft could be used to lay mines to pose a threat to merchant shipping:

“It is possible that all 54 of the SNAF BLINDER force could be used on mining in the European coastal areas. As set ouf in JIC (A) (72) 17, we assess that all of these aircraft will approach the UK in an arc from the NW to the NE and that therefore shipping in the English Channel will be less vulnerable than that in the North Sea and more northern waters. However the advent of BACKFIRE by 1976  could pose a widespread threat to the whole of the UK, approaching and returning at low level across Western Europe, below the NATO radar defences.”

This rate, of between 50 and 90 air raids per day on the UK (before losses occurred) indicates the very worst case scenario. It also highlights that the likely air threat would not be agile dogfighters, but long range and relatively slow / stable bombers. When looked at in this context, that the UK needed layered air defence based on a combination of sea based anti-air destroyers, long range radars, and long range fighters able to travel at distance from home, remain on station for many hours and then return, supported by AEW and tankers, then the RAF decisions of the 1980s to invest in Tornado F2/F3 , supported by Hawk and the like make considerable sense. Be ready to shoot down aircraft at long range, preventing them from getting in too close.  

This in turn highlights the lower need for close in air defences like Rapier, or other land based anti-aircraft guns / missiles on the grounds that very few sites would be at risk, and over time the conventional threat was limited. Why spend money on a capability that was of marginal value at best to air defence of the UK, compared to investing in forces in Germany. Given all of this, it makes a lot of sense why UK air defence and ground based air defences were seen as lower priority throughout the 1970s and beyond – there was a neglible fast jet threat, and the bombers would be spotted hours earlier forming up for conventional air raids and have to fight through Norwegian or Baltic air defences just to approach the UK where swarms of RAF and USAF aircraft would be waiting to intercept them.

The RAF paper is yet to be located in the archives and it is unclear what specific measures it proposed. What is known is based on snippets of other archives, which show that the Air Force chose to look at how the RAF could improve defensive measures and protect the UK within the context of the existing resource environment. These measures appear to have been built around small scale enhancements to UK air defences (e.g. increasing stockpiles of munitions, enhancing radar coverage, more aircraft, and potentially extending the Bloodhound SAM in service). The specific measures are not covered in any detail though.

The SSBN HMS RENOWN (Copyright wikipedia)

The air defence element was just one part of the challenge though, and the Soviet naval threat was seen to be as equally challenging. The Royal Navy drafted a paper setting out the maritime threat posed by the Soviet Union to NATO and the UK until the end of 1976, putting out the assessment of the RN, drawing on DIS analysis, to assess the threat and how the Soviets would attempt to deploy, and employ, their fleets during war. The core judgement on the wartime roles of the Soviet Navy was that:

a.      To ensure the Soviet SLBM force is at sea in maximum strength.

b.       To locate and destroy Allied SSBN

c.       To destroy Western strike carriers (before they come within launch range of the USSR)

d.      To support their own flank operations

e.       To prevent Allied reinforcement of the flanks of ACE

f.        To attack naval shipping, particularly that bringing essential reinforcements to Europe from the US and UK.

The analysis went on to look in depth at the level of forces likely to be deployed for each role. For example it was noted that by the end of 1972 they would have 24, rising to 32 by 1975 SSBNs, primarily targeted on North America with a few missiles on Europe.

The next section on the SSN threat is particularly illuminating as it quotes references from still exceptionally classified, and not always publicly available papers linked to the committee called “POPC” (Polaris Policy Committee). This committee considered policy questions linked to the operations of Polaris submarines, including threats. One 1971 paper (POPC/P (71) 36) appears to have assessed Soviet ability to counter the NATO SSBN force. It noted that:

“Since it is assessed that the Soviet Union has no direct counter to the SSBN, it is reasonable to assume that her SSN forces will be deployed so as to provide the maximum capability against the Soviet threat. For this reason the Soviet Union is likely to concentrate her efforts in strategically vital choke points, such as Gibraltar, the Sicilian Straits, the Iceland/Faroes Gap and off Western SSBN bases. They have an overall capability sufficient to enable them deploy 10 SSN in such operations.”  

The threat to the NATO carrier striking fleet was seen as being a particularly high Soviet targeting priority. At this stage the UK and US had a large number of fleet aircraft carriers capable of conducting nuclear strikes, which would have been able in wartime to effectively disappear into the North Atlantic and pose a significant conventional and nuclear threat to the Russian homeland. It was clear that finding and sinking these vessels was a high priority “this is evidenced by the continuous effort devoted to marking all CVA’s”.

Whether the Soviets would carry this strategy of attacking the carrier strike force in wartime or  or not was a subject of some debate. It was noted that: “a dilemma facing the Soviets in the early stage of operations will be whether or not to attack targets that form part of NATO’s strategic nuclear capability… it is not believed that the Soviets would otherwise be inhibited by fears of escalation from including in their attacks targets forming part of NATO nuclear capability. Indeed it is considered that those aircraft having a dual conventional and nuclear role and their supporting facilities, would be probably be attacked soon after the outbreak of hostilities…

From the examination of the extent of the Soviet Navy’s marking of the Strike Fleet, it must be concluded that the carriers with dual role strike aircraft embarked would receive as high a priority as the land bases from which similar aircraft would operate. Indeed it the Russians could believe that it might well be less escalatory, particularly in the early stages of hostilities, to attack naval forces rather than attack them on land”.

To counter the Strike Fleet, the UK estimated that the Soviets would deploy at least 15 SSG/ SSGNN, 30 submarines and 10 surface ships plus around 20 long range BADGER bombers to find and destroy these forces in the opening days of the war. Whether they’d have succeeded or not is open to question – certainly exercises conducted in the 1980s showed that the US Navy could surge multiple carrier groups to within 50 miles of the Russian coast without being spotted.

The US 'Mothball Fleet' (Copyright Wikipedia)

The area where the Soviets were very likely to target resources was assessed to be the countering of reinforcements to Europe. As noted NATO planned to surge vast amounts of personnel and equipment to continental Europe during the transition to war. There would be an enormous amount of shipping heading across the Atlantic in convoys, much like in WW2, and protected by large numbers of NATO escorts. Given the US National Defense Reserve Fleet comprised many WW2 era vintage Liberty and Victory ships at this time, then it would, quite literally, have been a remake of WW2 convoy plans when the ships sailed. The paper considered that there were two ways that the Soviets would attack – either in open ocean waters, for example in the deep Atlantic, or more likely in narrower choke points or ports/anchorages where it was easier to find and track shipping:

“In the Open Ocean. While missile, torpedo or bomb attacks could be carried out anywhere during the long passage of the Atlantic routes, attacks are likely to be more effective in focal areas where shipping density is greatest.

In Assembly Anchorages or in Ports. Ships in assembly anchorages could be attacked by submarines using torpedoes or missiles, and by free-fall bombing from SNAF aircraft; ships in ports attacked by aircraft of SAF (Soviet Air Force) long or medium rang bomber forces as part of their attack on transportation facilities concerned with the movement of reinforcements from the UK “

It was assessed that at least 25 submarines (10 nuclear and the rest conventional) and carrying a combination of torpedoes and anti-ship missiles would be used to target these convoys, along with a small number of undefined surface ships, as well as a proportion of the BLINDER and BADGER force assigned to wider conventional bombing missions.  It was also thought likely that mining would be employed heavily to reduce the use of anchorages, and make it harder for ports to be used – a suspected minefield could close a port for vital hours or days, slowing down reinforcements at a critical time and making merchant ships more vulnerable to attack.

The scale of the challenge in defending the UK ports was laid bare, by setting out in stark tones the mobilisation effort needed and convoys that would very quickly be concentrating on UK waters in the event of mobilisation for war. It was noted that the UK and NATO concept for shipping and reinforcement was:

“Principle. Routing all shipping along nominated lanes to assembly anchorages in Europe. In the case of ocean shipping, on arrival in the assembly anchorages it would be regrouped, or redirected through Channel areas or the North Sea.

Ocean Shipping. Four of the five Atlantic routes into NW Europe converge on the SW approaches and the fifth on the NW approaches. Except for two nominated French anchorages they all terminate at the UK assembly anchorage areas. Within 24 days of the decision to reinforce Europe being taken, 5 reinforcement convoys consisting of approximately 192 ships and 70 escorts will be on their way to Europe. Present plans also allow for up to 20 ocean convoys per month to arrive at the assembly anchorages.”

This is a useful sense of the scale of the reinforcement efforts, both to how much would need to be moved to the UK, and also, relatively speaking, how few escorts would be involved. On average each convoy would have just 14 escorts to protect roughly 40 merchant ships, each containing priceless military materiel for the protection of Europe. If war were to have broken out while shipping was underway, they would have faced at least 25 dedicated submarines and dozens of long range bombers trying to strike them, either on the open ocean, or in more confined waters.  Its open to debate whether the Soviet Navy would have been able to get its submarines into the deep Atlantic, or if it would have attempted to prey more closely in. If the latter, then they would have needed to get close to UK territorial waters to find targets in anchorages close to shore. But where would they have been?

The UK plans envisaged that each of these convoys would have been dispersed into different anchorage areas on arrival in UK waters, presumably then to move into ports to unload as quickly as possible afterwards. This would have enabled their stores, vehicles and munitions to be unloaded and then moved to the continent through a complex series of road and rail moves down to the coastal ports, where they would then be transferred to the continent, and into the NATO system. Both NATO and the UK envisaged a total of 8 anchorages would have been used in this way:

“Assembly Anchorages. There are 8 established around the UK at Weymouth, Tor, Falmouth and Mounts Bay, Beaumaris, the Clyde, Scapa Flow and the Firth of Forth. These anchorages are large areas of shallow water offering protection from the weather. There are currently no plans for protection against a conventional attack on these anchorages, which would be a national responsibility. These areas, unless adequately protected, would make easy and valuable targets for submarine, mining or torpedo attack.”

Perhaps the most curious location is Scapa Flow, which has huge historical significance to the Royal Navy. Home to the Grand Fleet in WW1 and location of most RN Home Fleet vessels in WW2, it was closed as a naval base in 1957 and the many wartime era facilities disposed of. Notably though, the Admiralty Oil Fuel Depot was (in 1972) still open, and operational (it did not close until 1976). This would make sense it the Flow were to be used as an anchorage for convoys, although equally the risk would be far higher given that it was far closer to Soviet forces than other locations. It is also notable as Scapa Flow lacked any major port facilities and sitting offshore in the Orkney Islands would not have been a great place to unload cargo, which raises questions about what its role was for – potentially to serve as an accretion point to send ships to support operations in Norway or the Baltic in response to so-called ‘flank operations’ by the Soviets?

BLINDER bomber (Copyright unknown)

What this means is that in NATO thinking, the UK would be responsible for defending these anchorages, and in wartime they would be high priority targets. Most of them make logical sense – the ones in the South West are close to major ports and a significant distance further away from Soviet bombers, reducing the risk from air attack (any bomber would need to fly across the UK air defence network in both directions to drop bombs on targets in the SW, meaning attrition was likely to be high). What was also notable was that there were seemingly no plans in place to defend these anchorages, and ships lying there would have been extremely vulnerable to a range of attacks from different sources.

Once they had unloaded their precious cargo, the intention was to make use of coastal waters to move them to the continent. It was seen as likely that NATO would introduce procedures for coastal convoy sailing, not dissimilar to operations in WW2, and the sheer scale of the moves was notable. The UK envisaged:

“Six main coastal shipping lanes around the UK and from UK to northern Europe. Whether ships would sail these as escorted convoys or individually in a protected environment would depend on the tactical situation, but up to some 75 ships each day could be expected to be carry normal supplies and allied reinforcements from the UK. In addition the move of UK reinforcements to Europe would involve LSLs and car ferries for the movement of vehicles and stores. On the basis that air operations from the UK were  impaired, large numbers of men might need to be moved by sea.”

This gives a sense of the sheer scale of reinforcement plans, which would have seen both BAOR and the US Army flooding into the Continent in large numbers, and a very similar experience in the UK to that of WW2, as hundreds of thousands of American and Canadian service personnel were rushed into the UK and then held ready to be moved to the continent. There would have been dozens of ships a day moving across the channel with stores and reinforcements, and a significant protection challenge for the NATO navies.

What made this challenge even more complicated was the allocation of assets to protect the ships. For example the US Navy was assigned the role of escorting the convoys to UK waters, but after their arrival at the anchorages, the SACLANT operational plans called for their reallocation to other missions. Additionally many of the escorts assigned to the escort role lacked area air defence capabilities, so it was identified that land based air defence may have been needed from the CINCEASTLANT area – at the cost of taking conventional air defence fighters off other tasks.

Given these resource constraints, the Royal Navy attempted to define what would be needed to properly defend British ports and anchorages from the Soviet threat using purely British assets. It tried to set out what the response would be if the RN had to respond to the challenge of the Soviets attacking UK sites in the conventional phase of the war, and in turn, what this would look like in resources required to meet it. It was noted that:

“Defence against enemy aircraft is part of the task of air defence of the United Kingdom. This does not provide for missiles fired from enemy submarines against stationary targets of known location. There are no plans for local area air defence of ports and anchorages against this threat, and defence of eight assembly anchorages, nineteen major ports and six naval ports would pose a major task”.

It is quite telling how quickly the UK had lost the ability to defend its ports against these threats, as late as 1957, the British Army had an extensive network of Royal Artillery led ‘Anti Aircraft Command’ gun batteries across the UK, providing extensive networks of local air defence, coordinated from Anti-Aircraft Operation Room (AAOR) bunkers, that ensured a comprehensive defence against the air threat. It’s a curious irony that the 1957 Sandys Review scrapped these assets on the assumption that missiles would be the solution, only for just 15 years later the UK to realise it was incapable of defending against a conventional threat.

BACKFIRE Bomber

The overall assessment of the threat facing the UK from the Soviets during a conventional phase of the war was assessed as being significant. In their analysis, the DIS estimated that:

“we assess that a large percentage of the Soviet Northern and Baltic maritime capability would in the conventional phase of a general war, be employed on higher priority tasks away from the immediate UK area. The element of the remaining Soviet capability that could be directed to targets in waters adjacent to the UK might consist of:

A.      A significant attack submarine threat (around 35 attack submarines) against shipping and anchorages around the UK coast.

B.      A major mining offensive by submarines and aircraft against UK ports and anchorages. The submarines coming from the total attack submarines committed to these waters.

C.      A small number of surface ships

D.     The air threat as spelt out in JIC(A) (72) 17, mainly directed against strategic targets in the UK, but also against reinforcement convoys in the anchorage areas. The BACKFIRE may well pose a significant and more widespread threat by the end of the timeline in this paper. The one target system that may be deliberately avoided by Soviet aircraft in the conventional phase is the NATO SLBM bases in the UK, partly because the operational units would have already sailed and partly because, in Soviet eyes, such attacks may be seen as too escalatory.”

This was a significant scale of threat, and would require a high level of resourcing to counter. To meet the threat from Soviet Submarines, the RN estimated that it would require a minimum of 4 ASW helicopters for each anchorage to maintain a 24hr cover, which resulted in a minimum additional requirement of 132 Seaking ASW helicopters on top of existing plans to cover the UK in wartime. For context, in  the 1970s the UK only purchased a total of 77 ASW variant Sea Kings. It was noted that the requirement would pose a significant escalation as “the only shore-based ASW helicopters at present planned to be available for coastal protective tasks are those earmarked for the support of the SSBN force” (Presumably the units based at HMS GANNET in Scotland to cover the SSBN entry/exit routes).

The onward movement of surface cargo ships to Europe also presented a range of problems. It was assumed that there would be at least 3 convoys per day transiting the Channel, each of 25 ships and that to protect them would need major resources. The NATO Commander In Chief Channel (CINCCHAN) (the UK CINCFLEET) estimated that 32 ASW escorts, operating in 8 escort groups, supported by 6 ASW helos and 2 Maritime Patrol Aircraft per group (total of 48 ASW and 16 MPA) were needed to properly protect these convoys against the threat. It was noted that:

“While the 15 MPA available are almost adequate for this task, the 16 escorts and the 12 ASW helicopters available fall far short of the requirement”

The sheer lack of escorts, aircraft and ASW helicopters was a major concern for the Royal Navy, with there being a significant shortfall of assets to requirements. The RN identified that the two major NATO commands (COMCENTLANT and COMNORLANT) had a total of 34 escorts and 39 MPA available in wartime. The problem though was:

“Since their area covers, under CINCEASTLANT, the entire Eastern Atlantic and Northern Seas, and their missions embrace the major task of support for the Strike Fleet, the number of escorts available for the protection of coastal shipping will be few”

There were clearly far fewer escorts available than needed for the job at hand, and it was likely that had war come, the RN would have struggled to protect forces in the Channel reinforcing Europe. It was also noted that there was no effective area air defence available, and that the ships assigned to the task would struggle to protect against air attack – highlighting that the RAF would need to provide a measure of air defence on an enduring basis for convoy protection.

WHISKEY Class SSK

The area of perhaps most concern though to the RN was the mine warfare threat, which was a real challenge. The Soviets were assessed to possess a highly capable mining force, predominantly through their submarines and aircraft, and it was thought could lay mines before conflict began, or in its earliest stages. The DIS threat assessment stated that:

“All UK ports can be mined and mining would cause chaos in the opening days of hostilities. Mining of the Clyde Approaches might be considered to destroy the credibility of the UK deterrent. A mining campaign in the SW approaches and Channel could disrupt the reinforcement of NATO Europe from the UK and US. Under conventional warfare conditions, mining must be an attractive option to the Soviets”.

This was a challenge that the MCMV force needed to be ready to defend against, with the RN priorities being:

a.      Clearance of Clyde approaches (for the SSBN force)

b.       Clearance of BAOR reinforcement routes

c.       Clearance of routes to keep major UK ports open including the approaches to assembly anchorages

d.      Clearance of other routes around the UK

The UK had a wartime requirement to keep about 4000nm of routes safe, and even if focused on the highest priority areas (some 1400nm), it was estimated that “to carry out this task would require a total of 135 MCMV to assure an acceptable degree of safety”. The problem was though that in 1972 the RN had a total of 37 MCMV in commission (of which 8 were refitting) and that on then plans, the force would drop to a total of 21 hulls by 1980 (explained by paying off of the by then elderly TON class). It was bluntly stated that ‘a national shortfall of over 100 is apparent”.

Brought together the RN paper made difficult reading, particularly when the authors assessed the scale of investment required to meet the tasks at hand. The paper advised that the UK was already short by 20 escorts to meet SACLANTS plans for wartime, and in turn was significantly short of other assets including:

a.      “Some 30 escorts

b.       Some 200 ASW Helicopters

c.       A small number of MPA

d.      Some 100 MCMV

In addition there is a major weakness in area air defence systems in all escorts designed for the protection of adjacent waters”

To mitigate this level of risk and to be ready to meet the requirements for wartime would require vast investment in capabilities. The paper estimated that it would need an additional £1.2bn of spending in 1972 prices (approximately £14bn today), as well as an additional 21,000 sailors for the Royal Navy. Such prices were, of course, entirely unrealistic, but demonstrated the scale of the challenge facing the RN to reequip to meet its likely wartime commitments. In a grim summing up of the situation it was noted that:

“Much of the flexibility in the Naval programme has already been eliminated during successive LTC exercises. The capacity of the shipbuilding industry to absorb this extra load is doubtful and that of the aircraft industry uncertain. Availability of the additional manpower is unlikely.

It is concluded that:

a.      Present and planned naval forces are inadequate to counter a possible Soviet conventional attack on the UK and adjacent waters.

b.       The costs, both in money and manpower, to counter this additional threat, are likely to be beyond our resources even assuming a change of strategic emphasis from Alliance deterrence to direct defence.”

The papers were discussed at the highest levels of the MOD by the Service Chiefs, in September 1972 who reviewed both the RAF and RN efforts to set out the threat and how they would respond to it. Their reaction was a good insight into how Whitehall really works. While the RN paper may have been seen as concerning in terms of the threats it identified and how to handle them, while the RAF paper was seen as being a good example of how to respond to a clear threat from within an existing resource base, rather than asking for significant amounts of additional expenditure. The question for the Service Chiefs to agree on was whether it was necessary or appropriate for the forces to change their approach away from a strategy predicated on nuclear deterrence and responding quickly to overwhelming conventional attack by use of tactical nuclear weapons, and instead focus far more on conventional defence.  The First Sea Lord (Admiral Pollock) was recorded as noting:

“We had, some years before, not only largely abandoned the maintenance of a full air defence capability, but we had also abandoned the parallel capability of fighting a conventional maritime war in the face of full scale attacks on ships, ports and anchorages and a Soviet mining campaign. In his view the concept of preparing to fight a conventional war and providing an adequate defence against Soviet conventional attack on the UK would entail a major shift in our defence policy”

The First Sea Lord used the meeting to push for a significant change to UK approach to defence, arguing for major studies to understand the threat, and reallocate resources based on this, rather than a conventional split between services. He recognised that the RN paper “put their dilemma in stark terms” but felt it needed to be made in that way.

By contrast the RAF disagreed with the RN position, with Chief of the Air Staff (Air Chief Marshall Spotswood) arguing that the RN paper should not be forwarded to Ministers, on the grounds that his own RAF paper had “followed the agreed remit to set out and cost practical measures within current resources, whereas the Navy Department paper adopted a quite different approach.” He went on to note the importance of investing to protect the tactical nuclear sites as critical, noting the importance of these dual role aircraft surviving the conventional phase, and in turn receiving appropriate protection to do so.

The meeting continued to discuss the wider challenges of what to do about the threats identified. There was was a clear sense that the UK needed to spend more on conventional deterrence to protect the homeland, but that this needed to be done in a holistic manner, and as part of a long term credible approach. To that end, Service Chiefs felt uncomfortable highlighting the issue of the gaps identified to Ministers –  indeed, the RN assessment was seen as so stark that Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hill-Norton noted that he had “considerable concerns forwarding it to Ministers in its present form. In his view it might serve only to confuse and alarm them”

The decision was therefore taken, in true bureaucratic style to arrange a fudge. Ministers would be written to by the Committee, advising them that a study into the changed threat identified in the JIC paper had been looked at, and in turn concerns raised. It was felt significant issues had been identified in how to balance off investments in conventional defences, and in turn where the balance of investment would lie. It noted the concerns raised by the RN about the difficulty of meeting the threat, while the RAF ideas on how to meet it were also addressed. The end result was that most Whitehall of outcomes, a decision was taken to form a committee to carry out a study to come up with proposals on what to do next. It was an outcome that Sir Humphrey himself would have approved of…

Bloodhound Missile (Copyright unknown)

53 years later, is any of this still relevant to Defence? Arguably yes, this saga remains of real relevance. The threat from Russia has changed, but remains credible, and were the UK and USA to prepare to defend mainland Europe again, then similar plans for reinforcements would be required, and would likely need investment in shipping and ports for their protection. There remains a major resource imbalance, with the RN able to muster barely 14 escort ships today, far fewer than the 34 needed in wartime just to escort Channel convoys, let alone wider NATO tasking.

Although the air launched nuclear mission has gone, there remains real challenges with resilience of the air force, with the model of dispersal across dozens of air bases made more difficult by the closure of most RAF fast jet bases. There are significant issues with resilience, and the fact that any Russian attack on the UK would be more likely to involve drones and cruise missiles than conventional bombers, and the ongoing lack of local air defences. The many shortfalls identified in the 1970s remain, particularly in the lack of short – medium range air defences, and also the lack of close in weapons to protect ports. There is significantly more fragility in the Mine Warfare space, and the RN has, with just 8 MCMV hulls in service now, a shortfall of 127 hulls against the 1972 threat.

This does not mean that the military should look to emulate the requirements of the 1970s in a ‘like for like’ manner, for both the threat and the technology to respond to it are vastly different. But we should perhaps ask if the UK is able to cope with the spectre of conventional attack, and how it would respond in the event of Russians targeting UK infrastructure. If anything it would be far more fragile, given the lack of shipping, the fewer ports that could handle vessels needed for reinforcement work and their relative vulnerability to mining and air attack. It is perhaps timely then that the British Army has announced new plans to rely on access to Ports across the UK for reinforcement and resupply purposes in peacetime, under a modified contract with Associated British Ports, which reminds us of the critical importance of civilian infrastructure to meet Defences needs.

The final consideration then is what does this mean for the UK’s balance of commitment to NATO. These papers reflect thinking on UK defence at a time when the UK was one of NATO’s largest and most capable military powers. Half a century later, and with the military vastly smaller, hollowed out and far less capable than it was, arguably this position no longer holds true. While the UK will be able to lead conventional operations if asked for (for example leadership of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps), and it can still function as a hub for reinforcements, does it need to focus on conventional defence, or should its focus be to offer NATO a credible strategic nuclear deterrent capability as its primary contribution to the Alliance?  Should planners focus on deterrence, and making clear to Russia that UK policy is built around defending its allies through the provision of a predominantly nuclear response, or should it try to focus more on conventional matters?

Some of the hints emerging from the SDR seems to suggest that the role of conventional and homeland defence is regaining favour in the MOD. Hints suggest that a force of around 50,000 ‘homeland defence’ troops may be created to protect the UK during war, although there seems to be no insight into thinking on whether air defence, or close in AA batteries are required. It could be an ironic outcome that over 50 years after the time when the MOD identified its critical weaknesses to conventional attack, that the next major Defence review in the UK finally takes steps to invest in these shortfalls and try to make the UK resilient to these threats. Only time will tell if the UK is able to properly defend itself against this threat, or if costs, headcount and higher priorities continue to align to make the challenge of defence of the homebase impossible, and thus rendering it indefensible.