Soviets Improving Sea Power in Arctic

The growling fringes of the Arctic icecap and the dark, silent waters beneath the North Pole have become test sites in Moscow’s drive to match the stealth of American submarines.

The Northern Fleet, the Soviet Union’s mightiest naval force, increasingly exercises in icy seas near Arctic bases on the Kola Peninsula, NATO officials say.

“They have made big advances in submarine technology and they have an impressive under-ice capability,” said Gen. Patrick Palmer, commander in chief, Allied Forces Northern Europe.

The shift away from exercising in more southerly seas, ever more evident since President Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in 1985, might be linked to cuts in military spending or to a Kremlin desire to be seen projecting less power abroad.

But the change may also be to teach submarine commanders at the heart of Soviet naval power how best to hide in the Arctic Ocean, whose trenches are as deep as 18,500 feet.

New, longer-range missiles mean that Soviet submarines could fire over the pole and not need to venture past NATO-member Norway, risking sonar detection, mines and torpedoes from attack submarines to get close enough to strike the United States.

Palmer said that Moscow has continued updating submarines, ships, aircraft and other equipment at the Kola bases despite political reforms sweeping through Warsaw Pact nations.

The massive Typhoon and Delta IV class ballistic missile submarines have far quieter engines than older Soviet models, which Western sonar can hear clanking through the oceans hundreds of miles away.

The new submarines have SS-N-20 or SS-N-23 nuclear missiles, which the Pentagon says have a range of 5,200 miles and could strike any point in the United States or Western Europe from Soviet home waters in the Barents Sea.

Meanwhile, the Typhoon, the world’s largest submarine, weighing about 75,000 tons and stretching 561 feet long, has a titanium hull and strong fins to smash through thick polar ice to fire its missiles from the surface.

Soviet submarines are still slightly noisier than their U.S. rivals--spearheaded by the Ohio class ballistic missile submarine--but grinding, creaking Arctic ice provides a natural ally.

“Close to the ice edge, the sound conditions mean it is almost impossible to extract any submarine noises,” said Adm. Torolf Rein, head of Norway’s 50,000-strong armed forces.

He said that the Soviet Union test fires ballistic missiles from the Arctic over Siberia to the Pacific.

In northern Norway, “the civilian population in Finnmark from time to time, particularly in the dark season, see a fireball in the sky because they are firing,” he said.

Rein said Moscow has about 40 strategic submarines at Kola alone--more than the whole U.S. fleet. But NATO overall has more and better submarines than the Warsaw Pact.

Earlier this year, a Soviet Mike class experimental submarine sank off Norway, killing 42 sailors. There have been several other accidents, with two Echo-class submarines entangled in Norwegian trawler nets in the last three months.

“The submarine is the Soviet Navy’s principal platform for the conduct of both offensive and defensive naval warfare,” the Pentagon said in its 1989 review of Soviet military power.

But it added that “despite measurable improvements in the Soviet submarine force . . . the United States maintains an overall lead” in quietness, combat systems and detection systems used in anti-submarine warfare.

Gorbachev has often offered talks on reducing the superpowers’ navies but, because the Atlantic separates it from its European allies, Washington needs superior sea power.

Both U.S. and Soviet submarines have long been able to lurk under the polar ice and break through. Washington showed its capability in 1986, when three U.S. nuclear-powered submarines surfaced at the North Pole.

Noise is the key to finding nuclear-powered submarines, which can stay submerged for weeks and cannot be seen by spy planes or satellites.

Submarines are packed with insulation and the crew wear rubber or felt shoes to deaden noise.

Sonar is the only reliable way of detecting submarines at distances of more than a mile, according to George Lindsey of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies in a recent study.