Quote:
Originally Posted by Kapitan
Generally after about 1979 the Soviet Union knew that the west could hear the submarines long before the Russians would ever get in range, its why the period saw a complete shift to the Bastion concept, what you also find is come the 1980's the Echos were hopelessly outdated the missile they carried SS-N-3c Shaddock was also obsolete the Russians simply welded up and covered the missile hatches turning the submarine into a SSN.
In 1985 the scrapping of the Echos started first in the pacific with only 2 remaining by the end of that year, what you also should know is that come the 1980's the older submarines mainly of the 1st generation Hotel Echo Novembers rarely went to sea, they were kept in a sort of secondary reserve but just there to bulk up the numbers.
1984 would have been about right to see the withdrawal from heavy active duty for these submarines, bear in mind 1991 saw the mass decommission of nearly all these units.
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AFAIK this is true of the Echo Is (which were something akin to the US Regulus cruise-missile subs in that the missiles they fired were of intended for use against shore targets and had no anti-ship capability, fewer missile as well). They basically functioned as handicapped Novembers for the latter half of their service careers.
The Echo IIs were in commission until 89 for the most part according to records (I think the only ones retired before that were the ones involved in reactor incidents) but I have no idea about how active they'd be at that point or specifically what they'd be tasked to do. Some had been upgraded to carry SS-N-12 variants and I'd think those would be the most valuable / dangerous. Logically what I'd like to see as far as Echos go is, either late-war desperation missions where the Soviet Navy maybe starts trying to break out with Echos due to the attrition of better units (maybe after you sink X number of Charlie or Oscar class, although as I understand it the game doesn't support anything like this yet). Another option would be a type of bastion clearance mission, maybe a CVBG does intend to bush into the Barents say around Bear Island and you need to clear out a force of 2nd-line SSGNs before they do, at penalty of losing the carrier group or having them forced back if you are unsuccessful.