Anyone See Any Echos in the 1984 Campaign?

[GSmith63]

Been playing the 1984 campaign a lot lately and always manage to get a few sets of orders to hunt down cruise missile-carrying submarines. Most of the time I come up against a Charlie, or occasionally an Oscar. I don't think I've ever seen an Echo II, even though there were more of those in the Northern Fleet in 1984 (~15 units) than the Charlies and Oscars combined (~7 Charlies, 3 Oscars).

Am I just having bad luck? Has anyone else seen many Echos out there?

Gregg

[GSmith63]

Originally Posted by GSmith63

Been playing the 1984 campaign a lot lately and always manage to get a few sets of orders to hunt down cruise missile-carrying submarines. Most of the time I come up against a Charlie, or occasionally an Oscar. I don't think I've ever seen an Echo II, even though there were more of those in the Northern Fleet in 1984 (~15 units) than the Charlies and Oscars combined (~7 Charlies, 3 Oscars).

Am I just having bad luck? Has anyone else seen many Echos out there?

Gregg

Man this board is quiet! I didn't hear anything from anyone so I started doing some checking in the campaign files. Turns out there are no Echo IIs in any of the 1984 campaign missions at all. I added them in for myself but not sure if I did it right!

Devs - Was this an oversight or is there a specific reason why they weren't included? The Echo IIs didn't start getting decommed until the early 1990s, so while not top of the line units in 1984 there was still more of them around than all other SSGNs combined.

[The Bandit]

Originally Posted by GSmith63

Man this board is quiet! I didn't hear anything from anyone so I started doing some checking in the campaign files. Turns out there are no Echo IIs in any of the 1984 campaign missions at all. I added them in for myself but not sure if I did it right!

Devs - Was this an oversight or is there a specific reason why they weren't included? The Echo IIs didn't start getting decommed until the early 1990s, so while not top of the line units in 1984 there was still more of them around than all other SSGNs combined.

Depends on your point of view for the Soviets. I would think by the 1980s, trying to run an Echo II through the Norwegian Sea and GIUK gap would be just giving more blood for the blood god (doubly so because if I'm not mistaken even the modernized versions still had to surface to fire off their missiles). My feeling is that they'd use them much as the Novembers are used close to home in Barents, plus they'd be a hedge against anybody trying to press in with a CVBG (that's pretty much the Juliet's mission statement but twice the number of missiles doesn't hurt when you may be going up against an AEGIS cruiser).

[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.

[The Bandit]

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.

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.

[GSmith63]

Good points everyone!

Originally Posted by The Bandit

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.

OK, that makes a lot of sense. I'll probably remove the Echo IIs from most of the wolfpack missions. Might keep one in just for fun though.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by The Bandit

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.

I think you may have confused the missiles, indeed the SS-N-3A does target land based establishments however the 3B&C are purely anti ship (carried by the Whiskey twin cylinder Echo and Juliette classes).

Now from records i do know the pacific fleet boats K66,122 & 151 were decommissioned in 1985, most of the boats from 1982 in both fleets were not on extended readiness and many by 1984 were on a lower state of alert.

If you look at boats of this era you will see about 1982 on-wards they very seldom put to sea, in fact the K3 a November class between 1980 and her decommission in 1988 put to sea just 3 times.

The boats of the Echo II were well obsolete by this time as we know and yes 14 of them were rebuilt to carry the SS-N-12 Sandbox missile while the rest bar two had their silo's welded up and covered to act as attack boats.
Two vessels K22 & K47 (later B47) had improved radar systems in the sail which we see evident in the bulges either side both were decommissioned in the early 1990's both received upgrades to carry the new P1000 Vulkan missiles which we see today on the Slava class cruisers.

Echo's by the mid 60's early 70's were vulnerable platforms they had to surface to fire their missiles, on top of that they had to remain surfaced to act as a guidance platform by 1984 they were just too vulnerable for front line combat and were withdrawn from forward operations in favor of the more advanced Charlie class and later the Oscar Class, neither had to surface to fire their missiles.

In comparison to Regulus i would have to say having seen the Growler in New York and a mock up of Regulus, then having seen many types of weapons the Russians offer at Expo plus being on some of their boats i can only say Regulus is much closer to the V1 which it was designed from than it is to a SS-N-3, in fact i would say the SS-N-3 is a generation ahead.

The hardest task i find is explaining to people who are immersed with American / British / Western operational doctrine that Russia & Soviet Union never wanted to fight in the open ocean as they knew they would have limited chance and their operational capability would not sustain a prolonged war.

If you look at the USN and the British RN you find a lot of Auxiliaries tankers stores ships you don't see that with the Soviets / Russians even today.

Admiral Gorshkov who said "Better is the enemy of good enough" knew he could not compete with the west platform for platform so what does he decide to do? he creates a sea denial force he buys up large numbers (remember Lenin "numbers have a quality all of their own") of platforms that can carry missiles, the idea being well if we loose a few it doesn't matter but i can also swarm the enemy with many missiles from multiple directions, this is in fact a good trade off $300,000 missile to cripple a $500m ship and loose a few inexpensive missile boats.

The Russian and Soviet navy only has to stop Amphibious forces landing on the coast line their doctrine in 1984 is let them come to us, yes they build big missile platforms a Heavy aviation cruiser (here is another doctrinal quagmire) but this is for flag waving in reality they are not really built for open ocean deployments the doctrine of 1984 being that of the Bastion concept is to use choke points fire and run away.

Now you may think that it is silly but Russia spends more on its army and Air force than it does its Navy and with such a large land border to protect not just from Europeans but also the Chinese you need large amounts of troops (today its just over 1 million with over 2.5million men in reserve) in 1984 those numbers were a lot bigger around 3.8 million with another 4 million in reserve, so let the burden be on the army and air force.

The biggest area of interest for any landings is the North cape / Kola peninsular in the North and the Kamchatka Peninsular in the east at the time we are talking about the Baltic and Black sea could have been kept at bay by the satellite states and the tiny Caspian flotilla stopped a trip up through Iran (Which ceased to be an issue in 1979)

What we see come 1989 is a mass decomission of boats and by 1982/3 period these boats were already well worn out hence thier limited time at sea in their later lives, the loss of K219 hit that lesson home hard and one man who certainly could tell you about that is Captain Igor Kurdin he was the XO of K219 he later went on to command a Yankee and later Delta class submarines.