From Tue Oct 07 14:15:25 1997
>Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 12:38:59 -0700
>From: Mike Potter
>Organization: Artecon, Inc.
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (WinNT; I)
>To: mahan@microworks.net, MARHST-L@post.queensu.ca
>Subject: Book review: Warships of the USSR and Russia 1945-1995
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>I wrote this review for _Naval Engineers Journal_, published by the
>American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE):
>
>Book: Alexander Sergeivich Pavlov (author) and Norman Friedman (editor),
>_Warships of the USSR and Russia 1945-1995_ [Annapolis: Naval Institute
>Press, 1997]
>
> Without access to official sources but with help from a network of
>”about 550″ fellow naval enthusiasts, in this reference handbook Russian
>naval architect Alexander Pavlov describes all Soviet and Russian
>warships launched or completed since 1945. ASNE member Dr. Norman
>Friedman, an articulate and insightful expert on modern warships,
>amplifies the translated text using western intelligence sources and
>other recent Russian publications.
> The book is arranged as were mid-century editions of _Jane’s Fighting
>Ships_, beginning with battleships and ending with auxiliaries. For a
>rough indicator of Soviet design priorities: submarines and coastal or
>inland surface ships occupy half the pages. Illustrations are large and
>plentiful. Diagrams show internal arrangements and underwater hull forms
>for submarines, information entirely hidden from the west as recently as
>1991.
> An illuminating discovery is that Soviet Russia followed ten-year
>plans for warship construction projects, which tends to confirm earlier
>estimates that the Soviet navy’s strategic mission changed very little
>from Stalin onward. I think successive Soviet regimes built this navy
>primarily to deter or defeat any potential foreign attempt to intervene
>in a Russian-controlled region should the local authorities collapse,
>and secondarily, to fight as the seaward flank should an opportunity
>arise for a Soviet military advance into the Middle East, Scandinavia,
>or wherever. The resulting fleet configuration was already suitable for
>defending ballistic missile submarine bastions when that mission was
>added around 1970.
> Pavlov reveals innovative, almost fantastic, craft such as the huge
>and heavily-armed Project 1239 surface effect ships. U.S. Navy personnel
>are impressed with the information that this book delivers but are
>somewhat disoriented by Russian weapons designations. NATO codes are
>given for ships and some missiles only.
> Exciting discoveries are offset by absences of some data. This book
>says virtually nothing about actual operations or about how
>satisfactorily seamen, naval architects, economists, and strategists
>judged these ships. How well does the aforementioned Project 1239
>perform? Poorly, say other sources; Pavlov is silent. Naval aviation and
>coast defenses are not covered. Ships’ fates are rarely stated; no doubt
>few officials even in Russia really know this dormant fleet’s true
>status today.
> _Warships of the USSR and Russia_ works primarily as an additional
>reference book for naval enthusiasts and professionals who have other
>books about these ships, their weapons, and their operations. Those
>readers may ponder whether to fault or to salute the Russians for
>actually building, at great effort in a poor nation, advanced craft of
>types that American authorities dismissed as impractical for warships.
>
>–
>Michael C. Potter, Mgr, TelCo/Govt Programs mike.potter@artecon.com
>Artecon, Inc. | | Mail: PO Box 9000
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