1983 Able Archer Crisis- question

[Dayton3]

The Russian Yankee class SSBN did deploy regularly to an area near bermuda known as the Yankee box.

Didn't they stop deploying the Yankees in the 1980's as a cost cutting measure and rely on the Delta IIs, IIIs, & IVs?

And weren't the Yankees noisy enough that U.S. SSNs were routinely able to track them throughout a patrol?

IIRC from Blind Man's Bluff, the first long trail of a Yankee lasted some six weeks and was all the way back in the early days of the Nixon admin.

[Officer of Engineers]

Standard Soviet SLBM doctrine was to launch from behind a flottila screen. YANKEE BOX always had one or two destroyers there to protect the subs.

[Johnny W]

Didn't they stop deploying the Yankees in the 1980's as a cost cutting measure and rely on the Delta IIs, IIIs, & IVs?

And weren't the Yankees noisy enough that U.S. SSNs were routinely able to track them throughout a patrol?

They stopped in the mid 80's, and I think the main reason was with the deployment of the Delta IV's and Typhoons, the Yankee box patrols were no longer necessary. Those boats could remain hidden under the ice, and had more range and accuracy than the Yankees.

On one of the last Yankee box patrols, the Russians had an accident with one of their boats in the vicinity of Bermuda. That might have hastened the end of the patrols.

I believe you are correct on the second part.

[Guest]

In November 1983, NATO was practicing a nuclear release exercise called "Able Archer".

I've read a number of articles (mainly by John Prados) that the Soviets, worried that the exercise was cover for a potentially real surprise nuclear attack by NATO (because the Soviets often used exercises as cover for actual military operations) actually became worried enough that near the end of Able Archer, A Soviet bomber regiment in East Germany had actual nuclear weapons loaded aboard for a possible strike against NATO targets.

IIRC, a Soviet bomber regiment (I think that is what they called them at the time) normally had 21 aircraft.

Being based in East Germany, I assumed the aircraft were probably SU-24 Fencers and that each were probably armed with two nuclear weapons in the 50-200 kiloton range.

From what I've read about Soviet doctrine at that time, they would probably have assigned at least two SU-24s to each target, meaning that the Soviet force would've been targeted on 10 different sites in West Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, or United Kingdom.

Can anyone tell me if I've assumed incorrectly anywhere and if they have any more information about the Able Archer Crisis?

I was stationed at Ramstein AB, W. Germany during the able archer exercise.
The real story of what happened between the Soviet Union and the U.S. is not currently being told by anyone. I was an Electronics Countermeasures engineering tech on hotline to Gen.Robert C. Oakes which was then our commander of the base and U.S. Allied Air Forces in Europe.

We had intel which was leading our administration to believe the Soviet Union was indeed going to first strike the U.S. They also gave W.Germany an ultimatum that they were going to put an oil pipeline through W.Ge. and if they didn't agree then they were not going to be particularly nice to them after they took them over. We were also being spied upon by Soviet agents. They went so far as to boast about their ECM technique which they termed "Burn through jamming" which would of course defeat our own systems. The large cache of weapons our NSA unit (6949th ESS) rivet joint aircraft surveilance found was destined for Nicaragua which was receiving a half a billion dollars worth of Soviet military buildup every year.

Also, we mustn't forget the fact that our base went to full military alert with battlestations this is no drill (not part of able archer which was signal corps only) we armed and did much bombing using our new techniques in ECM and was able to turn back the invading forces from Czechoslakia.

I don't know where the liberals get their info, but it must be la-la land.
Bill (U.S.A.F.)
I really detest being fed a bunch of misleading information especially when it has some kind of political agenda.

And as far as KAL007 went. That aircraft was unfortunate enough to stray near a top secret Soviet installation. We would have shot down a plane entering similar airspace with no questions asked. A tradegy for sure. But we were told at NSA not to protest this for this reason. Maybe in Washington they did, but we at NSA did not!

[Shek]

I was stationed at Ramstein AB, W. Germany during the able archer exercise.
The real story of what happened between the Soviet Union and the U.S. is not currently being told by anyone. I was an Electronics Countermeasures engineering tech on hotline to Gen.Robert C. Oakes which was then our commander of the base and U.S. Allied Air Forces in Europe.

We had intel which was leading our administration to believe the Soviet Union was indeed going to first strike the U.S. They also gave W.Germany an ultimatum that they were going to put an oil pipeline through W.Ge. and if they didn't agree then they were not going to be particularly nice to them after they took them over. We were also being spied upon by Soviet agents. They went so far as to boast about their ECM technique which they termed "Burn through jamming" which would of course defeat our own systems. The large cache of weapons our NSA unit (6949th ESS) rivet joint aircraft surveilance found was destined for Nicaragua which was receiving a half a billion dollars worth of Soviet military buildup every year.

Also, we mustn't forget the fact that our base went to full military alert with battlestations this is no drill (not part of able archer which was signal corps only) we armed and did much bombing using our new techniques in ECM and was able to turn back the invading forces from Czechoslakia.

I don't know where the liberals get their info, but it must be la-la land.
Bill (U.S.A.F.)
I really detest being fed a bunch of misleading information especially when it has some kind of political agenda.

And as far as KAL007 went. That aircraft was unfortunate enough to stray near a top secret Soviet installation. We would have shot down a plane entering similar airspace with no questions asked. A tradegy for sure. But we were told at NSA not to protest this for this reason. Maybe in Washington they did, but we at NSA did not!

I see burn marks on your lips . . .

[Officer of Engineers]

Funny the Warsaw Pact Generals don't agree with you.

php_collseries

[Officer of Engineers]

Also, we mustn't forget the fact that our base went to full military alert with battlestations this is no drill (not part of able archer which was signal corps only) we armed and did much bombing using our new techniques in ECM and was able to turn back the invading forces from Czechoslakia.

I am going to kill this.

We don't call it battlestations. We call it Stand To. And nothing on the Czech front was even mobilized for war.