Birkeland, John Olav (2021) Maritime Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Birkeland, John Olav (2021) Maritime airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the High North - The role of anti-submarine warfare - 1945 to the present. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/81995/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Maritime airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the High North – The role of anti-submarine warfare – 1945 to the present John Olav Birkeland, MPhil (R), MA, MOAS Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in War Studies School of Humanities College of Arts University of Glasgow June 2020 © John Olav Birkeland, June 2020 2 Abstract There is mounting consensus among NATO allies that the resurgent Russian naval and submarine activity in the High North needs to be closely monitored and kept in check. And in spite of the rise of satellite technology and unmanned aircraft, the key instrument in that effort, at least for now, remains the Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) with its Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capabilities. However, after three decades of focus on expeditionary and counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare, there has taken place an atrophy within the MPA community of knowledge, resources, experience and practice when it comes to the ASW aspects of maritime surveillance. This atrophy occurred just as the concept of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) came to play an increasingly important role in operational planning. The concept of ISR, however, is linked to expeditionary and COIN warfare, and it pays insufficient attention to the challenges of maritime airborne surveillance and the specific challenges of ASW. This thesis seeks to address this gap. It does so by analysing the past in order to find solutions for the future. The thesis examines the entwined evolution of airborne maritime surveillance by MPA and ASW in the High North, both during and after the Cold War, and focuses on the key NATO allies of Norway, the US, and the UK. The thesis further seeks to identify the fundamental ‘building blocks’ and tenets of these historical surveillance operations that are then used to craft a novel theoretical framework for understanding the nature and function of maritime airborne ISR and its relationship to ASW. That framework is then applied to make recommendations for the future for maritime surveillance in the High North. The thesis’s key findings of this thesis are that: • Russian submarines as the capital ships of the Russia Navy. They have morphed from noisy, predictable vessels operating in known patrol areas, to superbly silent vessels operating in unpredictable patterns, carrying world-leading cruise missiles technology that constitute a renewed threat to both European and American targets; • the traditional airborne tool to meet the submarine threat, the MPA, is crucial but not adequate in a modern context. A multi-layered, international approach is required, which will benefit from utilizing artificial intelligence for complex acoustic sensor processing. 3 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 2 List of tables ........................................................................................................................................ 6 List of figures ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................................... 9 Author’s Declaration ........................................................................................................................ 10 Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... 11 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 16 1.1 Background for the project ............................................................................................. 16 1.1.1 Main research question ............................................................................................ 19 1.1.2 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 20 1.1.3 Personal standpoint – the researcher .................................................................... 21 1.2 Historiography ................................................................................................................... 22 1.2.1 Geopolitics in the High North .................................................................................. 22 1.2.2 Russian submarine and missile development ....................................................... 27 1.2.3 ASW development in general .................................................................................. 28 1.2.4 Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) .......................... 29 1.2.5 Maritime airborne surveillance, reconnaissance and patrol .............................. 30 1.3 Method ................................................................................................................................ 33 1.3.1 Outline of the study .................................................................................................. 33 1.3.2 ISR as a concept ........................................................................................................ 33 1.3.3 ASW defined ............................................................................................................... 37 1.3.4 Types of submarines ................................................................................................. 38 1.3.5 Sources ........................................................................................................................ 39 1.4 Disposition .......................................................................................................................... 41 2. The formative years: 1945-1960 ............................................................................................. 43 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 43 2.2 The Northern Fleet build-up ........................................................................................... 44 2.3 Western strategy and anti-submarine warfare ............................................................ 47 2.4 The Norwegian balancing act – integration and screening ......................................... 54 2.5 Chapter conclusion ........................................................................................................... 60 3. A common NATO Maritime Patrol Aircraft ............................................................................ 62 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 62 3.2 The NATO 1956 Annual Review ....................................................................................... 63 3.3 Establishment of the Group of Experts ......................................................................... 63 3.4 A question of range ........................................................................................................... 65 4 3.5 Roles and missions ............................................................................................................ 68 3.6 Operational characteristics and specifications ............................................................ 69 3.7 The final decision .............................................................................................................. 71 3.8 The Norwegian decision to acquire Albatross MPA ...................................................... 73 3.9 Actual procurement .......................................................... Feil! Bokmerke er ikke definert. 3.10 Chapter conclusion ........................................................................................................... 76 4. Foundation for long-range ASW – 1961-69 ............................................................................ 77 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 77 4.2 Soviet naval strategy and submarine capabilities ....................................................... 78 4.3 Evolution of Western naval strategy .............................................................................. 81 4.4 The evolution of NATO ASW and MPA capabilities ...................................................... 86 4.5 The deployment