6 Bases during the Cold War

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the lesser number of aligned client states available to the Soviet Union in theThird World; the practice of utilizing a larger numbers of satellites with shorterlives; and the more open nature of Western societies which reduced the (relative)Soviet requirements for proliferated intelligence facilities.The USSR had nothing, for instance, comparable to the U.S. SOSUS networkfor tracking submarines, though there was a report in 1978 of a Soviethydrophone apparatus washed ashore in Iceland. The Soviets relied more onsurface ships and perhaps also submarines and aircraft-sown sonabuoys fordetection of U.S. submarines. It maintained about 50 auxiliary intelligence shipsfor ASW work, which maintained a constant presence near important continentalU.S. bases such as Charleston, South Carolina; Kings Bay, Georgia;Norfolk, Virginia; Mayport, Florida; and Bangor, Washington; as well as atHoly Loch, Scotland.And, unlike the U.S., the USSR apparently made no use of external communicationsand/or navigation facilities in connection with submarines on patrol.Several sources reported that communications with submarines stationed at greatdistances from the USSR were handled by a network of some 26 VLF and LFtransmitters within the USSR itself, apparently sufficient to cover the patrolareas of Soviet SSBNs and SSNs; in the former case, most were kept close tohome in the “bastions,” or on stations in the Atlantic or Pacific oceans withinrange of the home communications stations. Ford referred to six long-rangeradio transmitters (at Petropavlovsk, Vladivostok, Dikson Ostrov, Kaliningrad,Matochin Shar and Arkhangelsk) that gave orders to Soviet submarines. In addition,Arkin and Fieldhouse reported a three-station network of “Omega-type”VLF transmitters at Krasnodar, Komsomolsk and Rostov. They also detailed aconsiderable number of LORAN-C type “Pulsed Phase Radio NavigationSystem” stations, organized by chains along the western and eastern littorals ofthe USSR, used to position submarines.Soviet submarines apparently also received communications from satellitesduring brief surfacing. And, one source indicated the possibility of Soviet use ofcommand and control submarines for relaying communications to other underseascraft within communications distance.The Soviet global ground network of space-tracking and satellite controlfacilities was, of course, far less extensive than that of the U.S. Again, this was afunction of the far more extensive use of ship-borne facilities as well as of thelesser external needs dictated by the larger land mass of the USSR, particularlyin relation to many satellite orbits which allowed direct transmission to theUSSR.At the core of the Soviet space-surveillance system was a network of at least12 sites within the USSR claimed to be “equipped with receivers to measureDoppler shifts in radio signals, tracking radars, and photo theodolites and whichtransmit data to a central computation center.” Additionally, radars associatedwith anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) – Pushkino, Hen House, Try Add and DogHouse – are said to have had space-tracking capabilities, along with the controversial(in the context of ABM treaty verification) radar at Abalakova.138 Bases during the Cold Warİ 2007 Robert E. HarkavyOutside the USSR, there were a number of tracking stations in foreign countries.These were reported in Egypt (Helwan and Aswan) before the Egypto–Soviet break, Mali, Guinea, Cuba and Chad, as well as in Czechoslovakia andPoland. At Santiago de Cuba, for instance, there was an Interkosmos laser radarand also a KIM-3 tracking camera, presumably functionally equivalent to theU.S. Baker-Nunn or GEODSS systems. Perhaps overlapping this grouping, therewere reports of an Interkosmos laser tracking program (using a laserrangefinder) involving facilities in Egypt, Bolivia, India and Cuba. It is believedthat tracking was carried out at Khartoum in the Sudan and Afgoi in Somalia.But just because the Soviet Union was reluctant to become too dependent onforeign land-based stations, it placed considerable emphasis upon shipbornespace-tracking (and also missile-tracking) systems. This involved more than tenships – a Soviet source noted that even despite the nation’s large land mass,space vehicles were within direct visibility from Soviet territory only for aboutnine hours out of 24.In the field of communications too, the Soviet Union was far less dependent onforeign land bases than the U.S.; correspondingly, far more reliant on ship-bornePage 45Page 46
systems (an exception, of course was the VLF facilities used to communicate withsubmarines, perhaps too large to be placed aboard ships). As it is, however, relativeto what was known about the U.S., there was scant information on how theUSSR utilized the whole of the frequency spectrum for various purposes, how ittried to circumvent countermeasures by redundancy, and so forth.For the most part, Soviet use of overseas communications facilities focusedon the downlinks for the Molniya communications satellites, of which therewere some 40 aloft at a given time.A U.S. government report provided some information (and a map) on thegeneral locations of Soviet tracking ships and, hence, of the locales where theymight have sought port access or at least mooring buoys. Among them, off SableIsland, Nova Scotia; in the western Mediterranean near Gibraltar; the Gulf ofGuinea; off Mozambique and Madagascar; off Honduras, east of the Philippines;and north of New Zealand. Large tracking ships apparently moored at Havanaand/or Santiago while tracking some flights; Trinidad was also mentioned in thiscontext. Some of the other locations provided rationales for periodic access toConakry or Maputo, maybe also to Nicaragua, as well as providing further indicationsof the Soviet need for access somewhere in the South Pacific. (The U.S.government report stated that three large Soviet ships took turns serving in theCaribbean area to extend Soviet deep-space coverage.)The USSR depended considerably less on land-based SIGINT collection stationsthan the U.S., though, it utilized a variety of means; satellites, surface shipsand submarines, aircraft, equipment based in embassies and so on. And again,similar to the situation with respect to space tracking and early warning, one hadto be aware of the sometimes only indirect importance of external access; forinstance, for fueling ships used in lieu of land facilities.The USSR was reported to have had major SIGINT facilities at Lourdes,Cuba; Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam; Ethiopia (two); South Yemen; Syria; andBases during the Cold War 139İ 2007 Robert E. HarkavyAfghanistan. That at Lourdes was reported to be devoted to interpretation ofsatellite communications. There may have been additional ground stations inLibya and Iraq, though the fate of the latter might be questioned since Moscowhad given only modest support to Iraq in its war with Iran, particularly in theearly stages, in part because of the cross-pressures from its relationship withLibya.The Lourdes facility was a large one, operated by some 2000 Soviet personnel;it became a prominent issue in 1979 at the time of the imbroglio in the U.S.over the Soviet “Cuban brigade” amid the SALT II confirmation hearings. Thefacility of 50 buildings housed an antenna field, satellite receiver and so on, andtargeted U.S. civilian and military communications, that is, B-52 communications,Fort Benning and Cape Canaveral, the naval headquarters at Norfolk, etc.According to Richelson, the Lourdes facility, complemented by a similar one inthe USSR, “gave complete coverage of the global beams of all U.S. geosynchronouscommunications satellites.”At Cam Ranh Bay, the Soviet Union had an important facility from which tomonitor both land and ocean-based emissions – there were two HF/DF sites usedto gain locational data on U.S. fleet units in the Pacific. The U.S. bases in thePhilippines were obvious targets.The four sites in Afghanistan aided collection, variously, vis-à-vis China,Pakistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf area. And, of course, these sitesmerely added to the capabilities of hundreds of SIGINT sites located within theUSSR.The Soviet Union had some other land-based intelligence-interception facilitieslocated outside the USSR. In Laos, there was an air-surveillance radar, obviouslydirected against China. According to the IISS, there was a Sovietmonitoring station (elsewhere identified as a radar site) in Sao Tome andPrincipe. In Cuba, along with the Lourdes facility, there were also air-defensesurveillance radars, the Tall King system, apparently operated by Soviet personnel.In East Germany, there were HF-finding antennas used in connection withjamming operations, in Poland, a SIGINT station and HF direction-finder atSinajscie, and at Bierdzany a receiver site for a Soviet OTH radar transmitterlocated at Kiev. Throughout Eastern Europe, there were large numbers of airsurveillanceradars equivalent to the NATO NADGE system – in Hungary, forinstance, some 130 sites manned by Soviet personnel were reported.Page 47
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6 Bases during the Cold War

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