Soviet Navy

The Soviet Navy (, literally "Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR") was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean from North America to Western Europe. Such a conflict never occurred, but the Soviet Navy still saw considerable action during the Cold War.

The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets, the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea, and Baltic Fleets, and commanded separately, the Leningrad Naval Base. The Caspian Flotilla was a smaller force operating in the land-locked Caspian Sea. The Mediterranean Squadron drew its units from the Black Sea, Baltic, and Northern Fleets; the Indian Ocean Squadron primarily from the Pacific Fleet. Other components included Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry (the Soviet equivalent of marines), and Coastal Artillery.

According to a 1980 Time article citing analysts from RAND Corporation, non-Slavs were generally prohibited from joining elite or strategic positions in the armed forces like the Navy, Strategic Rocket Forces and the Soviet Air Force because of suspicions of the loyalty of ethnic minorities., Time , June 23, 1980

Most of the Soviet Navy was reformed into the Russian Navy after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

History

Early history

The Soviet Navy was based on a...
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