ABSTRACT
The North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea were the primary operating areas of the Soviet Navy in 1956. The geographical distribution of ship days shows which areas of the world are most important to the Soviet Union at a particular time and, concurrently, the amount of power the navy either is able to deploy or considers necessary in order to fulfill its assigned missions. Positioning the naval forces was the first task in making the maritime approaches to the Soviet Union secure. In the 1950s, Soviet ballistic missile submarines posed little strategic threat to the United States. Frequent equipment malfunctions required towing disabled ships back to local fleet waters, and several collisions of Soviet naval ships indicated a lack of experience in operations on the high seas. The ocean surveillance Capability Demonstrated in Okean-75 reflects a further refinement of the Soviets' technically advanced systems. Soviet reconnaissance aircraft flew hundreds of missions in the North Atlantic, the Norwegian Sea, and elsewhere.
