NORFOLK, Va. -- Soviet submarines could penetrate Chesapeake Bay, home of the nation's largest Navy base, but would have little reason to do so, a Navy submarine expert said Thursday.
Capt. Peter Catalano, head of the Atlantic Fleet's Special Surveillance Operations unit, said Soviet spy submarines, such as the one that ran aground near Sweden's top secret Karlskrona naval base, would be unable to learn anything it couldn't find out through other means that present less risk.
'With our open society, you can count the ships going in and out from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel,' Catalano said.
'Anything you could collect from a sub, you could also collect from the land itself.'
Unlike European naval installations, most of which are strictly sealed off from public view, the Norfolk Naval Base, the world's largest Naval installation, can be observed from pleasure boats, harbor tour boats and even Navy-sponsored guided bus tours.
In addition, electronic listening devices could be packed into closed trucks cruising nearby interstates and detect anything a sub would be able to find, according to Catalano.
'I don't think there's much need for them to come in to the coast,' he said.
Should they choose to enter the bay, however, they could, he said.
'Very hypothetically, it could get into the bay undetected,' Catalano said. 'Do I think it would get in? I say no.'
Besides being an unrewarding excursion, the transit into the bay would be difficult. Limited access via two channel openings through the Bridge-Tunnel and the shallow waters of the bay would prove to be serious navigational hazards for an underwater intrusion.
Even U.S. subs entering and leaving the base, located about 20 miles from the bay's mouth, do so above water because of the difficult navigation.
Catalano added that Russian ballistic submarines would be in a better strategic position to knock out Navy installations from hundreds, even thousands, of miles off the coast.
Soviet Delta III submarines, for example, fire missiles with a range up to 4,000 miles and present a threat even when docked in their home ports. The remainder of the Soviet's submarine-based missiles have a 1,600-mile range.
'Why come in here and use torpedos (which he noted would do little damage), when you could sit a thousand miles off (the coast) and pop this place off with a missile,' he said.
Catalano said the U.S. Navy is 'reasonably successful' at detecting and tracking Soviet submarines in the Atlantic Ocean when they pose a threat to vital military targets or sea lanes.
Submarine detectors dot the ocean bottom, U.S. warships routinely scout for submarines near shipping lanes, and Navy aircraft designed for anti-submarine detection prowl off-shore areas for submarines.
