Exercise FleetEx '83

USS Bristol County (LST-1198) port bow view in California.

Exercise

The United States Navy conducted FleetEx '83 of April 1983, was then the largest fleet exercise held to date in the North Pacific. Activity was also in Japan, Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands.

It had circa forty ships with 23,000 crewmembers and 300 aircraft, and was thus was arguably the most powerful naval armada ever assembled in both war or peace. It involved both the USS Bristol County (LST-1198) along with US carriers Midway and Coral Sea with their respective escorts.

Duration

About ~2 weeks.

Participants

Taiwan (?), S. Korea (?), Australia (?), NZ (?), Thailand (?), Canada (?), the UK (?), Mexico (?), Colombia (?), Panama (?), Peru (?), Chile (?), Singapore (?), the Philippines, the USA and Japan.

Soviet response

There was both an unusually high level of airborne surveillance and a unusually low level sea-borne surveillance. Soviet military chiefs also got rather paranoid and hawkish during the American led exercises.

The eastern branch of the Naval Air Force, tasked with sending its bombers against US carrier fleets, did not trust the information they got from there rundown targeting satellites or other available intelligence methods. They preferred the direct-tracking ship' or 'd-tracker” method in which a destroyer or other ship that shadows the US fleet constantly in peacetime, sending back coordinates just in case a war dose break out.

Controversy

On April 4,at least 6 American aircraft flew over Zeleny Island in southern Kurile Islands, which were close to the border with Japan, as part of the Exercise FleetEx '83. In retaliation the Soviets ordered an overflight of America's Aleutian Islands and complained to the UN over the American's airspace violations.

Following the orders of the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Soviet submarine "K-305" Project 671 RTM, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Bondarenko V.K. (02.23.1983) was sent out on routine duties and found a US Navy submarines of the type "LOS ANGELES" class spying on them in the in the Okhotsk Sea. Using GPA (sonar counter equipment), the presence of fishing vessels and active maneuvering through 42 minutes the American sub broke away from tracking the Soviet sub.

Also see

Exercise Reforger
Exercise Able Archer '83
Exercise Zapad-81
Exercise Cobra Gold
Operation Square Leg (1980) and Exercise Hard Rock (1982)
The Korean Air Flight 007 incident in 1983
French nuclear plans and the Force de Dissuasion
Operation Gladio
Korean Demilitarized Zone