Operation GOTCHA: The Soviet Union's Top-Secret Plan to Launch a Surprise Cruise Missile Attack Against the United States

By Robert Stevenson

Operation GOTCHA relates the story of a hypothesized top-secret plan by the Soviet Union to launch in 1998 a surprise cruise missile attack against the United States. The plan, devised according to the story primarily by the legendary Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, details how Soviet submarines and bombers were positioned for the attack as well as the missiles' targets. Gorshkov muses in the story why the plan, which called for the use of conventionally-armed cruise missiles, would succeed spectacularly and result in the crippling of the United States' military capability, and accomplish all this without the U.S. retaliating with nuclear weapons. Although Operation GOTCHA is presented in an entertaining manner, the reader still is left with some questions: would such a plan have succeeded, not only in 1998 but even today, and did such a plan, in fact, ever exist? As for the final question, the conclusion of the story provides the answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Stevenson
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311957627

Book preview

Operation GOTCHA

The Soviet Union’s Top-Secret Plan to Launch a Surprise Cruise Missile Attack Against the United States

by

Robert Stevenson

Soviet Victor-III nuclear-powered attack submarine.

106 meters long, 25 Victor-III class submarines were built, with the first one entering service in the Soviet Fleet in 1979.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 by Robert Stevenson

All Rights Reserved.

Contents

OPERATION GOTCHA

The Origin of GOTCHA

The Basis for Operation GOTCHA

Operation GOTCHA Plan

OPERATION GOTCHA

During the months preceding his retirement in 1985 as Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Fleet, Admiral Sergey Gorshkov engaged in many lengthy philosophical as well as practical discussions with the man who would succeed him, Fleet Admiral Vladimir N. Chernavin. The revered old man, Father of the Modern Soviet Navy, had not only supervised the development of the mightiest navy ever, but he had determinedly guided its construction in accordance with his belief that Best is the worst enemy of good enough. And, the Soviet Navy had definitely become good enough, for whatever mission upon which it might be called—whether for the defense of Mother Russia, support of complex Soviet space programs, or carrying a conflict to the enemy anywhere on any ocean. Wisely practical, Admiral Gorshkov had designed a fleet that could be built by the technology available in Soviet shipyards and manned by crewmen who, by