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Aspy ship orreconnaissance vessel is a dedicatedship intended to gatherintelligence, usually by means of sophisticatedelectronic eavesdropping. In a wider sense, any ship intended to gather information could be considered a spy ship.
Spy ships are usually controlled by a nation'sgovernment, due to the high costs and advanced equipment required. They tend to be parts of the nation'snavy, though they may also be operated bysecret services.
Naval trawlers masquerade as civilian ships such asfishing trawlers, which could be reasonably expected to remain in a certain area for a long time.
Ships which are used to infiltratespies orspecial forces are sometimes also called "spy ships".[1]
An early version of what would become known as a spy ship is theUnited States civiliancargo shipUSS Gold Star (AK-12), which made frequent voyages toJapan,China and thePhilippines with cargo and passengers during the 1920s and 1930s.[2] Starting in 1933 as a station ship she was assigned to monitor internal Japanese Fleet frequencies and direction finder azimuths. She had three intercept operators and one chief radioman supervised by an officer.Gold Star and ground stations provided significant intelligence before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.[3]
Spy ships in the modern sense of being specially built and entirely dedicated to intelligence tasks came into being during the earlyCold War, and they are in use by all major powers. Their uses, in addition to listening in on communications and spy on enemy fleet movements, were to monitornuclear tests andmissile launches (especially of potentialICBMs).One of the most important functions for both Cold War spy ship fleets, especially in the 1960s, was the gathering ofsubmarine "signatures" – the patterns of noise that could often identify the specific type of submarine and were thus valuable inanti-submarine warfare. During that era, the United States fielded about 80 vessels, usually classified as "environmental research" craft, while the Soviet Union had around 60 ships, often converted trawlers orhydrographic research ships.[4]
In the late 1980s, the Sovietfisheries fleet was known for having equipped many of their thousands of ships with sophisticatedSIGINT andELINT equipment, thus functioning as auxiliary spy ships tracking western naval vessels and electronic communications (though their main function remained commercial fishing).[5]
A spy ship usually stays ininternational waters[6][7] (or at least outside territorial waters), so as to not violate territorialborders. From there, it will use its electronic equipment tomonitor sea and air traffic,radio andradar[4] frequencies and also try to intercept anddecrypt coded radio orphone communications. This is mostly done via passive means such as radio receivers or passivesonar. Sometimes however, active measures such as radar or sonar may also be used to detect the movement ofaircraft,missiles,ships or other vehicles or troops.[8][9] However, this risks revealing the ship's purpose.[citation needed]
As it is located much closer to thesurveilled area than a fixed installation (given a close byshoreline), the monitoring is usually much more efficient and in some respects better than even that of spy satellites.[citation needed]
Tracking vessels also have some of the capabilities of spy ships, and as they are controlled by their national governments, they are also intermittently used for similar purposes, such as tracking enemy missile tests.[citation needed]
As the United States Navy began deployingballistic missile submarines in 1960, the Soviet Union attempted to obtain more information about the capabilities of theUGM-27 Polaris missile and the locations of the submarines capable of launching them. While the Soviet Navy requested more sophisticated ships, they were allocated trawlers (calledtra-ou-lery) from the fishing fleet equipped with more sophisticated sensors and communication equipment. Very capable crews were assigned to these trawlers of unremarkable appearance. They were assigned to patrol stations off United States naval bases to photograph and report arrival and departure of United States warships and auxiliaries. Other trawlers of similar appearance would patrol weapons firing ranges used by the United States Navy to observe practice firings of modern weapons and record the acoustic and/or electromagnetic signature of the sonar, search radar, fire-control radar, guidance, and/or command electronics of each weapons system.[10] The United States Navy officially designated these trawlers as Auxiliary, General Intelligence (AGI), and they were informally known as "tattletales".[11]
An AGI might be assigned to a single patrol station for as long as six months. These ships were not fast enough to keep up with most warships, but they sometimes congregated aroundaircraft carriers conductingair operations of theUnited States Sixth Fleet in theMediterranean orUnited States Seventh Fleet in the westernPacific Ocean, or in suspected patrol areas of ballistic missile submarines. After theCuban Missile Crisis, theJoint Chiefs of Staff authorized acounter AGI program for United Statesdestroyers to come alongside the AGIs to push against them, foul theirscrews with steel nets, and focus high power electromagnetic transmitters to burn out the amplifying circuitry of their electronic sensors. The AGI crews then revealed their ship-handling skills using superior maneuverability to evade the destroyers' intentions. This jousting in international waters continued until signing of theU.S.–Soviet Incidents at Sea agreement in 1972.[10]
In 1972, as the U.S. and U.K. partners started operating radar stationCobra Mist, it garnered attention from many Soviet spy trawlers.[12] A year later, the radar station was shut down due to interference. The source of the interference was never confirmed and some theories still hold Soviet countermeasures responsible.[12]