Re: Two ways to look at it: Massive overkill or massive target
The Soviets never planned to kill USCBG's with surface ships.
Several reasons for that:
1) The VMF were not a blue water navy. Their concept was that of operating close to the coast and defend it.
2) The massive submarine fleet would be the aquatic hunters of large surface groups and despite what you might imagine, the possibility of stopping a salvo of torpedoes is fairly low.
3) Targets to be located for the submarines using long range naval air regiments, who also have the ability to strike from a very long old way off of the target. They also have the numbers and missile carrying capability to overwhelm even a US air defence system.
4) All of the above and then chuck in the ability for any single weapon to carry a tactical nuclear weapon - afterall, we are talking WW3 here.
Carrier Battle Groups, perfect for bombing goat herders and rice farmers. Just one big old target for an opponent with an actual navy but bombing goat herders and and rice farmers are the ones needing bombing. Those evil Russians are long gone.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
