Indian Navy - Expansion blues

[shiv]

!5 years ago I used to think "Oh my - the Indian Navy has plans for expansion - but it's going to take so long!"

After waiting all this time - and taking pleasure in watching the Navy expand like never before I am concerned, but not surprised to see a spate of accidents. Naval ship accidents that make the news are fortunately less common than Air force attrition for which we have a separate thread "Flight Safety"

But I do think that the spate of accidents we are seeing involving the Indian Navy has something to do with the massive expansion of manpower that has accompanied the increase in ships. I am wild-guessing here but every single ship that is added probably means 500 to 1000 extra personnel added for a whole lot of tasks - all of who need to be trained and need to gain experience. The addition of 20 ships would mean a sizable load of young people, officers, sailors, engineers, maintenance crew, electronics and weapons experts etc and mistakes are bound to occur.

The Air Force has a robust system of accident investigation and, I am sure, so does the Navy. But the accidents are surely a cause for some concern. Some - like Sindhurakshak could be human error. The Torpedo recovery vessel that went down with loss of life is a real tragedy. This is not the first time the India Navy has had a ship sunk in peacetime due to material failure in the Bay of Bengal

And then the collision. Was that an error of judgement on the part of the captain (or pilot or whoever? )

I am starting this thread to keep track of Naval ship accidents.

[member_28840]

when i read the story about the Torpedo Recovery Vessel, the first thing i thought of was the INS Andamans.

Metal corrodes and after 30 years these ships are still being used.

Although the loss of life is painful, I hope the IN sees this as the right time to replace our older auxillaries with Glass or Fiber reinforced boats.

[ArmenT]

But I do think that the spate of accidents we are seeing involving the Indian Navy has something to do with the massive expansion of manpower that has accompanied the increase in ships. I am wild-guessing here but every single ship that is added probably means 500 to 1000 extra personnel added for a whole lot of tasks - all of who need to be trained and need to gain experience. The addition of 20 ships would mean a sizable load of young people, officers, sailors, engineers, maintenance crew, electronics and weapons experts etc and mistakes are bound to occur.

You also need some grizzled old salts to mentor the new crewmen. That's because there are usually several procedures which are learned from hard experience, that are not in the manuals. Or, if the safety procedures are in the manuals, they are not always followed because younger crowd might have "whatever attitude" and not know the consequences and no old guy is around to notice and enforce them.

Classic example: Ben Rich's book on the Skunk Works (I know that it is about aircraft, but bear with me here). Basically, his lament was that in the 40s, 50s and 60s, engineers and shop personnel would all have worked on a dozen different projects one after another and built dozens of aircraft each and got a lot of real world experience. With cuts in the budget spending and really expensive aircraft like the B2, youngsters would only get to work on one aircraft project in their lifetime and only build a few airplanes, if at all (e.g. only 20 B2s got built). The problem is that this wasn't enough numbers for the youngsters to learn from mistakes. Also, since the contracts were few and far between, all the greybearded mechanics and shop people retired before they could mentor the younger generation. Therefore, new people were unknowingly not following basic safety procedures, like strewing power cables over the refuelling lines on the shop floor, a mistake that no old guy would have done because they'd learned from fire accidents in the past. It was in the safety manual, but no one had really drilled the new guys on the importance of why those cables should not cross over each other.

[negi]

IN's sizable chunk of fleet is reaching it's EOL , if one would notice most of the ships which went down were 60s/70s vintage obviously Sindhurakshak being an exception.

From manpower point of view too the IN runs the leanest ship amongst the 3 services , I mean look at it's inventory it operates surface vessels, submarines, fighter AC, choppers but when it comes to manpower it is smaller than even the IAF. That being the case it has been most aggressive of the 3 services when it comes to commissioning new platforms and modernization , the refit work at ports is something which has suffered due to such increased load .

[Singha]

list of ships that should rightly be retired:

training ship INS Tir 1986
the 3 oldest sandhyak class vessels
all 3 of the torpedo recovey vessels(2 now)
the sole diving support vessel
all 7 of the pondicherry class minesweepers
all 4 of the abhay class fac
5 of the tarantul class
all 4 of the khukri class
all 3 of the godavari class
all 8 of the kumbhir class LST
INS magar

[Yagnasri]

Godavari class also?

[Singha]

all three are 30 yrs old.

the flop show on ordering many more P28 is making these elderly corvettes/FACs be run past their designed lifetimes.

[member_28840]

list of ships that should rightly be retired:

training ship INS Tir 1986
the 3 oldest sandhyak class vessels
all 3 of the torpedo recovey vessels(2 now)
the sole diving support vessel
all 7 of the pondicherry class minesweepers
all 4 of the abhay class fac
5 of the tarantul class
all 4 of the khukri class
all 3 of the godavari class
all 8 of the kumbhir class LST
INS magar

you missed the LCU MK3s

the rajputs are also good candidates for retirement. if only the P15B construction could be speeded up.

[Singha]

oh yes i had forgotten them. all 5 are 80s era.

the soviet union did not design their ships to last very long. they built a LOT of ships and subs and went through them fast. something like 300 n-subs alone were built in 4 decades by the soviets allegedly.

we actually need a lot of P28 and Saryu class to cover for retiring the smaller ships and more P17 asap to cover the godavari and rajputs. CG larger ships should be given basic FCR and urans and CIWS to supplement the navy.

the p17a and p15b will be uber complex and costly ships and fill out sparse top part of the spectrum.

[Aditya G]

oh yes i had forgotten them. all 5 are 80s era.

the soviet union did not design their ships to last very long. they built a LOT of ships and subs and went through them fast. something like 300 n-subs alone were built in 4 decades by the soviets allegedly.

we actually need a lot of P28 and Saryu class to cover for retiring the smaller ships and more P17 asap to cover the godavari and rajputs. CG larger ships should be given basic FCR and urans and CIWS to supplement the navy.

the p17a and p15b will be uber complex and costly ships and fill out sparse top part of the spectrum.

New LCUs are on the way. One was launched by GRSE just a few weeks back.

As of today, the fleet is in a much better position when it comes to minor warships. Despite gifting away a number of IOR littoral states, we have several seaward defence type of vessels. All were inducted in last ~12 years.

Saryu class induction is complete with the older Sukanyas still around. Plus more coming in from private yards. IMHO OPV induction bodes well for the frigate and destroyer classes as it will relieve tasking pressure to an extent.

Makkar class induction has fallen behind and no new TRVs and ocean tugs in sight.

[member_28840]

a bit OT, but any chaiwalla news about what happened to the other 5 Makkar survey cats?

[Philip]

3 more Talwars are on the cards from Russia.They should all arrive befoer 2020 when the "G" class can take a bow.However, only a sustained ship building programme will allow vintage warships to retire in time.

[Pratyush]

No new ship imports ever, should our motto. Especially, when domestic yards have no work. Only when the domestic yards are so saturated with work that they cannot deliver on a realistic timeline. Should an external option be sought. Else, shut up and keep your head down, build at home.

Rinse and repeat.