INS Arihant (ATV) Launch News and Discussion

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Austin
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INS Arihant (ATV) Launch News and Discussion

Post by Austin »

PM’s wife to launch INS Arihant, India’s first nuclear submarine
Sandeep Unnithan

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur is to crack the auspicious coconut marking the historic launch of India’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine at the naval dockyard, Visakhapatnam on July 26. The launch, which naval tradition demands always be performed by a lady, is also the tenth anniversary of the conclusion of the Kargil War.

After spending over a decade cloaked under an obscure project name, the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) India’s first nuclear submarine finally gets a name: Arihant (destroyer of enemies), pulled out of a list with options like Astra. But more importantly, the Arihant propels India into an exclusive league of only five other nations who have designed and built their own nuclear-powered submarines. It also marks the first step towards the acquisition of the third leg of the nuclear triad— a secure underwater platform for launching nuclear weapons.

Based on the design of a Charlie-1 submarine which India leased from the former Soviet Union between 1987-’91, the submarine is currently housed in a completely-enclosed dry-dock called the Shipbuilding Centre (SBC) in Visakhapatnam. The launch, where the long, narrow dry dock is to be flooded with water from the harbor and the submarine floated out, is only the first step.

The Arihant is to be towed out of the SBC into an enclosed pier for its harbor trials. The trials will prove its nuclear powerplant and auxiliary systems before it heads out into the Bay of Bengal for sea trials and weapon trials of the 12 K-15 ballistic missiles it is armed with. It will take the submarine etween two and three years before commissioning.

In the meantime, the navy will get its first nuclear submarine, the Chakra, an Akula-2 class nuclear powered attack submarine currently undergoing sea trials in the Pacific Ocean off Vladivostok. The Chakra is to be commissioned later this year before sailing to Visakhapatnam. The submarine (known s the Nerpa in Russian service) is being acquired on a ten-year lease from Russia under a secret agreement signed in January 2004. India paid $ 650 million for the completion and lease of the submarine which is being acquired to rapidly train crews to man the fleet of three nuclear submarines which are to be inducted by 2015. Hull sections of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the SBC for assembling soon after the Arihant vacates dock space.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Gagan »

Arihant : The destroyer of enemies

Ari means "enemy" and Hant means "destroyer". Arihant literally means "destroyer of enemies."
Last edited by Gagan on 16 Jul 2009 10:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Aditya_V »

Austin, as per the report the Arihant will carry 12 K-15 SSBMs, so that settles it whether ATV will be a boomer, looks like the plan is that the ATV will be the Boomers and the Akulas will be the attack subs giving protection.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by parshuram »

NO brahmos ????
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Gagan »

Naval Brahmos is yet to be tested. If INS Arihant has 650mm torpedo tubes, it can fire off the brahmos through those.

The name Arihant has its origins in the Jain religion.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Austin »

Why does an SSBN need to carry short range tactical land/anti-ship cruise missile like Brahmos , when its sole and primary purpose is to provide covert Strategic Nuclear Deterrent and Second Strike Capability.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Suraj »

I spend most of my time in the tech/econ forum, but this is one military project I've waited to see arriving to fruition for years now. I almost wish Sandeep Unnithan had not posted that article and confirmed the agonizing 10 day wait for the launch day.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by amit »

Suraj wrote:I spend most of my time in the tech/econ forum, but this is one military project I've waited to see arriving to fruition for years now. I almost wish Sandeep Unnithan had not posted that article and confirmed the agonizing 10 day wait for the launch day.
Same here Suraj, only add the Strategic Forum to the tech one. These are indeed exciting times with India flexing both its economic muscle and military muscle. I just hope we get to see some pics of the Arihant. I'm checking this thread for news every few hours :)

Also, I can't help but quote this from Sandeep:

India paid $ 650 million for the completion and lease of the submarine which is being acquired to rapidly train crews to man the fleet of three nuclear submarines which are to be inducted by 2015. Hull sections of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the SBC for assembling soon after the Arihant vacates dock space.
If this is accurate, hopefully this will finally put to a rest the belief among some folks here that somehow the present PM is bent on compromising the country's security so that he can get a World Bank posting, yada, yada.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by SivaVijay »

A charlie-1 weighs around 4000T and is a vintage 60's design. Arihant was supposed to be 6000T , then how come could it be based on a charlie 1. Moreover charlie's where cruise missile subs. Am I missing something here?

Also I read sometime back in a discussion here in BRF that the total number of Arihant can be 5, but the report says only 3.If that is the case then we simply dont have enough deterrence.
Last edited by SivaVijay on 16 Jul 2009 10:50, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by amit »

Forgive a noobie question but how much range does the K-15 SSBMs have, both official as well as actual? (I'm assuming that the official or advertised range will be much less than the actual range which only those who are likely to receive the flower petals these missiles will deliver will know about)
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Gagan »

Arihant supposedly resembles the severodvinsk class design outwardly. That word "Severodvinsk" is I think not kosher yet.
Either way, this is an Indian design, the experience of the Indian Navy in running the Charlie class sub has gone into this design in a major way. Hence the repeated reference to the Charlie class.
This no where means that the sub is a 4000 ton boat.
Besides, a major portion of DRDO's indeginously developed equipment is on board. The sonar, the nuclear reactor, most of the critical systems have been developed in house by India.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by krishnan »

Based on doesnt mean it will be exactly like charlie. There could have been various changes incorporated which could have increased its weight to 6K. Also where does it say 3 will be built.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by SivaVijay »

Now that it is open, pkudva saar, request you to enlighten us jingoes more..... :)

From Unnithan's article....
train crews to man the fleet of three nuclear submarines which are to be inducted by 2015. Hull sections of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the SBC for assembling soon after the Arihant vacates dock space.
maybe they are planning 2 more after 2015
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by narayana »

krishnan wrote:Based on doesnt mean it will be exactly like charlie. There could have been various changes incorporated which could have increased its weight to 6K. Also where does it say 3 will be built.
India paid $ 650 million for the completion and lease of the submarine which is being acquired to rapidly train crews to man the fleet of three nuclear submarines which are to be inducted by 2015. Hull sections of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the SBC for assembling soon after the Arihant vacates dock space.
we may safely bet that there would be 5 indigenous ATV's by 2020
6+6 scorpene
6 amur or u 214
5 ATV's
1 Akula

Total 24 as Envisioned :)
Last edited by narayana on 16 Jul 2009 11:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Aditya_V »

SivaVijay wrote Now that it is open, pkudva saar, request you to enlighten us jingoes more.....

From Unnithan's article....

Quote:
train crews to man the fleet of three nuclear submarines which are to be inducted by 2015. Hull sections of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the SBC for assembling soon after the Arihant vacates dock space.


maybe they are planning 2 more after 2015

What it could mean is that 2 more hulls are ready, you cant expect them to have all ATV's to be ready and inducted at the same time, there will be changes based on trials, 5-8years time fr4ame is more approriate to induct all 5boats and then we will see afterwards.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by vina »

Ok. Based on Sandeep Unnithan's aticle of 12 Sagarika /K-15 and that it is based on Charlie II which carried 8 missiles banked outwards, outside the pressure hull, and given the known dimensions and weight of Charlie II, this is what I think the "Arihant" would be like.
  • Length = 110m ( a 8 m stretch)
    Breadth = 10 m (largely same as Charlie II)
    Displacement = 6000 tons submerged ( assuming Agni III SL is 50 tons at launch , so diff of 600 tons over Charlie II)
    Block Coeff = 0.6618 (same as Charlie II)
    Reactor = 1 nos PWR of around 150 MW
    Turbine = 1 nos
    Shaft = 1 nos
    Speed = 26 Max (submerged)
    = 16 Max (surfaced)
    Silent speed = 10 knots max.
    Design depth = 300m
    Missile Firing Depth = 60m to 75m or so I would think
And oh, I would think that it will have an "extended" area behind the tail like the first Amirkhani Nuke subs . After all , you need to accommodate 18 m long missile vertically. Keenly waiting for the pics of the sub.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Raj Malhotra »

How does K-15 missile length fits into Charlie class submarine?
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by suryag »

What a smashing name. Awesome!!!!
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Singha »

>> Design depth = 300m

I would expect more like 500-600m fairly typical for modern SSN round hull shapes and HY-tfta steels. Akula is 600m for instance. crush depth is
prolly 1000m.

per Sundeep's Itoday article the tubes were conventional and not banked,
neither was there a humpback after the sail.

per this drawing Agni 3SL is 12m not 18m. I would imagine the ATV1 will
NOT be able to fit A3SL which is still some years away, but ATV2 and 3 might be bigger hulls with a diameter of 14m or a Delta-IV/Jin type humpback to accomodate the 3SL.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MISSILES/ ... 0pixle.jpg

afaik no SLBM is 18m long !
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Singha »

I am expecting ATV2+ to use the Delta-IV humpback format to save on
overall weight and reactor power needed but accomodate 12m long "strike length" A3SL with the turbo pkg.

D4 was 12m beam and 9300t empty and 160m long - considered reliable and backbone of Russia's sea borne delivery until more Borei class are inducted. the immense Typhoon class was a white elephant unable to nimbly deploy far from its white sea/kara sea/arctic ocean bastion.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by p_saggu »

And oh, I would think that it will have an "extended" area behind the tail like the first Amirkhani Nuke subs
It does not. It looks like this.
Image

There are said to be 2 x 2 vls tubes behind the conning tower. Some suggestions that there may be 5 or 6 x 2 vls tubes there.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by p_saggu »

I am assuming this is the ATV hull section. The measure gives an approximate 11m diameter. It also seems to be double hulled?
Image
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by vina »

per this drawing Agni 3SL is 12m not 18m. I would imagine the ATV1 will
NOT be able to fit A3SL which is still some years away, but ATV2 and 3 might be bigger hulls with a diameter of 14m or a Delta-IV/Jin type humpback to accomodate the 3SL.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MISSILES/ ... 0pixle.jpg

afaik no SLBM is 18m long !
Yeah . You are right. I meant "humpback" as you put it, behind the sail (not tail, which was a typo). I think the ATV would have be designed around the A3SL . The 'Sagarika' / K-15 is an option.. The tubes will have the capacity for a 2m missile. And there would be "plug" sort of thing to fit in the K-15 snugly within the launch tube which probably can be removed later (my guess).

Arun_S has already done the "analysis" on that and said that either 3 sagarikas or one Agni in the tube!. Big question is how many tubes are there ?. Is it 4 tubes ie 4*3 = 12 Sagarikas / 4 Agnis or 12 tubes meaning 12 Agnis / 36 Sagarikas ?. For Pukes Sagarika would do fine. So I guess you could configure the sub with a mix of Sagarikas and Agnis to deter Pukes and ChiPanda
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by KrishG »

Arihantha is not an exclusive jain name. It's actually a Sanskrit word - Ari= Enemy and hantha=killer, literally meaning 'killer of enemies' as stated in the article. I want the next two to be named INS Ajathashastru (one without enemies ie powerful) and INS Aprameya ('no match')
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by p_saggu »

Or
Atulya (incomparable).
But let us cease and desist with the Namakaran session.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by p_saggu »

Since the PM's wife will be launching the sub, I take it that the sub has already been in the water, some basic tests have already been completed.

It will be like, After the coconut is broken on the hull, the national anthem will be played, as the button to open the locks of the drydock is pressed.
I wonder if the innards are complete yet. I wonder if the LCD screens, electronics etc are done yet.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by vina »

Arun_S is awesome. His article says, 12 launch tubes and Missile Firing depth of 50 meters . Very well researched article, lot of details. Also included is a photo of ATV launch tube with the tell tale "separator" plates welded at around 120 angle and ring adapter for Sagarika. Check it out Sagarika/Shaurya
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Singha »

er psaggu that in L&T factory in hazira ? its easy to be misled though, they make a lot of giant cylindrical industrial vessels sometimes seen moving slowly in highways on trailer trucks.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by geeth »

>>>er psaggu that in L&T factory in hazira ? its easy to be misled though, they make a lot of giant cylindrical industrial vessels sometimes seen moving slowly in highways on trailer trucks.

As Uniithan says, three are under construction..
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Cybaru »

geeth wrote:>>>er psaggu that in L&T factory in hazira ? its easy to be misled though, they make a lot of giant cylindrical industrial vessels sometimes seen moving slowly in highways on trailer trucks.

As Uniithan says, three are under construction..

Three more or three including the one thats floating around ?
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Atri »

Its going to be INS Arihant
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by Baljeet »

vina wrote:Arun_S is awesome. His article says, 12 launch tubes and Missile Firing depth of 50 meters . Very well researched article, lot of details. Also included is a photo of ATV launch tube with the tell tale "separator" plates welded at around 120 angle and ring adapter for Sagarika. Check it out Sagarika/Shaurya
Vina
It is a great article. As he said, Sagarika can be launched from moving sub at depth of 50m-- :D it took Unkil long time to perfect that technique even after deploying their first SSBN in 1955. Russians could not do it till later. It seems like if we have 3 ATV's with sagarika loaded in few years we will be ahead of game. Not sure how many are defined as required but my guess would be atleast 8-10.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by geeth »

>>>Three more or three including the one thats floating around ?

Arre bhai..don't get greedy!

For a country which hasn't have rudimentary experience in submarine building, I would say building three Nukes simultaneously is something more than it can chew...Now you want to exclude one which, to the best of my knowledge is not floating yet.

The deal probably is something like : they help in hull & reactor ; weapons is our problem

It takes a lot of time and painful effort and tons of help to do it from scratch. Needlless to say, worth the wait.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by vavinash »

I like the name. The follow on should be Ajatshatru and Ajeya.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by SNaik »

Victor III (Project 671RTM) looks a more likely prototype. It's of the right size and displacement, it's much quicker than Charlie (Chakra was Charlie I, BTW), it has similar tail arrangement. It was quite new but already proven design when ATV project was started. Severodvinsk was not even on the drawing boards then and anyway it's twice the size of ATV.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by ramana »

IIT Delhi should be proud of its alumni.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by putnanja »

PM to launch indigenous nuke submarine by month-end
...
"The construction work is complete and the submarine will be formally launched into the water by the Prime minister," the official said, adding the function will be attended by Defence Minister A.K. Antony.
...
The submarine will be commissioned in the Indian Navy as INS Arihant, which translates as "destroyer of enemies", after extensive outfitting and sea trial. It is the first of three such vessels to be constructed in the country. Hitherto, submarines have been constructed here under licence from their foreign designers.

The submarine is currently housed in a dry dock, which will be flooded with sea water to mark the launching ceremony.
...
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by krishna_krishna »

It resembles victor III ,however I have a doubt SNaik.The artist's impression in india today showed a single seven blade skewed propeller however victor has three, one main and two supplemetary smaller ones.Check in the pic below.Would our ATV will be also of similar kind :
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... 704344.JPG
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by ramana »

Its a good way to celebrate end of Kargil. Also finally implements parts of the KRC report about the need for tri-service deployment.
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Re: Indian Naval Discussion

Post by negi »

Design being based on Charlie-III does not mean it is a exact replica of the former; the very fact that the displacement numbers are off by a huge margin and the weapons suite is completely different indicate only the Hullform might be of a similar design but the internal layout ,sensor suite,power plant and the transmission should be new .

The Russians switched to the seven Bladed props in 80's (iirc) it is obvious that ATV will incorporate a similar propeller (most probably same as the one in Akula ..as it is in production and similar weight class ).
Last edited by negi on 16 Jul 2009 23:49, edited 1 time in total.
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