Indian Nuclear Submarines -3

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arshyam
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by arshyam »

Nuclear Submarine Arihant Set for Missile Firing Test - New Indian Express
The country’s first indigenously developed nuclear submarine INS Arihant, which has successfully completed its sea trials held so far, is expected to launch its maiden missile firing test this month.

According to sources in the Defence Ministry, the missile test from the nuclear-powered submarine is aimed at paving the path for handing over it to the Indian Navy during the International Fleet Review, scheduled to be held in Visakhapatnam in February next year.

“Firing of Nirbhay missile from the submarine will be followed by firing of another type of missile. So far, all trials and tests have been held successfully from the nuclear submarine,” official sources claimed.

While Nirbhay is a long range subsonic cruise missile with a strike range of over 1,000 km, the next missile would be India’s first Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile, which has a range of about 700 km. More rounds of tests would follow.

India plans to build at least two more Arihant-class submarines. It had started building Arihant in the 1990s under its Advanced Technology Vessel programme. Though Arihant was initially supposed to be a fast-attack submarine, the project was realigned to make it a ballistic missile submarine, following the nuclear test conducted by India in 1998.

India is the sixth nation in the world to have the capability to design and construct a nuclear submarine. The Navy has been operating diesel-electric submarines, which have to surface to charge their batteries. Arihant will help provide additional capability to stay in the high seas for longer durations.

More rounds to Follow

Arihant, powered by 80 MW pressurised water reactor with enriched uranium fuel, was launched symbolically into water on July 26, 2009. Since then, Arihant went through extensive tests, including harbour acceptance trials, with the onboard reactor going critical in 2013. It left the harbour for sea trials in December last year.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by JE Menon »

NDTV is hinting that the Arihant has joined Malabar exercise.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Singha »

would be like POTUS "dropping in unexpectedly" when our MEA visits white house to talk to their Secy of State :)
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by P Chitkara »

<POOF>

Stop right there, with such asinine suggestions - Admin
Philip
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Philip »

That's exacty what the USN and Japanese navy will be hoping for,to obtain the ATV's sig. However,who most probably will be lurking extremely quietly will be the Chakra,attempting to get the sigs of the foreign warships,as well as any USN N-subs lurking too,since a Kilo is being used for the first time with a western fleet.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by shiv »

Anyone seen this? From DAE, prob 2009. Found on my HDD
Image
Last edited by shiv on 15 Oct 2015 21:05, edited 2 times in total.
Singha
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Singha »

what is so special about it? we have seen various such versions since the time arihant was revealed.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Suraj »

I remember seeing that picture in one of those Reader's Digest books about technology, back in the early 1990s as a kid. It's a stock photo, no relation to the Arihant.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by P Chitkara »

P Chitkara wrote:<POOF>

Stop right there, with such asinine suggestions - Admin
Since when did asking a question become such a huge deal to invite this? This is very elitist attitude; I have been visiting the forum since late 90s and have noticed this attitude over last couple of years which quiet frankly, disappoints me to no end.

You simply were not just "asking a question". You want some one else to ask a question to some chaiwallah about India's nuclear submarine's comparative acoustic signature. Your disappointments in that situation is immaterial - Admin
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by shiv »

shiv wrote:Anyone seen this? From DAE, prob 2009. Found on my HDD
Image
The image says "Courtesy DAE" and when I saw it first I was not impressed. But now, suddenly, it looks like the real thing to me. I mean yeah it looks like a "generic" nuke sub but really - the damn thing looks like Arihnt to me rather than generic :mrgreen: Who knows? I have read one book on subs and I saw a submarine movie (Run Silent Run Deep) when I was 6 or 8 or 10 years old so I must know something about submarines no?
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Singha »

Gagan has a much better drawing.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Prem »

Singha wrote:would be like POTUS "dropping in unexpectedly" when our MEA visits white house to talk to their Secy of State :)
Kodak moment will happen if US, Japanese, Indian attack subs suddenly surface simultaneously at different locations In SCS or pay visit to Subic Bay together for R & R purpose.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by shiv »

Something I came across recently said that India did not involve its Kilo class in international naval exercises for a long time because they did not what its sound signature to be mapped. If that is true then it is hardly likely that the Arihant will find a place in these exercises. In the IN Foxtrots book I read it was mentioned that the Foxtrot's sound signature could be masked by running its three propellers at different speeds. But that ain't possible with just one.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by pragnya »

shiv wrote:Anyone seen this? From DAE, prob 2009. Found on my HDD
Image
shiv aroor had that in his report here.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by shiv »

pragnya wrote:
shiv wrote:Anyone seen this? From DAE, prob 2009. Found on my HDD
Image
shiv aroor had that in his report here.
Thanks. Now I will look for cutaways of other subs to see if this is simply a generic image or there are some differences
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Austin »

shiv wrote:Something I came across recently said that India did not involve its Kilo class in international naval exercises for a long time because they did not what its sound signature to be mapped. If that is true then it is hardly likely that the Arihant will find a place in these exercises. In the IN Foxtrots book I read it was mentioned that the Foxtrot's sound signature could be masked by running its three propellers at different speeds. But that ain't possible with just one.
In case of exercise with Western nation or allies of these nation Type 209 subs gets involved not kilo , In case of exercise with Russia the kilos are involved and not 209 for reasons you have mentioned
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by member_22539 »

^What do the experts have to say about the above article. Was Russian help so substantial? Were our nuke scientists so helpless?

What are the prospects for the future?
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Philip »

The truth probably lies in between.No denying the crucial Russian involvement,without which we would still be in the development stage of an SSBN. That we can build the same at home with a lot of Ru help is in itself an achievement.What we can see now is that the Arihant is the first of a series under construction,which from whatever the few official reports say,appears to be chugging along without too many hiccups. Once the first ATV is commissioned and goes out on patrol,it will be the day that we will have joined the league of great power nuclear navies.

Equally important is the lease of an Akula-2 to us and the talks about another Akula-3,with greater Russian cutting edge sub tech. From both providing a platform where our submariners get hand-on training on a nuclear boat,to providing a true blue water N-sub capability,the Akula lease expands the capability of the IN's sub fleet. The next step is building 6 SSNs.Very interestingly,as mentioned in a prev. post,from one report,the first intention was to build an SSN/SSGN,whose design has morphed into the ATV/SSBN.That's why it would be easy to build our SSN/SSGNs based upon the same ATV/Arihant concept,but with similar improvements which may come on the second Akula.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

It would be nice to see a detailed article describing the specific Indian input into Arihant( which must be substantial), if only to counter the above bombastic article!
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Sid »

Arun Menon wrote:^What do the experts have to say about the above article. Was Russian help so substantial? Were our nuke scientists so helpless?

What are the prospects for the future?
Russian involvement was very substantial and essential. We have zero experience in this SSBN field, let alone in conventional sub building.

One chaiwala wala from that location said "saara wahi to bena rahe hai" (they are building everything). But like Philip said, truth is somewhere in between.

We should not be ashamed in acknowledging help we received from our strategic partner. Even MMS acknowledged it in his speech.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Picklu »

Sid wrote: One chaiwala wala from that location said "saara wahi to bena rahe hai" (they are building everything). But like Philip said, truth is somewhere in between.
I do not care acknowledgement or gratitude part. If this is true, then also it is nothing to be ashamed of. I would actually be happy that after years of one way journey of Ruski skill to Chinese MIC, we have finally caught up and started using their advance knowledge to leap frog our MIC.

Now, can we follow the same template in other areas as well? Russi engine fellas to GTRE anyone? Or Russi transport plane designers in HAL?
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by BharadwajV »

Sid wrote: We should not be ashamed in acknowledging help we received from our strategic partner. Even MMS acknowledged it in his speech.
I'm sure we've paid for it in some ways or the other.
One of the things Smiling Buddha/Pokhran II taught me was that no matter how hard technology denial regimes work, we will triumph.
Without Russian help we would have had to make timeline corrections/compromises/cost over runs or a combination of these, but INS Arihant would still be guarding our frontiers, for our drive to get a second strike platform was uncompromising.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Sid »

BharadwajV wrote:
Sid wrote: We should not be ashamed in acknowledging help we received from our strategic partner. Even MMS acknowledged it in his speech.
I'm sure we've paid for it in some ways or the other.
One of the things Smiling Buddha/Pokhran II taught me was that no matter how hard technology denial regimes work, we will triumph.
Without Russian help we would have had to make timeline corrections/compromises/cost over runs or a combination of these, but INS Arihant would still be guarding our frontiers, for our drive to get a second strike platform was uncompromising.
Ahh... desi attitude. Please try paying US for it, see what you get. Its been 10+ years since 123 deal started and where are we now?

Of-course we paid for support from them, but its not something which money only can buy.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Philip »

Varoon,there was an old issue of the F mag,a few years ago,which had a wealth of details about the Ind. cos. which had contributed towards supplying key components for the ATV.Very detailed. L&T the hulls,for instance. That issue also had a v.tiny diagram of an SSN derivative.That may have been the original ATV config,morphed into the Arihant SSBN.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

Thanks Philip, I remember that Frontline article, and will look for it. Much of the uncertainty( won't call it a controversy) is about the actual on board reactor in Arihant. Is it Indian made and Indian designed, or Indian made and Russian designed, Indian but based on a Russian design, or partly Indian made, and partly Russian, or fully Russian i.e an outright import( the last one is almost certainly false).

It is positive that an on shore reactor, similar to the one inside Arihant, is Indian made and designed. To what degree the one flowed from the other is again, uncertain. Have to do some background reading ;-)
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by SaiK »

Picklu wrote: Now, can we follow the same template in other areas as well? Russi engine fellas to GTRE anyone? Or Russi transport plane designers in HAL?
GTRE needs to restructured.. from a management whipping perspective and some real visionary guru like kalam ji's shishya to take over. They also need funds, and lot of exchanges for small projects between them and perhaps our IITs and other R&D setups. This is mandatory indulgence.. yes, The Russians were helpful, but at the same time.. very business like and nothing in the areas of transferring technology or here take it... this is how you do things kind of data transfer. Indians did what is required to be done. We used their operational expertise, spent huge money to induct couple of Akulas, and few things on expertise rather know-hows or knowledge. The skills of fitting a turbine is different from building a turbine and from manufacturing a turbine, and a whole lot different from doing it all from scratch.

Arun Menon saab,
I think, this is a big question.. we all know how firang dependencies work in desh. They will do their best to keep their agreements in tack, and at the same time will ensure our knowledge and expertise will be subdued, culled and eliminated if any deviation or that shows sign of total independence observed. Our weakness are well known. [cue: captain bk subba rao espionage case - under a law, where we are guilty until proven not! hard luck].

On the Bidwai claim of 143 russkie engineers sent for VM-5 [none can be proven guilty/not guilty under the law, fwiw].. check, we have parallel civil nuclear operations at koodankulam. If there any expertise shared? we have no clue.. and as if Bidwai was the chief to tell you that, and all official secrecy ignored, and para-fool Bidwai rascal travels free pass because of #InPresstitutionWeTrust. I would say, even if Philip was right.. he could not have been way too much falling on the R&D side of things rather operational and some production engineering aspect of things. Nothing at the first principles or blue prints.. ZILCH.

2c
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by member_22539 »

^Thats what I thought as well, a little bit of hand holding here and there (stuff that would have saved us many years), but on the whole they wouldn't have helped if they thought we couldn't do without them.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Singha »

someone was saying there are specialized engineers who travel around the world from OEMs just working on post-installation balancing of turbine shafts...some kinda special tfta expertise needed.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by SaiK »

that would be true. A person known to me in IN said: we do great things but don't have skills to asemble turbine shafts i.e., after disassembly. How is china reverse engineering this?
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Sid »

IMHO we cannot compare tech cooperation on SSBN with Aero engines.

A decline in aero engines revenues will affect their bottom line and possible sale of aircraft in future. SSBN are one off deals.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Singha »

china is still using zorya gas turbines and sometimes euro diesels. they have taken a license from zorya and named it a 'clone' QC280.

http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=china-d ... p-advances

The combined diesel and generator (CODAG) propulsion on the 052D is the QC-280 Chinese copy of Ukraine Zorya-Mashproekt UGT 15000, also designated DN/80 gas turbine propulsion. Xian Aero Engine (XAE) manufactured the QC-280 under license from Ukraine in 1990 when eight were imported as the QD-80 for two Luhu ships. The XAE-built prototype with 28 megawatts of power was installed on the 052B Wuhan hull 169 in 2009, which made a Somali TG9 deployment in 2011. CNET 5 with DDG 168 left Hainan for the Gulf of Aden from March to July 2010, but it was not believed to have been modernized with the QC-280. The 052D reportedly has two diesel engines each providing six megawatts of power. All 052B/C Luyang DDGs and the 052D have license-produced MTU 20V 956TB92 diesel engines by Shaanxi Diesel Work rated at 4.9 megawatts of power. - See more at: http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=china-d ... b5ogw.dpuf
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Aditya G »

We don't have gas turbine tech, but what stops us from making ships with diesel engines?

I have tried googling but not got clear info on extent of make in India on the Cummins and pielstick engines used aboard the saryus and kamorta.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by member_25400 »

Aditya G wrote:We don't have gas turbine tech.
Hal can make ge lm2500 aero derivative gas turbines under license.

Also kaveri marine derivative may be integrated to the rajput class..

Also, I believe that the power plant in kalpakkam is identical to the one on the arihant.

BTW. Now that nirbhay test failed, I assume that the arihant would not be testing it this year ? Any info known ?
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by JTull »

barath_s wrote:
Aditya G wrote:We don't have gas turbine tech.
Hal can make ge lm2500 aero derivative gas turbines under license.

Also kaveri marine derivative may be integrated to the rajput class..

Also, I believe that the power plant in kalpakkam is identical to the one on the arihant.

BTW. Now that nirbhay test failed, I assume that the arihant would not be testing it this year ? Any info known ?
"Power Plant" in Kalpakkam are CANDU type PHWRs. And first fast-breeder based "power plant" is under construction. There is a prototype reactor that's same as Arhant and is not generating any commerical power.

Also, as I've been saying linking Arihant missile tests to Nirbhay are all down to our asinine DDM. It wasn't practical at all. There are other missiles that have been tested from pontoons before and ready to be launched from Arihant.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by Singha »

diesel engines are economical and fine for OPVs, CG vessels, tankers, supply ships, LPH, submarines but FFG/DDG need the extra speed upto 30+ knots that supplied by gas turbine in a more compact form factor. so atleast CODAG is needed or COGAG is also common.

steam turbines is the third option (godavari/brahmaputra class) and can supply massive power but suffers from more maintainence intensive , dangerous(hot steam pipes) and maybe not as compact and ready to go. have heard such ships need around 3 hrs from cold start to be ready for sailing.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by chetak »

Aditya G wrote:We don't have gas turbine tech, but what stops us from making ships with diesel engines?

I have tried googling but not got clear info on extent of make in India on the Cummins and pielstick engines used aboard the saryus and kamorta.
In one of the shipyards they made some under license phoren diesel engines. The first one was buggered up so badly that it was unusable in spite of the total availability of drawings and tools. we never seem to take such things seriously and have a coverall explanation that Indians can "handle" any technology.
we don't understand training, apprenticeships and skill. Every thing is half baked and the trainee has a constant eye on prospective employers who would pay a few rupees more for this allegedly trained guy to jump ship until he does the very same thing to them because another employer down the line is paying a few bucks more.
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Re: INS Arihant (ATV) News and Discussion -3

Post by SaiK »

We must move away from this dumping everything on HAL
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