WTF is going on here??According to Naik, “To implement this, a committee was constituted, headed by an MoD joint secretary, and comprising members from the Indian Navy and MoD. After assessing the capabilities of all shipyards, as per our understanding, the committee cleared L&T Hazira in 2001 as the second line for submarine construction.”
Perhaps the Russians can be persuaded to transfer the 3 under construction for their navy to us (if it meets IN specs)?Austin wrote:Yes it is and I have been advocating it for long , but right now it seems their order books are full with 6 Kilo 636 for Vietnam navy , 3 6363 for Russian Navy and another claimed 2 Improved Kilo for Algeria under construction.Rahul M wrote:I think there is enormous merit in the idea of picking up 4-5 kilo's minus the whiz-bang with just the standard SONAR's and pop-up klubs.
I dont think even if we order it now they can deliver it to us in the time scale we want. Well bad luck we will have to learn to live with the depleting submarine force till such time the Scorpene starts hitting water and pray MDL keeps its revised promise
This concept can work where such locations can be top secret.Would it work in India's case.Witness the number of security breaches among the top echelons in India ., for eg, the laptop that went missing in the USArya Sumantra wrote:
Under Sea-Floor Silos (USFS) for large SLBMs and SLCMs as a deterrent capable of withstanding first-strike
Land based silos are often cited as vulnerable to first strike and a submarine based SLBM both mobile and difficult to locate is considered to be more survivable deterrent for long distance strikes both conventional and “glowing”.
However ssbn or boomers are constrained by their diameter for length of missile(SLBM) they can carry and which in turn affects the range of the carried SLBM and its ability to strike deep within the dragon’s territory and far flung cities.
In this light, Under Sea-Floor Silos(USFS) loaded with very long-range missiles as shown in schematic should be seriously considered along side the boomer/ssbn development.
Advantages
1. There are missiles that come out of water to hit the land based targets but there exists NO long range missile that goes into the water to hit submerged targets like the USFS above. Even if such modifications are developed later they currently do not exist and are not in the mass-produced missiles.
2. Water behaves different to objects penetrating at different speeds. To a swimming diver it may be more compliant but to a high speed projectile such as incoming enemy missile coming to attack the silo it could behave like a concrete. Airliners break into parts when they try to land on the water assuming it as pliant medium. Jet powered motorboats riders racing on water at those speeds describe it as “cutting through sheets of steel”(in their own words). So either the incoming enemy missile targeting the silo-opening could break into fragments upon hitting Sea’s top surface or at the very least the CEP would get ruined badly.
3. Very large missiles such as Agni-5 in its SLBM versions could be launched from sea. No length constraint for missiles.
4. No noise or little if any.
5. Bears a bigger inventory of SLBMs than a sub.
6. Not detectable by planes like P-3C orion/P-8s unlike the subs.
7. Less exposed/vulnerable to an enemy sub’s attack compared to a submerged under water pontoon and easier to re-load the canisters/tubes of USFS with new missiles from the inventory nearby as compared to a submerged pontoon. As shown in the schematic a USFS only has a heavy canister head exposed to the sea.
8. Provides an additional survivable back-up until boomer tech is stabilized and low noise, larger capacity boomers are made and in significant numbers.
9. India has a long coastline to form a large number of these silos dispersed within its territorial waters
10. Flexible to replace with newer generation missiles and their tubes/canisters whereas a boomer is more rigidly married to the type of SLBM and its tubes it carries.
11. Faster training of the crew due to lesser engineering complexity compared to an ssbn.
Remarks
- Please note that this concept is not a substitute for ssbn capabilities but a cheaper/doable additional alternative to be pursued along side the boomer as it matures. The boomer will take its course and time and also being complex can be produced at a slow rate only while our longest range missiles are too long for a sub but to answer the threat scenario coming up in immediate future vis-à-vis dragon-baki nexus, the USFS concept seems more time effective especially to hit the deep interiors of dragon.
- Greater the floor depth the greater the protection from incoming attack but also greater overhead pressure P=hdg. Varying depth choices exist of the under-water terrain between maximum depth near a port and shallow depths off the beaches
- In the long run, such silos would perhaps be defended by radar-interceptor based abm shield above the water and sonar-torpedo shield under the water as enemies develop counter-measures
Auxiliary Applications
Similar Silos loaded exclusively with torpedoes and data-linked(physically with cable buried in sea-floor) with active and passive sonars (and decoy emitters) scattered over the sea-floor would help defend against enemy submarines that make past our submarines or sneak in. Although Torpedo Silos are only a defensive measure, they would go a long way at these times when our submarine numbers are stretched thin. Their presence along western coastline(at least Gujarat, Maharashtra if not all) would help counter Agusta’s intrusions during a conflict. Even after we build up our sub numbers, it would act like the last line of shoreline defence.
JMT and apologies for the long post.
Maybe L&T has not greased the hands of MoD officials enough. This is indeed a setback for our fledgling domestic private defense industry. Our money is going to sustain ship and submarine building capacity in a 2nd nation. Something which would have created jobs in India, something which would have enhanced our internal ship building capacity is being done in a foreign nation.dinesha wrote:Unexplained decision to sideline L&T
http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... lt/406549/L&T sources assert that over the preceding decade, the MoD and the Indian Navy had conveyed repeated assurances that the second submarine construction line would be set up by L&T at Hazira, in partnership with Russia.
According to Naik, “To implement this, a committee was constituted, headed by an MoD joint secretary, and comprising members from the Indian Navy and MoD. After assessing the capabilities of all shipyards, as per our understanding, the committee cleared L&T Hazira in 2001 as the second line for submarine construction.”
For a given power [HP] speed(shaft) and torque are inversely relatedKersi D wrote:The diesel engines of the BG locomotives used in India vary from 2400 - 2600 hp for WDM 2 to 4000 - 4500 hp for WDP 4 / WDG 4 / WDP 4A. WDM 2 is no longer in productionShivaS wrote: Here is DLW Alco design Diesel engine which could be modified to make Diesel electric submarine.
Engine size of WDM2 Railway engine.
Installed Power 4000 HP
Refer http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-specs.html
These are NOT marine engines hence I would not use them in MY ships. I would prefer to buy from a reputed MARINE DIESEL ENGINE manufacturer like MTU or Wartsila rather than other manufcaturers like Cummnins, Caterplllar, Waukesha, EMD (former GM) etc. Large slow speed diesel engines are a differnet animal all together as compared to diesel engines for cars, trucks, construction equipment / earth moving equipment, railway locomotives etc.
K
Our threats are in near future from dragon-baki nexus and we need to give a check-mate today. I seriously hope time is not wasted in endless debates to death seeking absolute foolproof alternatives for a distant future when threats are more immediate. Then there is also this innovation-phobia of conservative mindsets and a determined inertia against anything other than usual routine ways of doing things, all of it masquerading as “being practical” until of course they read about it in a defence journal.venkyt wrote:Every other nation including Pigs&Pandas will appreciate this idea and some will implement it as well, but not our parliamentarians and their babus. At least, there will be considerable/more delay in implementation if proved feasible and practical to do so.
Nice work by Col. Shukla!merlin wrote:Project 75I : Unexplained decision to sideline L&T
Yes, so we should wait with abated breath for other private sector shipyards to sink billions of dollars each into creating defense shipyards, and in painstakingly creating expertise in sub-building, so that they can also experience what L&T is going through! I must say, our babus cannot be beat in dark humor.The MoD’s Secretary for Defence Production, RK Singh, admits that L&T’s experience in submarine building needs to be tapped by the MoD. “We will find some role for L&T… it has capabilities that are very important for us,” RK Singh told Business Standard. “But this will have to be done in a transparent manner, allowing other private sector shipyards to compete as well.
An increasingly apparent reason for the Ministry of Defence’s slow decision-making on a second submarine production line for the Indian Navy is: the deep divisions within the navy over India’s submarine force. A debate rages between the submarine arm and the surface navy — particularly the dominant aviation wing — on whether the future lies in submarines or aircraft carriers. The navy’s submariners, meanwhile, debate the merits of conventional versus nuclear-powered submarines.
Slowed by these internal debates, India’s 30-Year Submarine Construction Plan, which the government approved in 1999, has languished. The 30-Year plan envisioned building 24 conventional submarines in India. Six were to be built from western technology and six with Russian collaboration; then Indian designers, having absorbed the best of both worlds, would build 12 submarines indigenously. Project 75, to build six Scorpene submarines (the “western” six), was contracted in 2005. In this series of articles, Business Standard has reported that the MoD believes it is still 4-6 years away from Project 75I, i.e. beginning work on the second six submarines.
A senior retired admiral, reflecting the views of the submarine arm, blames the navy’s “aircraft carrier lobby” for the delay in building submarines. He alleges: “The last two naval chiefs (Admirals Arun Prakash and Sureesh Mehta) were aviators, who had no interest in using the navy’s limited budget for building submarines. So they exploited the division of opinion amongst submariners — the nuclear-powered versus conventional submarine debate — to push submarine building into the future.”
Nuclear-powered submarines are of two types: ballistic missile submarines (called SSBNs) and attack submarines (referred to as SSNs). Both are propelled by power from a miniature on-board reactor, but SSBNs also fire nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. SSBNs are not a part of the fighting navy; they constitute a country’s nuclear deterrent and fire their nuclear-tipped missiles on orders from the national leadership. SSNs operate as part of a naval fleet, moving under nuclear power and sinking surface warships with conventional torpedoes and missiles.
Interestingly, India is the only country that has chosen to build SSBNs (the recently-launched INS Arihant, and two successor submarines) before building an SSN force. The reason has been a deeply felt need to operationalise the nuclear triad — land, sea and air-based nuclear delivery systems that India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine stipulates as a secure second-strike capability.
But the possibility of an SSN force remains tantalisingly alive. In 2004 — when INS Arihant was being developed under the Advanced Technology Vessel, or ATV, programme — Admiral Arun Prakash, then navy chief, proposed that the ATV programme be enlarged to six SSBNs and four SSNs. This required the allocation of Rs 10,000 crore for the DRDO to develop the necessary technologies. Pranab Mukherjee, then the defence minister, backed the allocation of this funding. But, according to sources close to the ATV project, once AK Antony took over as defence minister in 2006, he backed off, insisting that the Prime Minister’s Office should take all decisions relating to India’s strategic nuclear programme. The proposal for funding technology development lapsed.
But the Director General of the DRDO, Dr VK Saraswat, confirms that an SSN could be developed without difficulty. Talking to Business Standard, Saraswat said, “I have no charter to build an SSN at the moment. But once the government takes a policy decision… we can start working on it. The only major difference between a nuclear powered attack submarine (i.e. an SSN) and an SSBN is weaponry, and the size changes. The technology for design, packaging, and integration remains similar.”
Votaries of nuclear submarines, such as Rear Admiral (Retired) Raja Menon, argue that nuclear-powered submarines have a crucial advantage over conventional ones: endurance. While conventional (diesel-electric) submarines are more quiet and harder to detect while submerged, they are easily picked up when they surface to charge their batteries. Furthermore, they move slowly underwater, unlike nuclear submarines, which can remain submerged almost indefinitely. This allows a single nuclear submarine — travelling underwater to its patrol station and remaining there, undetected, for months — to do the job of multiple conventional submarines, which give their position away when they surface at regular intervals.
Admiral Menon explains, “A single SSN can dominate an area 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 km) away as effectively as three conventional submarines, which require one submarine on station, another transiting to relieve it, and a third transiting back to refuel. If the patrol area is farther than 1,000 nautical miles, a single SSN does the job of five conventional submarines. That is why the US Navy fields an all-nuclear force.”
But Menon accepts that the Indian Navy would always need conventional submarines. India’s coastal waters are so shallow that SSNs, which typically weigh 4,000-5,000 tonnes, run the risk of scraping the bottom. Conventional submarines, which normally weigh around 1,500 tonnes, are needed for dominating the coastal areas. But the complexities of a nuclear submarine programme are evident from China’s current difficulties. The Pentagon’s recent report to the US Congress, entitled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2010” reveals that China’s SSN and SSBN programmes are in trouble. China relies on its four primitive Han-class attack submarines (Type 091), having decided to close construction of the newer Shen-class (Type 093). Currently, China is grappling with a newer Type 095 SSN; five of these could be added “in the coming years”.
China also faces problems in developing SSBNs. The first Xia-class (Type 092) SSBN line produced just one submarine, which was never deployed on a deterrence patrol. Then China shifted focus to a newer Jin-class (Type 094), of which the first SSBN “appears ready”, with four more under construction. However, the long-range ballistic missile for the Jin-class SSBNs, termed the Julang-2, has “encountered difficulty… failing several of what should have been the final round of flight tests.”
So, its a IN created problem of depleting sub fleet?An increasingly apparent reason for the Ministry of Defence’s slow decision-making on a second submarine production line for the Indian Navy is: the deep divisions within the navy over India’s submarine force. A debate rages between the submarine arm and the surface navy — particularly the dominant aviation wing — on whether the future lies in submarines or aircraft carriers. The navy’s submariners, meanwhile, debate the merits of conventional versus nuclear-powered submarines.
Pranab Mukherjee, then the defence minister, backed the allocation of this funding. But, according to sources close to the ATV project, once AK Antony took over as defence minister in 2006, he backed off, insisting that the Prime Minister’s Office should take all decisions relating to India’s strategic nuclear programme. The proposal for funding technology development lapsed.
Well, we have achieved a decade of growing at close to 8%, count that in.Ajatshatru wrote:Are you serious?Let our economy grow for 30 yrs at 9% after which we can engage in building subs in numbers, this is exactly what China did.
No disrespect intended, but look at a scenario:ShivaS wrote:Yes yes meanwhile buy subs from France, Russia, Germany and give away 4% of GDP so that our growth will never be 9%
If L&T gets it now the growth of GDP will be 9% +2% (with local employment)
Interesting thought and could be true also!!! This might be a L&T psy-ops to ensure everything goes there way. I cannot imagine MoD even thinking of getting a well connected giant like L&T on the wrong side! ( The statement of Naik in the NDTV awards struck me also as strange since usually defence stuff are not spoken in such awards, only about helping the poor etc are.) So, if the CMD is pushing personally for this project, cant see L&T being out of the race.dinesha wrote:AM Naik, chairman & MD of L&T is trying whole hog to snatch the P75I construction contract.
Yesterday at the NDTV Profit live event “Business Leadership Awards”, He called upon the government to allow for a wider participation of the private sector in the defence sector indirectly referring to the P75I construction. Parnav Mukerjee responded by saying that he agreed that the private sector should be allowed to have wider participation in development of “Platforms” as well as the “Systems” and very recently government at the “highest level” have decided to implement it. Niar responded by saying that “He have high hopes now”.
Recent Col. Sukla’s visit to Katupalli and Hazira, Niar’s statements are all indicative of L&T’s well thought out PR and media offencive to secure this highly lucrative Contract, one should not be surprised if they are after construction of all the 6 subs.
