Securing the Seas: India’s rise as a naval power - Broadsword by Ajai Shukla - Strategy. Economics. Defence.

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Friday 24 July 2009

Securing the Seas: India’s rise as a naval power



(Photos: courtesy Ajai Shukla)
A rare photo of an Indian Navy submarine with the aircraft carrier, INS Viraat in the background




by Ajai Shukla
Business Standard Weekend Supplement
25th July 09


One hallmark of some of the world’s path-breaking projects has been the choice of impressively lofty names. The first atomic bomb was built under Project Manhattan. Project Apollo put the first man on the moon. But for some reason, perhaps simply native modesty, one of India’s most challenging technological developments --- its first nuclear-powered submarine --- has been cloaked in blandness.

When on Sunday morning, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife, Gursharan Kaur, breaks a coconut on the hull of what is referred to as the ATV or the Advanced Technology Vessel, to christen it INS Arihant, it will launch a new era for the navy.

With the christening, water will be let into the Vishakhapatnam dock called The Shipbuilding Centre, from where INS Arihant will begin its underwater journey. Once submerged, it will undergo two years of extensive trials, first in harbour and then at sea, before formally joining the Indian Navy.

Nuclear-powered submarines are of two types. Ballistic missile submarines, termed SSBNs in the US Navy (colloquial term: “boomers” or “bombers”) carry nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. These form the third leg of a country’s nuclear triad: airborne, surface, and underwater-based launch platforms. INS Arihant is a ballistic missile submarine, armed with twelve K-15 missiles, each capable of carrying a 500-kg nuclear warhead to a target 750-kilometers away. It will be deployed almost continuously off the coast of a potential enemy, a virtually undetectable and indestructible missile launcher.

The Arihant will not be alone. Two more SSBNs are under construction at L&T’s Hazira plant. These will probably be followed by several more, equipped with longer-range nuclear-tipped missiles.

The second type of nuclear-powered submarine is the SSN, or attack submarine, armed with torpedoes and cruise missiles. These operate as a part of the navy, performing the task of “sea denial”, or preventing enemy ships --- both naval and commercial --- from using large expanses of the ocean. An SSN’s nuclear plant eliminates the need to surface, allowing it to remain underwater for months. India will shortly be leasing an advanced “Akula II class” attack submarine --- named INS Chakra --- from Russia, followed by another after a yearlong interval.

In addition to a new fleet of nuclear submarines, a growing stable of major surface warships are catapulting the Indian Navy into the league of serious maritime powers. Cochin Shipyard is building the 40,000-ton Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC), which is likely to be commissioned into the Indian Navy in 2014, followed by a successor vessel in 2017. The controversial INS Vikramaditya, as the Gorshkov will be named, could also be commissioned by 2012.

For the Indian Navy these are times of change. After decades as a near-invisible subaltern service, the growth in the Indian Navy’s force structure, visibility and budget are being warily observed by every other power in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and the Asia-Pacific. The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Admiral Sureesh Mehta, has publicly articulated the navy’s plan to boost warship numbers to 165-170, up from 140 vessels today. And because building in India cost less than half of building abroad, India’s three defence shipyards --- Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai (MDL); Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata (GRSE) and the smaller Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) --- have more warship orders than current capacities can handle.

The latest order placed on MDL and GRSE, reported in today’s Business Standard: seven new-generation stealth frigates under Project 17A, 5600-ton warships, each capable of dominating vast stretches of ocean. India’s growing skill in integrating disparate sensors and weapons on indigenous warships gives them heavier punches than most other warships of the same weight class.

Senior naval planners explain the logic behind India’s rapid naval expansion. Other than the great naval powers --- US, Russia and, now arguably, China --- most major navies operate in alliance with one of the big players. Since the Cold War, for example, Britain’s Royal Navy has functioned in alliance with the US Navy, specialising in anti-submarine warfare, and relying on US cover for crucial aspects like anti-air defence.

In contrast, India has always rejected military alliances. As a serving naval admiral elaborates, “India is different. We can operate for a short while as a partnership navy, but definitely not as part of a military alliance. We, therefore, need a balanced navy with all-round capability, which can operate alone for as long as it takes.”

But even while rejecting formal alliances, Indian Navy admirals realise that a navy that is visible is a navy that is taken seriously. That has spawned a series of annual exercises with foreign navies, including the Malabar series with the US Navy; the Varuna series with the French navy; the Konkan series with Britain’s Royal Navy; and the Indra series with the Russian navy. Early this year, India even sent three warships to China for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

“It’s important to strut your stuff”, says a naval planner, “you visit a foreign port and invite your counterparts to a cocktail party on board. While sipping their drinks on the warship’s deck, they are taking note of the weaponry you’re carrying. You’re sending a clear message.”

The desire for a more powerful and visible navy is also rooted in growing concern over India’s 7516 kilometers of coastline, the vulnerability of which stood starkly exposed during the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Protection is also needed for an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 2 million square kilometres, which could go up to 2.5 million square kilometres once India’s continental shelf is delineated and placed before the International Seabed Authority. Naval officers point out that India’s entire land mass is just 3.28 million square kilometres.

A related argument marshalled by strong-navy enthusiasts is the protection of trade: 90% of India’s trade by volume and 77% by value is transported by sea. Especially vulnerable is India’s oil dependency; according to Hydrocarbon Vision 2025, India’s current oil import level of 74% of consumption will rise to 88% of consumption by mid-century. The navy is also expected to protect busy international trade routes that pass close by Indian shores (100,000 freight vessels annually; one billion tons of oil).

Naval planners point to the historic link between trade and military power. An officer explained, “In the colonial period it was said that ‘trade follows the flag’. Today, we see, like with China in Africa, the flag follows trade. But in no case can trade be divorced from the flag.”

An indicator of the navy’s shift into the mainstream of Indian strategic planning --- even more so than the growing number of capital warships --- is the growth in its command and administrative infrastructure. The deep-water Karwar naval base, located 34 nautical miles (62 km) south of Goa, is already functioning. Aimed at decongesting Mumbai, Karwar will be base for more than 40 ships including the aircraft carrier, Vikramaditya, when it is commissioned.

Also nearing completion is INS Kadamba, an administrative support base, which was commissioned in 2005. Another important addition to the navy’s capabilities is the new Naval Academy at Ezhimala, 280 kilometers north of Kochi, which will soon churn out 750 cadets a year. You will need professionals to man the Indian Navy’s growing fleet.


CREWING A SUBMARINE: LIFE UNDER THE SEA

Sailors who man the 18 boomers of the US navy describe their role thus: while the surface fleet exploits the peace --- exporting security and building alliances through port visits, and exercises with other navies --- the boomer fleet keeps the peace, deterring aggression by its very existence, a force of fully deployed missiles poised to strike.

Submariners, all of the double volunteers, justifiably consider themselves an elite. They must first volunteer to join the navy, undergoing a full year of basic naval training, and again for submarine duty, going through psychological profiling and high-stress physical tests to see if they can cope with the rigours of undersea life. Even so, there is no shortage of volunteers. Says an Indian Navy lieutenant commander, serving on board a submarine, “The extra danger adds a keen edge to life… there’s a huge thrill in wearing the gold badge of a submariner.”

But the admiration that submariners draw comes at a price, especially for the super-elite who serve on a nuclear submarine. They spend long tenures underwater, often measured in months, keeping the missile deterrent deployed for as long as possible. At the end of a deployment, the boomer races into port, the crew changes around (all SSBNs have two full crews), supplies are replenished, and the boomer heads back on station.

“After a while, you just run out of things to do on board”, explains an officer who served on the INS Chakra, a nuclear attack submarine that India leased from the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991. “You become irritable, you start noticing things about your cabin-mate that you had never noticed before. The way he always leaves the door open… that pimple on his face. Even the lighting on board starts giving you headaches.”

The long stays underwater are enabled by the nuclear reactor. Conventional diesel-electric submarines are propelled underwater by a battery-powered electric motor, which drives a propeller. But batteries discharge quickly and conventional submarines must surface regularly to recharge them through a diesel generator. A surfaced submarine is highly vulnerable to detection, as well as to attack.

Nuclear submarines, in contrast, have no compulsion to surface, since the nuclear reactor needs no air to generate power. A boomer lies silently below the surface some way off the enemy’s coastline and, as long as on-board noise is minimised, remains virtually undetectable. 

Noise is a submarine’s greatest vulnerability. The enemy’s anti-submarine warfare units --- which include other submarines, surface ships as well as maritime patrol aircraft --- are constantly searching with sonar (SOund NAvigation and Ranging) systems for submarine sounds, whether from the engine-room, the propellers, a dropped spanner, even an irate officer speaking loudly to a sailor.

So sensitive are today’s active sonars, and so skilled the sonar operators, that they can differentiate biological signals (whales, fish, even shrimp feeding) from the sounds coming from a submarine. They can make out the number of propellers in a ship, whether they have encountered it before, and the direction and speed that the target is headed.

19 comments:

  1. Col Shukla, would you be covering the launch of INS Arihant from the Shipbuilding Centre? We are counting on you for some really good pictures before it is submerged.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The images will be scrutinized before it is allowed to be published. Especially certain things will have to be covered for security reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is no press coverage of the launch of INS Arihant.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ajai, in the last paragraph, should it be "active sonar". the most advanced sonars nowadays are passive.

    ReplyDelete
  5. oh and awesome doesn't even start describing that picture !
    great !

    ReplyDelete
  6. sir,
    where r u standing in your pic on the main page is it siachen

    ReplyDelete
  7. nice article Col...I learnt a few things...but i have a question...from where do persons inside a nuclear submarine get oxygen supply, considering that it remains submerged for months? what about kitchen and toilet facilities ? do you have photographs of the inside of a real submarine ?
    thank you

    ReplyDelete
  8. anon, nuclear subs generate breathing oxygen by electrolysis of water.

    kitchen facilities are available but there are no naked flames on subs, cooking is done on heated plates. Col Shukla's last articles on the P15A kolkata says that even it uses the same arrangement.
    all personnel on such ships have a secondary training, for example the cook and his assistants may have additional training as torpedo operators, radio operators etc.

    on toilet facilities, by tradition there is no bathing on IN subs although showers are available in the HDW class but last I read these were used to store rice/daal etc for longer tours.
    submariners wear shorts and half shirts on board subs instead of full uniform.
    facilities for attending to nature's call are as you'll find on a ship, only more cramped. the output is released to the ocean at regular intervals. :D
    this is a very delicate process however and could give away the location of the sub to enemy ASW platforms if not done carefully.

    ReplyDelete
  9. nice shot of the IN kilo. such beauties.

    ReplyDelete
  10. http://livefist.blogspot.com/2009/07/off-to-visakhapatnam.html

    Looks like shiv is going to the Ceremony.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sorry, that post should have read, "no photographic coverage of the launch of the INS Arihant."

    ReplyDelete
  12. Why such secrecy? The Americans or the Russians don't hide their latest subs from public view.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous 19:02, that pic was taken at Tiger Hill. Looks different from the common perceptions of Tiger Hill because it was taken at the end of December when the place was blanketed in snow.

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  14. The specs of INS Arihant seem to match those of Graney class submarine.

    6000 tons....111m....24 cruise missiles(6*4 brahmos or 3*4 K-15 in case of ATV)

    Could this be the reason why we are hiding it?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Ajai Sir,

    I would realy like to know wether it was really christened as "INS" as it seems to be in trial mode and not in an operational mode. It's still operated by the engineers.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi Ajay, excellent post, but pardon me for the below because I wanna expose the scumbag Prasun Sengupta.

    He has turned on 'comment moderation' eversince Arihant was launched, because the Chor was dead wrong in his predictions on the ATV, as it was then known.

    Refer to this: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5154280302945875495&postID=5743219896033099944


    Here are what some people asked him:

    Shriya @ 10.14 am: ...but in the mean time can u pls explain what does it look like [ i really hope it looks like the Borei class in construction in Russia ]

    Chorgupta: Shriya, you are assuming that since Russian design houses are involved with the ATV project, then automatically the ATV will externally resemble a submarine being built for the Russian Navy. In reality, the ATV's design is totally different and there's no external resemblance whatsoever. The Borei-class you refer to is an operational submarine whereas the ATV is merely a technology demonstrator.

    He later went on to say: No it won't look like a real SSGN because it isn't, it is only a technology demonstrator.

    Shriya @ 10.15: YES PRASUN!!!!!!! please share the pictures a s a p!!!!

    To this Chorgupta said he'll post it in 2 months but never did, and later went on to say 'he doesn't wanna gain publicity'. Now he has removed his comment where he said he'll post it in 2 months. The prove that he said this lies in Shriya's comment @ Sunday, December 07, 2008 11:29:00 AM: It's ok I will wait the 2 months out in confidence youll share the rendering with us.

    Guys - see this fast. If what I say here and what you see don't match, the chorgupta has simply removed the specific posts!

    (but I have a copy of that comment page and if changed, I'll post the entire comment page here. Or if Ajai too starts being bias (which I'm pretty sure he won't - he's a class ahead of that silly Chorgupta) - I'll just create my own blog called chorgupta.blogspot.com and publish there.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Excuse me, but why have some people started using my blog as a battleground for some private war?

    Henceforth, I will delete all posts that are unrelated to ANYTHING that I cover or write about.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  18. anon, ignore prasun and please don't bring his muck here.

    if we wanted to read his bilge we would have gone to his blog.

    don't disturb this blog please.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Sudip Das (sddp1968@yahoo.co.in)15 April 2010 at 14:11

    Indian Navy wants to be a blue water navy . In pursuit of this challange , Indian Navy should channelise its efforts in acquiring skills to operate nuclear powered submarine and aircraft carriers instead of creating the Sagar Prahari force to guard the coast lines of India , this is the job of Indian Coast Guard . Tha Navy should allow the coast guard to grow .

    ReplyDelete

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