Why India needs to ramp up its token training of Vietnamese submariners

On August 31, the first batch of Vietnamese navy submariners finished a six-month course at the Indian Navy’s premier training school, INS Satavahana in Visakhapatnam. These personnel, 20 officers and 40 sailors, will go on to man the Vietnam Peoples Navy’s six Russian-built Kilo class submarines. This bit of military diplomacy comes just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi lands in Hanoi on September 3 for the first state visit by an Indian PM in 15 years.

Foreign secretary S Jaishankar told media in New Delhi on Friday to expect "strong outcomes" from the prime minister’s visit. There is speculation about military hardware sales like the Indo-Russian Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles and patrol craft.

There is no sign, however, of India undertaking what could be a potential game-changer: advanced submarine tactical training for the Vietnamese.

This is because the present training course is nothing more than a token exercise. The 60 Vietnamese navy personnel, the crew strength of one Kilo-class submarine, were only given a basic training course at INS Satavahana. Most of it was in classrooms to understand the structure of the submarine and familiarise navigators, engineers, communicators about the onboard systems.

To use an air force analogy, it would be like the first stage of ab-initio training using piston-engine trainer aircraft. Except, there is very little exposure to an actual submarine. What the Vietnamese People’s Navy really needs—and this has been borne out by recent visits to Vietnam made by Indian officials — is training in advanced undersea warfare. Vietnam’s 2009 decision to buy six Kilo-class submarines from Russia was influenced by China’s muscle flexing in the region.

Submarines like the Kilo class armed with torpedoes, sea mines and anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, are lethal steel sharks. They prowl undetected as they perform sea-denial missions or prevent the enemy the freedom to use the sea. Submarines allow smaller navies to tie down larger navies and are a bit like guerillas of the sea. This would seem like a natural choice for the Vietnamese whose nimble Viet Cong guerillas inflicted military defeats on three of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, including China in 1979.

But operating submarines is a far more complex game than running fleet-footed guerillas. The Vietnam People’s Navy, essentially a gunboat navy that has never operated submarines, is attempting one of the biggest capability leaps by any global navy in buying these complex undersea platforms.

This is where the Indian navy, that has operated Kilo-class submarines in tropical waters for over thirty years, fits in. It needs to provide Vietnamese submariners with the tactical training  to exploit the sturdy Kilo class submarines to their maximum war-fighting potential, particularly the second, six-month advanced phase where crews spend 45 days on board submarines at sea. At the end of this one-year course, the crew are presented with the prestigious twin dolphins which qualify them as full-fledged submariners.

In the advanced course, crews are taught to stalk enemy warships, mine harbours, snoop on the enemy, hunt submarines and, crucially, how to use the formidable 220-km range "Klub" cruise missiles to attack targets on land and at sea.

In short, this is the training that will ensure the Vietnamese People’s Navy can inflict heavy losses on a maritime aggressor and even take the fight to the adversary’s home turf. An undersea Viet Cong force that is also an excellent opportunity for India to put some steel into its "Act East" policy.