Why Navy must integrate nuclear and conventional submarine projects
In April 1981, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, the visiting Soviet chief of general staff made a startling offer to prime minister Indira Gandhi. The Soviets would set up a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for the Indian Navy and would lease one nuclear submarine to train the Indian crew. Mrs Gandhi, then also the defence minister, conveyed the offer to the then Navy chief Admiral RL Pereira. The Navy chief, to the prime minister’s surprise, strongly objected. In a note to Mrs Gandhi, he said that India could not afford nuclear submarines. In what must be one of the most absurdly short-sighted statements by any Navy chief, Admiral Pereira wrote, the Soviet offer "would neither strengthen the Navy’s submarine arm nor add muscle to India’s maritime forces". Fortunately, the astute prime minister overruled him. The result is for us to see. The INS Chakra leased from the Soviet Union in 1987 laid the foundation of India’s nuclear navy. The first indigenously constructed nuclear-powered submarine, the INS Arihant, a derivative of the INS Chakra, is on sea trials off Visakhapatnam. Four more such ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are under construction.
Admiral Pereira’s hostility then was partially because he feared the Soviets were trying to sabotage a deal for four HDW conventional submarines that India had signed with Germany. This marked the beginning of a schizophrenia, which has continued since. The Navy has pursued a 30-year submarine building plan to build 24 conventional submarines. It is building six Scorpene class submarines in Mumbai, the first of which will join the Navy in 2016. This, even as it ran a parallel nuclear submarine programme with Russian assistance in Visakhapatnam. Like Rudyard Kipling’s Ballad of East and West, the twain have never met.
That the Navy needs more submarines is a given. It has a fleet of 14 active but ageing submarines as against a requirement of at least 24 units. The majority of existing submarines are less than a decade away from retirement.
This February, the government flagged off a proposal to build six indigenous nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) for approximately $18 billion (Rs 1.1 lakh crore), India's largest defence project. The mammoth project was spurred in equal measure by the ominous entry of Chinese submarines into the Indian Ocean and the confidence of having perfected the Arihant’s nuclear reactor.
The Navy, meanwhile, is pushing through another $6 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) contract for building six SSP (diesel-air independent power) conventional submarines in India under the Project 75i (India) programme.
This Kipling-esque approach risks not just repeating past mistakes but also adding on new expensive ones. The separation may have begun with the obsessive secrecy surrounding the Cold War era nuclear submarine programme. The project is directly supervised by the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) and funding is independent of the defence budget. But there has been a heavy price to pay. Most of this is borne by the taxpayer.
On the face of it, both submarine types are as similar as a shark is to a piranha. A nuclear submarine can stay under water almost indefinitely and run at speeds of over 20 knots, and chase and hunt targets from enemy warships to other hostile submarines and mount distant patrols on enemy coastlines. A conventional submarine cannot stay for more than a week under water and runs at speeds of 12 knots and is useful only along sea coasts and maritime choke points. Both submarine types, however, share over 60 per cent of components like the steel, combat management systems, periscopes, pumps and auxiliary power units.
An internal navy study found it could achieve 100 per cent commonality in a majority of the onboard systems including high-pressure air compressors, hatches, fire-fighting, hydraulics, diving and surfacing control systems.
In short, most of everything but the nuclear power reactor that imparts the SSN its lethal edge. Yet, the Arihant class submarines share nothing in common with the six Scorpene class conventional submarines which India has been building since 2005 as part of a $3 billion (Rs 18,000 crore) project. The Scorpene is entirely of French origin. The Arihant uses a mix of indigenous and Russian systems.
With the Project 75i that will import technology from foreign shipyards, this story is set to continue. The project will be Indian only in name. It will add a fourth type of conventional submarine to the naval fleet presenting a nightmare in training, equipment and management of spares inventory. This is as opposed to a truly "Make in India" SSN that will feed off technology developed indigenously for the Arihant programme, generate over a million skilled jobs, and, in the words of one private sector defence manager, have a force multiplier effect of $40 billion on the Indian economy.
Combining P75i with the SSN programme will only multiply that effect. Common procurements of steel and components will dramatically reduce costs.
Commonality will also ensure adequate order quantities for various niche high technology systems and fewer problems of inventory management, spare parts stocking and maintaining a diverse repair and refit infrastructure.
It will both strengthen the submarine arm and add muscle to its maritime forces and boost the economy by saving billions in foreign exchange.