Subs for sea power

Indian maritime strategy requires submarines to deny any enemy approaches to its peninsular landmass in the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The regional maritime security threats to Indian sea power in the short term stem from its Western neighbour Pakistan and in the medium to long term emanate more fromher Northern neighbour China. Today Chinese naval capabilities comprise nuclear submarines and in the foreseeable future a heightened presence in the Indian Ocean is likely. The Pakistani submarine fleet based in Karachi would logically pose more of a threat in the Arabian Sea.

Submarines are supreme sea denial weapons and difficult to detect underwater. It is also a Navy’s major offensive arm and can tie-up several enemy warships and aircraft in anti-submarine operations. A glance at the submarine capabilities of the nations in the neighbouring region puts the Indian underwater fleet in perspective.

Today India has 18 submarines compared to Pakistan’s six and 95 in China. However, numerical assessments of submarines can be misleading with the emerging trend shifting the emphasis to qualitative rather than quantitative aspects. Pakistan is expected to get a French built Agosta B 90 submarine this year and indigenously build two more in Karachi later. The Agosta with its air independent propulsion (AIP) technology amounts to a poor man’s nuclear submarine which can remain submerged much longer than conventional diesel electric submarines.

According to a US Navy estimate, the Chinese submarine force is likely to decline by about 30 per cent over the next decade. However, this fall in numbers would be compensated by significant qualitative improvements in their new submarines. Nuclear-powered submarines are an important part of China’s status as a regional power. Today China operates a force of five Han class SSNs and is preparing a new design for production in the next century.

This new SSN, the Type 093, is expected to be similar in design and capability to the Russian Victor III SSN. Like the Song SS, it will carry submerged-launch, anti-ship cruise missiles and prove a significant advancement on the Han class.

The Indian Navy initially developed on the British Royal Navy model and evolved as a surface navy minus an underwater complement. India obtained its first submarine, the INS Kalvari — a Russian Foxtrot class in 1968 — only after Indonesia and Pakistan introduced the submarine into the Indian Ocean region in 1964 and 1965 respectively.

Despite the strong Indo-Russian armament relationship, indigenous submarine construction technology did not materialise with the Russian sale of submarines to India. The former Soviet Union during the mid 1960s wanted to extract a political price for providing India with submarine technology — namely naval base facilities at Vishakhapatnam. But New Delhi did not provide the Russians the required base facilities and hence no submarine technology was forthcoming from their side.

It was only in 1982, after India signed a contract with HDW of Germany for the purchase of four submarines, a state-of-the-art submarine production facility was established at the Mazagaon Docks Ltd, Mumbai. However, the HDW pay-off scandal only allowed political considerations to kill the indigenous production of submarines. In fact, these facilities at 1982 Rupee-Deutsche Mark exchange rates costing between Rs 45 crore to 60 crore work out to Rs 300 crore at today’s rates. And they were supposed to be more modern than even the manufacturing facility in Germany.

The US Navy believes that the maritime threat in the 21st century at a strategic level stems from proliferation of submarine technology to various nations. An American journal in an article on `Third World Submarines’ states that to prevent the proliferation of submarine technology, the only solution would be enacting something similar to the Missile Technology Control Regime. “Missiles were an object of special concern because they could penetrate enemy defenses and were highly suitable for surprise attack — destabilising characteristics also shared by submarines….

submarine-producing countries need to look beyond short-term commercial interests to long-term security necessities and organise a regime whereby the sale of advanced subs is lowered or halted entirely,” it says.

Today, the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Naval Design has done enormous work in submarine design and achieved remarkable progress. The Navy has developed adequate expertise and can independently build diesel attack submarines but a nuclear submarine is a necessary strategic weapon.

Fruition of defence R&D ventures like the light combat aircraft and airborne early warning platform are strategic projects similar to construction of a nuclear submarine. Some defence analysts think that such projects will only strengthen Indian foreign policy posturing and make other nations take India more seriously about staking a claim for a UN Security Council seat.

Rear Admiral (retd.) K. Raja Menon, a seasoned submariner, says: “The Navy must eventually act at the political decision-making levels as a constituent part of any peace talks. Today the Indian Navy’s inability to be considered at the political level arises from the absence of a nuclear submarine which is a strategic weapon and not just another submarine.”