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SP’s
June-July 2023
Volume 18 No. 3
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ROUNDUP
Military 2021 – Yearbook
2022
SP’S MILITARY YEARBOOK 2021-2022 CONTENTS HEREWITH
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THE ONLY NAVAL MAGAZINE FOR NAVIES ACROSS ASIA-PACIFIC PAGE 3 Indian Navy Ships: New Launches & Deliveries
LEAD STORY
PHOTOGRAPH: MDL
SP's Correspondent
PAGE 4 Germany and India: Shared Concerns
Ranjit Kumar INS Kalvari, first Scorpene Submarine by MDL
PAGE 5 L&T and Navantia Sign a Teaming Agreement for Project 75 (India)
India’s Submarine Force Levels: Cause for Worry Restoring India's Submarine power amidst Geopolitical shifts is an urgent imperative
S-80 Submarine
SP’s News Network
PAGE 7 Exercise Malabar 2023 SP's Correspondent
APPOINTMENT Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar takes over Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar assumed charge as the Flag Officer Commanding-inChief (FOC-in-C), Eastern Naval Command (ENC) on August 1, 2023. Commissioned into the Indian Navy in January 1987, Vice Admiral Pendharkar is an Anti-Submarine Warfare specialist. He has held various Operational, Staff and Command Appointments in the course of his distinguished career spanning over 36 years. He has commanded three frontline ships including the Missile Corvette INS Kora, Stealth Frigate INS Shivalik and the Aircraft Carrier INS Viraat. His important staff appointments include as the Principal Directors in the Directorate of Net-Centric Operations and the Directorate of Personnel.
n V ICE ADMIRAL A.K. CHAWLA (RETD)
T
HE RECENT INKING OF a ‘nonbinding and non-financial MoU’ between Mazagon Docks Limited (MDL) and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) on June 7, 2023 to provide engineering and design consultancy support to MDL, has once again brought to the fore the urgent necessity for India to revive its domestic conventional submarine production line, which has fallen idle after the launch of the sixth and last Scorpene class submarine being built at MDL, INS Vagsheer, in April 2022. The submarine, which started sea trials in May 2023, is currently undergoing sea trials prior being commissioned into the Indian Navy.
India's Ambitious Submarine Building Plan Under the now well-known 30-year submarine building plan, approved by the Vajpayee government in 1999, India was to build 24 submarines over a 30-year period (1999-2029), with progressively greater indigenous content, until the final batch would be fully designed and built in India. Media reports also indicate that a few years
ago the Indian Navy had approached the Government to amend the 30-year submarine building plan by replacing six conventional submarines with an unspecified number of indigenously designed and built nuclear attack submarines (SSNs). Having gained enough experience in the design and construction of ballistic missile armed nuclear submarines (SSBNs) it would make eminent sense for India to use the in-house expertise for building SSNs, whenever this programme is approved by the government. Based on past experience of other countries who have designed and built SSNs, especially China, it is estimated that the first indigenous SSN will take at least 15 years to be launched, after the construction programme is approved. The proposed indigenous SSN construction programme would take India into an elite club of SSNbuilders and operators, which today comprises the US, Russia, UK, China and France. As far as India’s conventional submarine building plan is concerned, several positive developments have taken place with regard to the indigenisation of critical capabilities for conventional submarines. After the successful demonstration of the indigenous Air Independent Technology (AIP) module by India’s Defence Research & Development
Organisation (DRDO) on a land-based prototype in 2021, a pact was inked between DRDO and Naval Group, France, in January 2023, to install the first module on board INS Kalvari during its forthcoming major refit. Once trials are successful, it would form the basis of equipping future indigenous submarines, apart from the other P-75 boats. AIP submarines are also called the ‘poor man’s SSN’ as it allows them to remain submerged for greater lengths of time without surfacing, which makes them more difficult to detect. India has also become self-sufficient in the design and fabrication of advanced sonars, combat management suites and communication equipment for our submarines. The indigenous heavyweight torpedo, Varunastra, is making steady progress with the first successful underwater target engagement announced by the Indian Navy on June 6, 2023. The DRDO had intimated that a variant of Varunastra will one day arm our future submarines. In January 2022, the Indian Navy had also certified the use of indigenous submarinebuilding steel, being made at the Rourkela Steel Plant (under the Steel Authority of India) for use in the construction of future submarines to be built in India. The announcement of the ‘strategic partnership’
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