Indian Submarine Fleet To Grow
Winds of Change has a good article, with lots of links, on the growing Indian submarine fleet, and in particular their recent decision to build six French/Spanish-designed Scorpene subs. The current Indian submarine force consists of either imported or indigeniously-produced Type 209 (German) or Kilo Class (Russian) boats; they got rid of their old Foxtrot-class boats a few years ago.
Of special interest is the stated Indian intention of constructing their own nuclear submarine. This would put them in select company, since currently only five countries (U.S., Great Britain, France, Russia, and China) build nuke boats.
If current rumors from Bellona (an anti-nuclear group) are true, India is planning to lease two Akulas to train their crews to run an eventual Indian-built nuke boat. The fact that India has leased a nuclear boat from Russia before lends credence to these reports.
Expect the first generation Indian nuclear boats to be very loud...
posted by Bubblehead at 10:16 PM
5 Comments:
I've been saying for years (when Harpooners sit around and chat about "what if" scenarios), that India has designs on someone. That Navy they're building is a power projection navy, and is starting to look like a sea denial navy. One wonders if they might be looking to their ESE with eyes towards all that empty land, and maybe to the north of that, for all those resources...not to mention some choice strategic passages.
You don't build a whacking big navy, if you're worried about the PRC to the north.
9/16/2005 2:32 AM
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9/16/2005 10:38 AM
The Indians tried to build a nuke boat a long time ago, and the project imploded in a nasty series of scandals. The lease job was after that, and the navy keeps on pushing despite the pain of trying to build an SSN/SSBN.
Some ROKN officers have similar desires but overall the decision has been so far to not take the risk and expense of retooling their infrastructure.
Also, India sees itself as a regional sea power, with a lot of coastline to patrol and several straits to worry about. There's more to it than "designs on someone".
Links if I ever get around to it...
9/16/2005 10:41 AM
Chap, evaluate their current and future naval force structure, including amphibs and carriers, and tell me what they could do. If all they wanted was sea control, they could do it with land based aviation and submarines alone. Then look at the population of India, and it's natural resources. Project that data 15 years into the future, and maybe you might see something else.
9/16/2005 11:52 PM
Did, and did. I'm much more sanguine about them than I am a lot of other places.
Litening to the Indians talk about themselves, they would like to be the regional power in their area's oceans. The interesting tension is between not us and the Indians, but us and the Chinese.
I think the Indians aren't expansionist in their shipbuilding, if that's what you imply.
And, BTW, take a look at the interoperability we've been doing over the last ten years with the Indians. Positive progress, getting over speed bumps we couldn't for the entire Cold War. I expect some interesting difficulty as they flex their fleets, but don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.
10/02/2005 11:37 PM
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