Submarine Arm – Achilles Heel for the Indian Navy

Submarine arm is for the Indian Navy, what MiGs have been for the Indian Air Force (IAF) off late – the Achilles Heel – the chink in its armoury. Talking about sheer statistics, the Indian Navy last inducted a conventional submarine 19 years ago and its current fleet is down to 13 in number.

 

The resignation of the Indian Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi and the government’s blatant eagerness to accept it following the spate of accidents faced by the Indian Navy’s submarine fleet point to a chronic problem in the Indian defence establishment – Armed Forces propose, MoD disposes. Despite the alarming situation of the Indian submarine fleet getting archaic and the Indian Navy seeking to maintain its edge in the Indian Ocean Region (in the face of the expanding submarine fleet of China and a strong submarine arm of Pakistan) proposing new acquisition, MoD kept dragging its feet.

In 2010 the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) sounded the red herring saying that the navy’s submarine fleet was ageing and by 2012 63 percent of its vessels would have completed their operational life. The report underlined the “serious slippages” in the induction plan as the genesis of the problem. "In what could seriously impact on the operational preparedness of the Indian Navy, more than 50 per cent of its submarines have completed 75 per cent of their operational life and some have already outlived their maximum service life."

With a number of platforms due for retirement, by 2015, the Indian submarine fleet is projected to be down to 10 underwater platforms. In contrast have the biggest navy in Asia China is known to have 8-10 nuclear powered submarines and 50-60 diesel submarines. Beijing is also actively aiding Islamabad in augmenting its fleet by constructing submarines for them.

The prophecy of the CAG seems to be eerily close as the Indian Navy submarines suffered three accidents – causing loss of lives and machines, as well.

The indigenous construction of the Scorpene submarines is already way behind the schedule, marred by constant allegations about corruption in the deal. The government is yet to sanction the construction of submarines under the Project P-75 I.

Indian Navy Chief resigns

In the wake of the today's accident onboard INS Sindhuratna, Indian Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi resigned. Here is the statement issued by the Ministry of Defence- 

"Taking moral responsibility for the accidents and incidents which have taken place during the past few months, the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral DK Joshi today resigned from the post of CNS.

The Government has accepted the resignation of Admiral Joshi with immediate effect.

The Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral RK Dhowan will be discharging the duties of officiating CNS, pending appointment of regular CNS."

Aiming without Arming

The Indian defence establishment has been talking about a grown assertiveness in its dealing with its giant neighbor in the East – China. Two separate developments earlier this month marked a sense of maturity in the defence outlook of India – the Special Representatives talks on the boundary issue with China and the largest edition of Milan naval exercise with 16 countries from the Indian Ocean Region and South China Sea.

On the face of it the two events look unrelated, but Indian Mandarins in the South Block seem to have taken a leaf out from the Chinese strategy of seeking a peaceful resolution of disputes while continuing to assert its might. India conducted war games with 16 countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand – which are having disputes with China in the South China Sea region - in the Bay of Bengal from Feb 4-9. And then Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) met China’s State Councillor Yang Jiechi to decide to start dialogue on maritime security, an important aspect of Indo-China relations considering their rivalry vis-à-vis energy security.

File Photo of Exercise Milan

The only difference between the strategic maneuvering of the two countries is that China can actually back them up with firepower. India seems to be aiming virtually with no gun. The gap between the requirements of the Indian Armed Forces and the grant from the government is ever widening – as reflected in the recent budget. On the face of it, the defence budget has got a 10 percent hike. But probe a bit deeper, and it reflects an Indian defence establishment, known to have inertia to change; acquisition process takes decades, any force augmentations come after years, domination of reactive rather proactive approach towards bulwarking its defence and so forth and so on.

The announced Defence Budget for the year 2014-15 is 2.24 trillion rupees. The major reason for the enhanced budget is the increased pay and salaries of the three forces and the hiked revenue expenditure of the Indian Army, which is raising a Mountain Strike Corps along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) along China. However, the other requirements like getting new artillery guns have been hanging fire. And also the IAF had to bear a cut in relation to the current year.

Indian Defence Minister AK Antony dropped the bombshell at the flagship biennial Indian defence exhibition DefExpo-2014, that there was no money for the purchase of the 126 Medium Multi-Role Aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force (IAF) – an acquisition that has the force has been awaiting for nearly a decade now and the delay has been keeping it from bidding adieu to all variants of the MiG-21s.

India has been trying to hide behind the comforts of its ‘superior’ navy with a greater experience of projecting force beyond its border. The Indian Navy officials have been boasting about the successful operation of a flat-deck carrier for decades. A claim which has been bolstered by the recent addition of Admiral Gorshkov, rechristened as INS Vikramaditya, in its fleet. The Chinese Navy that recently acquired Soviet-vintage aircraft carrier Varyag is already working towards acquiring second such warship. India presently has two aircraft carriers – one of which will be retiring soon and will be replaced by an indigenous one. And the Indian defence establishment instead of taking honing this indigenous capability further and sanctioning the construction of the second aircraft carrier is bidding time.

Another crunch staring the Indian Navy in face is the rapidly dwindling numbers of its submarines. The force has been left with only 14 conventional submarines in its flotilla and it is only after considerable delay that the government has decided to give its nod to the construction of six submarines under Project-75 I.

Another major project in limbo has been the construction of six strategic rail links along the LAC. The Indian Army had initially proposed construction of 14 strategic lines in Ladakh and North Eastern Regions. Out of this six lines were accorded top priority by the MoD. These lines will entail an estimated cost of Rs. 80,000 crore.

The rail lines are as such important to link the two regions with the country, however, the inaction on the part of the Indian government becomes more glaring as China has already laid down 10,000 km long rail network in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). This has given China the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) the capability to mobilize 4,50,000 soldiers to the border in 30 days.  Some of the important railway projects in North East are Missamari (Assam) to Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh), North Lakhimpur (Assam) to Along (Arunachal Pradesh) and Murkongselek (Assam)-Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh). Tawang is strategically important to India and is one region in the North east claimed by the Chinese. Inclement weather in the region makes it difficult to maintain supply routes. 

While the Defence Minister has received a pat on his back for managing to spend every penny of the defence budget during his tenure, the last year 2013-14 has been very lackluster on his resume.

China's Brothers in Arms

The stellar entry of Chinese Defence firms in the global arms market has been creating ripples among the Czars of the arms bazaar. But the slow reacting Indian defence establishment has not taken the note that China besides investing in Ports around India, has now moved to directly arming its neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the teeth.

According to the latest report of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China’s defence companies produced and sold 40 per cent of the world’s arms, ammunition and weaponry in 2012. The total global sales of arms and military services across the world valued 395 billion dollars sans the figure of 268 billion dollars for the Chinese firms. This makes Chinese share to be at a staggering 40.2 per cent of the total global arms production and sales.

File Photo

The increasing value addition and sophistication of the Chinese defence industry came to the world’s attention in 2013 as Turkey – a NATO member - opted for a Long Range Missile Defence System made by a little known China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corporation to supply the long-range missile defence system. While making the selection, Turkey rejected the product of established American firms even though it would have been compatible to existent defence systems. The military-industrial establishment was shocked as the country is facing US sanctions for ‘selling technologies to help Iran, Syria and North Korea to develop unconventional weapons’.

The China’s rise as an armament giant is threatening to tip the balance in the South Asian region fast. The countries in India’s neighbourhood have played a key role Beijing’s rise as a major arm supplier – a reality which the Indian defence establishment has been trying to resolve with its classic Ostrich approach. Exports make the niche indigenous defence market economically viable for a country, especially one seeking a transformation to a major power and seeking self-reliance in the area. This has been a major problem for the Indian private sector seeking to proliferate in the defence sector but refrains from doing so as the limited market does not commensurate with the high costs involved in the Research and Development of Defence Technology. Pakistan is Beijing’s leading customer with 55 per cent of its arms imports supplied by China. From 250 JF-17 fighter jets to four Jiangwei-class frigates Pakistan is boosting its conventional capability armed with Chinese conventional weaponry. Other key Chinese weapons exports to Pakistan include the K-8 lightweight trainer/attack jets since 2000. China has supplied over a 100 of the export version of the PLA Air Force’s F-7E, called the F-7MG fighter jet an upgraded adaptation of the MiG-21. China has been selling surface-to-surface DF-11 missiles to Pakistan.

According to SIPRI, Bangladesh has got seven per cent of China’s arms sale, this translates that 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s military hardware is ‘Made in China’. Dhaka has purchased 44 Chinese Main Battle Tanks MBT 2000s in 2011 – a first time purchase for the country for brand new battle tanks. Bangladesh has also been lobbying for JF-17s and J-10 fighter jets that China has supplied to Pakistan.

Myanmar has purchased its weapons ‘evenly and exclusively’ from Russia and China. The Myanmar armed forces are now equipped with MiG-29s fighter jets, ground attack helicopters, battle tanks and artillery guns.

China’s inroads into the defence market in India’s backyard have been based on the strategy of beating its competitors by cutting down price. The established US companies like Lockheed Martin and others were edged out as the Chinese firm quoted a price of three billion dollar. It is a big achievement for the Chinese defence industry once notorious for its ‘reverse engineering’ of the Russian military hardware including fighter jets.

Till now Indian South Block corridors only reverberated with the concerns over the Chinese investment in various ports strategically located around India in the Indian Ocean Region – Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota and Colombo Port in Sri Lanka, one port in Bangladesh and another one in Myanmar - under the famously termed ‘Strings of Pearls’.

India and China jostling for the same space and resources in the international arena have been trying to edge each other out. The Indian strategic posture against China has been based on choking Chinese energy supplies by denying it the use of the Sea Lines of Communication passing through the Indian Ocean Region. To avoid this, China has been seeking alternative access to sea provided by Pakistan’s Gwadar port and then linking it to mainland China through the

all-weather Karakoram Highway.

The growth of Chinese defence industry is also fuelled by India’s stagnant arm production and the refusal of the South Block mandarins to take the fast-changing geo-strategic equations into consideration.

Even as India kick-started its biennial 8th Land, Naval and Internal, Homeland Security Systems Exhibition, the Indian defence production industry has not significant achievement to showcase. Its faltering attempts to stitch together a potent Defence Production Policy to give impetus to the indigenous defence industry have not bear fruits yet. But for a successful missile programme, the other Indian defence production have experience modest success. The long-awaited ambitious project of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) has been in limbo for over 25 years now and would take another couple of years – conservatively speaking – before entering service.

The Indian defence establishment seems to be satisfied with few HAL-manufactured Dornier units being exported or its shipyards supplying Offshore Patrolling Vessel (OPVs) to Indian Ocean Littoral countries.

The Indian footprint in the international market is not even close to China and the defence establishment is still to evolve a standard procedure to allow defence export. So far the Indian policy is to supply equipment to ‘friendly’ countries but there is no clarity on which are those countries. The government is also working on simplifying the NoC (No Objection Certificate) granting procedure.

With Indian Economy slowing down, the Indian Defence Ministry has been expressed inability to have funds for purchasing the long over-due 126 Medium Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF) facing shortage of fighting squadrons. In such a scenario it is highly unlikely that the Indian defence production will scale some feats in the coming years.

But for the shipbuilding – owing to the farsightedness of the Indian Navy, the home-grown defence industry has not made any significant headway in terms of indigenous technology development.

(The article was published in The Millenium Post)