MoD likely counts the Tugs under construction and Diving Support Crafts from Titagarh wagons to reach 45 figure.
Yeah, 5 DSV are there. I didn't include them in the list. They will probably replace INS Sarvekshak. Sometimes, IN will count them and sometimes they won't.
Anyone knows what will be their tonnage?
These are research vessels by Titagarh. I am expecting DSVs to be in more or less similar dimensions.
35 crore rupees per vessel, I don't think it will be going to be more than 150-200 tons.
Interesting day for IN:
1. RFI for procurement of 21 NWFAC. Previously, there was a RFI for procurement of 7 NGFAC, I'm not sure if they have changed the number and requirements or both are separate.
2. P-17 class will finally have Brahmos missile. I hope they even put MF-STAR + MRSAM on these ships during their MLU though chances are very scarce.
3. This is a surprise that, IN wants to procure Brahmos for NGMV for which the contract has yet to be signed and construction is yet to commence.
1. RFI for procurement of 21 NWFAC. Previously, there was a RFI for procurement of 7 NGFAC, I'm not sure if they have changed the number and requirements or both are separate.
2. P-17 class will finally have Brahmos missile. I hope they even put MF-STAR + MRSAM on these ships during their MLU though chances are very scarce.
3. This is a surprise that, IN wants to procure Brahmos for NGMV for which the contract has yet to be signed and construction is yet to commence.
The new RFI says final.
I think it's 7 + the units approved by DAC into a new RFI.
Almost everything is same, except the top speed.
Perhaps the thinking was to complete the contract for a full suite of ships rather than drop feed 7 hulls at a time. Good.
(ToI, jan.22)
France keen to provide technology, co-develop equipment for Indian military, says envoy
France keen to provide tech, co-develop equipment for Indian military, says envoy | Goa News - Times of India
France keen to provide technology, co-develop equipment for Indian military, says envoy
France keen to provide tech, co-develop equipment for Indian military, says envoy | Goa News - Times of India
Some more from Varuna 2023. Damn good photographer with Marine Nationale it would seem!
Would have been nice if IN could have done some joint carrier ops. Sadly, neither of our carriers are fully-operational at the moment! Maybe next year!
Would have been nice if IN could have done some joint carrier ops. Sadly, neither of our carriers are fully-operational at the moment! Maybe next year!
Honestly cannot think of a country more appropriate. France is our natural partner for this. We will need to replace a lot of Russian hardware soon and that phase of our military modernisation needs to come with good progress to our military industrial complex. The United States demand too much politically and their stuff comes with a lot of caveats, not to mention our relationship with them has been rocky. This is why I'm almost fully convinced Rafale will fly from the Vikrant.
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This might come across as a disjointed article, but I was lightly pondering over the Indian Navy's operational mandate, how it has evolved over the years, how it might look like in the future, how it is intricately tied with India's diplomatic and economic growth and ambitions and how it influences our overall capital procurement and investments.
Currently, I would say we are a confused naval power. Partly due to a lack of an integrated national strategic security overview, but mainly because we aren't sure how much to extend our naval reach, whether our economy would support it, and due to general Indian bureaucratic myopia. Combined by our (mostly justified) land warfare-centrism necessitated by Chinese aggression and cross-border terror threats, the Indian Navy often finds itself receiving the midget's share of the defense budget and national scrutiny. This has led to the Navy's role being limited to within the inner rim of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), supporting and defending India's maritime trade, and complementing our security apparatus against a small, yet rapidly growing, Pakistani fleet.
What India's political bosses fail to see, or are perhaps oblivious to, is the obvious maritime threat looming over our heads, resulting from an increased Chinese hegemonistic doctrine. We still consider that the Chinese would be preoccupied with contending with the combined forces of the US Navy, the Japanese and the South Koreans in the South China Sea and the Pacific theater. While this is true, China already has the world's largest naval fleet, with its tech gap with the USN rapidly contracting. They are sure to spillover into the IOR, with at least a full-fledged, dedicated CBG, comprising 10-12 ships and submarines, supported by their growing logistic/support facilities in Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa (Djibouti).
This leads me to an important assertion, which I hope to connect through and with multiple points. A nation's (and thus, its navy's) mandate is always defined by its current and future power-projection needs, however big or small scale they might be. We can take a look at some good examples. The US Navy has a statutory requirement of 11 supercarriers, with 5-6 being on-station at any given time, and 1 being permanently forward deployed (USS Ronald Reagan in Yokosuka, Japan). This has remained the case for a good 4-5 decades now, primarily driven by their global presence needed across multiple theaters for multiple objectives :
The Atlantic - posturing against the Russians
The Middle-East/the Mediterranean - regularly supporting coalition forces in their military objectives + securing trade routes
The Pacific - reorientation against China + protecting Taiwan
All theaters - Gunboat Diplomacy
How does this "presence" manifest itself? Deployments of Carrier Battle Groups, maintaining permanent naval bases, airfields and logistics hubs in pacts with allied nations, conducting joint exercises and FONOPs, etc. The point is, the Americans have a relatively clear mandate, a relatively clear idea how to achieve it, and a relatively active (and adequate) MIC and a procurement plan to support their Navy. The French naval composition can also be studied, to see how doctrinal requirements predicate naval procurements and assets.
So, where does that leave us?
I am here to hazard an educated guess on how our naval and power-projection policy would (and dare I say, should) look like in the next 10-15 years, with due consideration of all present and future threats, indigenous and adversarial capabilities and restrictions.
Here is a map of the IOR:
First, let's have an overview of Indian naval assets and presence in the IOR:
(Currently operational, or under construction, or proposed in the near future)
1. Oman - A Listening post at Ras-al-Hadd and berthing rights for the Indian Navy at Muscat naval base. An establishment at Duqm for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy
2. Madagascar - a listening post and radar facility
3. Mauritius - a 3000 m long airfield with associated facilities to house troops and host P-8I MPA on Agaléga Island
4. Seychelles - a system of six coastal surveillance radars in Mahe, Alphonse, Farquhar, Astove and Assumption Island which are linked to Indian surveillance systems
5. Several naval facilities in the ANC and Lakshadweep islands, the former recently under upgradation with Japanese assistance.
6. The US-Japanese "Fish-Hook" underwater sub-monitoring SOSUS network, now extending from the Indian Mainland (Chennai) to Port Blair, and from Indira Point to Sumatra, Indonesia. Obviously, India is now part of this network and has access to all its resources and generated data, concerning Chinese subs.
Fish-Hook:
- Combine this with the numerous security arrangements we have ratified with many nations, primarily the US - GSOMIA, BECA, LEMOA and COMCASA, gaining large access to their vast ISR network while building our own, and tons of logistical pacts we have signed with Australia, Japan, the US, South Korea, France and Singapore. So our fuel and munitions logistics are pretty well diversified across the region. We also have the IRNSS (NAVIC) regional navigational system active with 7(+2) satellites in orbit, covering the entire IOR, with ongoing plans to add more sats to the constellation to increase the range up-to 3500 Km, plus upgrading its data resolution and other technical parameters. Our warships, therefore can use an indigenous, high-accuracy positioning system, use berthing and military facilities of several allied nations and exchange fuel and rations with friendly ships at sea or in port, thus greatly increasing their patrol endurance.
Thus, we see that the primary projection-multipliers for India's warships are pretty much already in place, and will continue to be heavily expanded upon, in the Eastern IOR and beyond, into the SCS. Also, we have managed to build up a rough naval doctrine as well, while discussing what we have and where we can use it.
"The Indian Navy is to be sufficiently capable to protect India's maritime trade and shipping routes from the Middle East to the South China Sea (and everywhere below it), while also having assets to protect India's military bases and assets in the entirety of the IOR (Agalega, Assumption, etc.), while also having sufficient capability for adequate power projection from the Red Sea to the outer reaches of the SCS."
This is a pretty big and most importantly, achievable and feasible ,goal to aim for, as India becomes the third largest economic and military power on Earth. Now, we are sufficiently equipped to deal with the navy's hard and soft assets, their current state and what is needed in the immediate future.
To be very frank, we are in a state of near-destructive atrophy. Placing piecemeal orders of billion dollar warships with several critical systems still imported, commissioning destroyers and frigates without their helicopter complements and towed arrays; and submarines without their heavy-weight torpedoes, having 60-year old hepters still flying, our carriers punching below their weights, our air-wing not being potent enough, somehow making do without dedicated minesweepers or LPDs or enough logistics ships, having some silver bullets but not enough numbers of literally anything and probably everything, grappling with an officer shortage for a while, etc.
Now that I've ranted about what we are struggling with, I have to say that neither the Navy nor the Indian MIC is sitting around doing nothing.
- New ATLAS Electronik ACTAS systems are being procured and deployed fleet-wide.
- Newer warships are being armed with the ALH Mk-3 MR helos + 24 MH-60R helos being procured.
- Varunastra HWTs + TAL Shyena LWTs are entering production
- ALH Mk-3 MR helos being procured by the Navy and Coast Guard for base ops
- Vikky coming out of refit and Vikrant finishing trials
- Rafale F4.1 ISE being procured
- Intermittent Minesweeping kits being integrated almost fleet-wide
- New naval satellites planned and being built to complement GSAT-7C
- Naval MARCOS operators being probably the most adaptive of new tech in the country
- Shipyards expanding, spreading skills (frigate-building, etc.), adopting newer shipbuilding methods (Modular construction) and some more measures.....
However, in line with our newly established intentions, it is critical that we radically change our requirements, procurements and procedures, to better serve our needs:
- We need to significantly up-size our naval requirement numbers across ship-types. Roughly speaking, taking our limited expeditionary plans into account, we need at least:
- 4 aircraft carriers, at least 1 being EMALS-CATOBAR enabled, nuclear propulsion be damned (for now)
- 4 LPDs
- 24 destroyers
- 36 frigates
- 48 Corvettes/Coastal Warfare Ships
- 18 SSKs
- 6 SSNs
- 6 SSBNs
- 8 Refueling and Oiler Ships (Fleet Tankers)
- 18 LSTs
- 8 MCMVs
Basically, we need to roughly double our fleet size, in order to be an effective, true blue-water navy. Its entirely possible, when we look at the period between 2005 to 2015 - the Indian Navy nearly tripled its size of major warships. If we get a few more things right, we can achieve above figures by 2035-2040.
- Talking about specific ship designs, we really need to re-evaluate our approach at our shaping of offensive and defensive firepower. Our warships are too under-armed for their size, and the only argument that I've heard till date is to "leave room for future upgrades and weapon expansion". IMO, this is senseless. European navies build dedicated Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) and Anti-Sub Warfare (ASW) ships; we don't - we focus on the multirole aspect. Hence, we need a large VLS farm to contain numerous types of precision missiles, to fulfill each role effectively, on a single patrol.
48 is a number too low, and those RBU-6000s? What a monstrosity! As Parthu bhaiya once said not too long ago, it is better to have an Indian equivalent of the Rolling- Airframe Missile (RAM) Launcher, which is compact and more importantly - modular, meaning easy integration of ASW rockets, loitering munitions, short-range, point-defense SAMs, etc. A future replacement of the AK-630s would also be welcome. Plus, we really need to double down on stealth - we throw the word around too loosely! None of our ships have a proper, "flush" design, and single-point, vertical integration of many sensor systems is needed.
Temporarily ending this post..... will need a bit more time to think about a few more things...
Till then, your thoughts @randomradio, @_Anonymous_ ,@Gautam, @Parthu, @Ankit Kumar, @Fatalis , @vstol Jockey, @Sathya, @RASALGHUL and others.....??
Currently, I would say we are a confused naval power. Partly due to a lack of an integrated national strategic security overview, but mainly because we aren't sure how much to extend our naval reach, whether our economy would support it, and due to general Indian bureaucratic myopia. Combined by our (mostly justified) land warfare-centrism necessitated by Chinese aggression and cross-border terror threats, the Indian Navy often finds itself receiving the midget's share of the defense budget and national scrutiny. This has led to the Navy's role being limited to within the inner rim of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), supporting and defending India's maritime trade, and complementing our security apparatus against a small, yet rapidly growing, Pakistani fleet.
What India's political bosses fail to see, or are perhaps oblivious to, is the obvious maritime threat looming over our heads, resulting from an increased Chinese hegemonistic doctrine. We still consider that the Chinese would be preoccupied with contending with the combined forces of the US Navy, the Japanese and the South Koreans in the South China Sea and the Pacific theater. While this is true, China already has the world's largest naval fleet, with its tech gap with the USN rapidly contracting. They are sure to spillover into the IOR, with at least a full-fledged, dedicated CBG, comprising 10-12 ships and submarines, supported by their growing logistic/support facilities in Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa (Djibouti).
This leads me to an important assertion, which I hope to connect through and with multiple points. A nation's (and thus, its navy's) mandate is always defined by its current and future power-projection needs, however big or small scale they might be. We can take a look at some good examples. The US Navy has a statutory requirement of 11 supercarriers, with 5-6 being on-station at any given time, and 1 being permanently forward deployed (USS Ronald Reagan in Yokosuka, Japan). This has remained the case for a good 4-5 decades now, primarily driven by their global presence needed across multiple theaters for multiple objectives :
The Atlantic - posturing against the Russians
The Middle-East/the Mediterranean - regularly supporting coalition forces in their military objectives + securing trade routes
The Pacific - reorientation against China + protecting Taiwan
All theaters - Gunboat Diplomacy
How does this "presence" manifest itself? Deployments of Carrier Battle Groups, maintaining permanent naval bases, airfields and logistics hubs in pacts with allied nations, conducting joint exercises and FONOPs, etc. The point is, the Americans have a relatively clear mandate, a relatively clear idea how to achieve it, and a relatively active (and adequate) MIC and a procurement plan to support their Navy. The French naval composition can also be studied, to see how doctrinal requirements predicate naval procurements and assets.
So, where does that leave us?
I am here to hazard an educated guess on how our naval and power-projection policy would (and dare I say, should) look like in the next 10-15 years, with due consideration of all present and future threats, indigenous and adversarial capabilities and restrictions.
Here is a map of the IOR:
First, let's have an overview of Indian naval assets and presence in the IOR:
(Currently operational, or under construction, or proposed in the near future)
1. Oman - A Listening post at Ras-al-Hadd and berthing rights for the Indian Navy at Muscat naval base. An establishment at Duqm for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy
2. Madagascar - a listening post and radar facility
3. Mauritius - a 3000 m long airfield with associated facilities to house troops and host P-8I MPA on Agaléga Island
4. Seychelles - a system of six coastal surveillance radars in Mahe, Alphonse, Farquhar, Astove and Assumption Island which are linked to Indian surveillance systems
5. Several naval facilities in the ANC and Lakshadweep islands, the former recently under upgradation with Japanese assistance.
6. The US-Japanese "Fish-Hook" underwater sub-monitoring SOSUS network, now extending from the Indian Mainland (Chennai) to Port Blair, and from Indira Point to Sumatra, Indonesia. Obviously, India is now part of this network and has access to all its resources and generated data, concerning Chinese subs.
Fish-Hook:
- Combine this with the numerous security arrangements we have ratified with many nations, primarily the US - GSOMIA, BECA, LEMOA and COMCASA, gaining large access to their vast ISR network while building our own, and tons of logistical pacts we have signed with Australia, Japan, the US, South Korea, France and Singapore. So our fuel and munitions logistics are pretty well diversified across the region. We also have the IRNSS (NAVIC) regional navigational system active with 7(+2) satellites in orbit, covering the entire IOR, with ongoing plans to add more sats to the constellation to increase the range up-to 3500 Km, plus upgrading its data resolution and other technical parameters. Our warships, therefore can use an indigenous, high-accuracy positioning system, use berthing and military facilities of several allied nations and exchange fuel and rations with friendly ships at sea or in port, thus greatly increasing their patrol endurance.
Thus, we see that the primary projection-multipliers for India's warships are pretty much already in place, and will continue to be heavily expanded upon, in the Eastern IOR and beyond, into the SCS. Also, we have managed to build up a rough naval doctrine as well, while discussing what we have and where we can use it.
"The Indian Navy is to be sufficiently capable to protect India's maritime trade and shipping routes from the Middle East to the South China Sea (and everywhere below it), while also having assets to protect India's military bases and assets in the entirety of the IOR (Agalega, Assumption, etc.), while also having sufficient capability for adequate power projection from the Red Sea to the outer reaches of the SCS."
This is a pretty big and most importantly, achievable and feasible ,goal to aim for, as India becomes the third largest economic and military power on Earth. Now, we are sufficiently equipped to deal with the navy's hard and soft assets, their current state and what is needed in the immediate future.
To be very frank, we are in a state of near-destructive atrophy. Placing piecemeal orders of billion dollar warships with several critical systems still imported, commissioning destroyers and frigates without their helicopter complements and towed arrays; and submarines without their heavy-weight torpedoes, having 60-year old hepters still flying, our carriers punching below their weights, our air-wing not being potent enough, somehow making do without dedicated minesweepers or LPDs or enough logistics ships, having some silver bullets but not enough numbers of literally anything and probably everything, grappling with an officer shortage for a while, etc.
Now that I've ranted about what we are struggling with, I have to say that neither the Navy nor the Indian MIC is sitting around doing nothing.
- New ATLAS Electronik ACTAS systems are being procured and deployed fleet-wide.
- Newer warships are being armed with the ALH Mk-3 MR helos + 24 MH-60R helos being procured.
- Varunastra HWTs + TAL Shyena LWTs are entering production
- ALH Mk-3 MR helos being procured by the Navy and Coast Guard for base ops
- Vikky coming out of refit and Vikrant finishing trials
- Rafale F4.1 ISE being procured
- Intermittent Minesweeping kits being integrated almost fleet-wide
- New naval satellites planned and being built to complement GSAT-7C
- Naval MARCOS operators being probably the most adaptive of new tech in the country
- Shipyards expanding, spreading skills (frigate-building, etc.), adopting newer shipbuilding methods (Modular construction) and some more measures.....
However, in line with our newly established intentions, it is critical that we radically change our requirements, procurements and procedures, to better serve our needs:
- We need to significantly up-size our naval requirement numbers across ship-types. Roughly speaking, taking our limited expeditionary plans into account, we need at least:
- 4 aircraft carriers, at least 1 being EMALS-CATOBAR enabled, nuclear propulsion be damned (for now)
- 4 LPDs
- 24 destroyers
- 36 frigates
- 48 Corvettes/Coastal Warfare Ships
- 18 SSKs
- 6 SSNs
- 6 SSBNs
- 8 Refueling and Oiler Ships (Fleet Tankers)
- 18 LSTs
- 8 MCMVs
Basically, we need to roughly double our fleet size, in order to be an effective, true blue-water navy. Its entirely possible, when we look at the period between 2005 to 2015 - the Indian Navy nearly tripled its size of major warships. If we get a few more things right, we can achieve above figures by 2035-2040.
- Talking about specific ship designs, we really need to re-evaluate our approach at our shaping of offensive and defensive firepower. Our warships are too under-armed for their size, and the only argument that I've heard till date is to "leave room for future upgrades and weapon expansion". IMO, this is senseless. European navies build dedicated Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) and Anti-Sub Warfare (ASW) ships; we don't - we focus on the multirole aspect. Hence, we need a large VLS farm to contain numerous types of precision missiles, to fulfill each role effectively, on a single patrol.
48 is a number too low, and those RBU-6000s? What a monstrosity! As Parthu bhaiya once said not too long ago, it is better to have an Indian equivalent of the Rolling- Airframe Missile (RAM) Launcher, which is compact and more importantly - modular, meaning easy integration of ASW rockets, loitering munitions, short-range, point-defense SAMs, etc. A future replacement of the AK-630s would also be welcome. Plus, we really need to double down on stealth - we throw the word around too loosely! None of our ships have a proper, "flush" design, and single-point, vertical integration of many sensor systems is needed.
Temporarily ending this post..... will need a bit more time to think about a few more things...
Till then, your thoughts @randomradio, @_Anonymous_ ,@Gautam, @Parthu, @Ankit Kumar, @Fatalis , @vstol Jockey, @Sathya, @RASALGHUL and others.....??
Very well compiled , comprehensive , thought provoking post . I hope you come up with the succeeding piece soon & request those manning the twitter handle to take this to the blog post's Twitter T/L .
Congratulations , buddy !
Keep up the good work.
@SammyBoi
Congratulations , buddy !
Keep up the good work.
@SammyBoi
Danke Schon!
Though admittedly, I wrote this cuz I was too tired studying inorganic chemistry for my JEE Mains this Sunday, but will definitely have the second part up soon - it mainly deals with special ops, satellite strengths, ancillary shipbuilding reforms and so on...
First we need to decide on immediate aims.
We need 4 distinct Commands.
1. Western Naval Command (Streching from Gujarat to Goa)
Responsibility: Should be able to fend of all of Pakistan Navy, mount a amphibious assault in Karachi or protect our sea lines all alone, without any assistance from assets of other commands.
2. Southern Naval Command: Lakhsadweep Islands, Karanataka , Kerela and Tamil Nadu
Responsibility:- Presence and security of our assets in Red Sea, Gulf region, Southern IOR (Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, etc) , all on its own.
3. Eastern Naval Command :- Andhra coast to West Bengal coast.
Responsibility: Should be able to fend off hostile Bangladesh Navy and Burmese Navy on its own. And ensure a sea based credible continuos nuclear deterrence.
4. A&N Command
Responsibility:- Protection our interests in Malacca and be the sword against PLAN.
This should be the aim till 2040. All these 4 commands should be able to execute these things on their own, without expecting any help from other commands.
Now once these are defined, then we can go and decide what ships are required where.
My shopping list would be like
1. Fleet of 8+ SSBNs , so that we have ideally 2 SSBNs active everytime. We need to have enough warheads on station so that both China and Pakistan can be fully destroyed together. (Under ENC)
2. Fleet of 12+ SSNs : (Under SNC and ENC) To protect the SSBN patrols and total dominance in the IOR. I don't think SSNs are necessary for dealing with Pakistan or Bangladesh.
3. Fleet of 24+ SSKs :- (Under WNC, ENC and ANC)
4. Fleet of 6-8 Minesweepers for each command. So like 24-28 atleast.
Rest accordingly to what resources are left.