I came across these two articles while digging about the current submarine boogaloo
It seems as if the Admirals were sitting on submarine design inspite of having the capability to build in-house like they do with the ships.
In the first article, there's a retired Vice Admiral PC Bhasin who was DG of the ATV project talking in an interview about how they imported an SSN design with all the "know why" which they then used as the basis for the Arihant SSBN,
It's a very good read, the Admiral here talks about how the Navy was fully involved, and how the Govt roped in the private sector aka L&T for production and DRDO produced the sub-systems
Vice Admiral P.C. Bhasin (retd) explains how the Advanced Technology Vessel programme led to the construction of India’s first indigenous nuclear submarine
www.indiatoday.in
One was that we did not want to reinvent the wheel, so we decided that we would buy the design from an international agency and proceed with that. Here, we primarily wanted the ‘know how’ and the ‘know why’ of the design. We were also fortunate that we were able to get the normatives from the suppliers—the norms around which the design of a particular item, like a car, a motorcycle, a ship or a submarine is established. Companies [generally] never tell you anything of the normatives—this is their [intellectual property]. Our supplier was very kind—though we paid a very tidy sum for it, we got the normatives. The advantage was that with these, we could alter the design to our requirements or update it. For example, [suppose] we had designed a submarine with a maximum diving depth of 100 metres, but [later] wanted to increase that to 150 or 200 metres. To do that, we do not have to reinvent the wheel—we already have the normatives, so we update the design and change it as required. With this we had made designs for an SSBN. We have also been quite successful in [modifying] the design for an SSN (non-ballistic nuclear submarine). Though we didn’t have the build parameters for this, we are quite happy with [our design].
Yes it has, because of the design ability and the normatives, which we are now building up. So that’s why we paid a lot of money for the normatives—it’s not being kept in somebody’s almirah. It’s being used by the industry, by the [systems] designers, by the professional directorates, it’s all available. This information was distributed to the concerned people. [Thanks to this information], we can enter the design and modify it as necessary
Now since they have the design and know why, they could also make SSNs or diesel electrics based on it, but nothing happened
the P77 SSN is supposed to have a bigger reactor( apparently same one used by S5 SSBN ) so it will be a different and larger design, made by Navy's submarine design department of WDB since the funds are sanctioned now.
In this second article, blue prints and other such design documents were transferred from both HDW and later Armaris/Naval Group to MDL and then to the Navy submarine design group, but once again they seemingly sat on it?
What did MDL do with the Transfer of Design Documents (TDD) it received from Armaris, the Franco-Spanish consortium (including DCNS--now Naval Group) that sold the Scorpenes. This TDD went from France to MDL and from the MDL to the DG SDG. It was never utilised. In the 1980s, HDW transferred to MDL all the design blueprints on thousands of microfilms, and microfilm readers were supplied to interpret those designs. These were not utilised because the firm was blacklisted.
So in summary
- Navy WDB has a certain Russian SSN design with all the know-why and successfully modified an SSBN out of it
- Navy WDB also has enough skills to make a larger P77 SSN and S5 SSBN
- L&T can produce submarine hull etc and Navy SBC in Vizag can assemble them
- MDL can do both production of hull sections and assembly of conventional submarines
- DRDO can produce sub-systems like sonar domestically and also weapons like EHWT
- As for Engines they could be imported from Kraut or Russi
- If DRDO sonar/electronics is too outdated it can be imported ofc, just like for surface ships, Koreans have done this
There is design capability on Navy's end, there is build capability on MDL and L&Ts side, so there is no technical bottleneck, so it's either some budget issue or doctrine issue, I lean on the latter, the Admirals seem to not want the "numbers game" for the submarine fleet but want high tech subs in smaller numbers, otherwise we could have produced ATV derived diesel-electric subs long back, it's not even AIP since the Kalvaris don't have them either.
It also means any "ToT" from the Type-214 we get are fully jhumla, it isn't *necessary* to build subs domestically but it's a good add-on if the Admirals find it necessary to get into the Numbers Game like chings are doing for the last 20 years, and Russians have been doing since the Cold War
Anyway per that patrakar's report earlier it will be good if there are two lines cranking out the P75I German u-boots with their high tech angular hull, electronics and "proven" AIP, while the other produces the deshi P76 submarine based on ATV design and with DRDO AIP, should be enough to replace our existing 11 Kilo and Type 209 boats from the 80s and add additional subs.
, AkashNG could be placed on that island to give the PLAN a taste of their own A2/AD medicine.fxtwitter.com
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