FROM WOE TO GO - INDIA’S SUBMARINE SAGA

By Gordon Arthur

The Indian Navy (IN) knows what it wants in terms of diesel-electric submarines, but it does not seem to know how to get it.

Efforts are currently focused on the six-strong Kalvari class, based on Naval Group’s Scorpene, but this Project 75 programme is drawing to a conclusion. The fifth boat, INS Vagir, was commissioned on 23 January, and the final submarine built by Mazagon Dock (MDL) will enter service next year.

Emphasis was supposed to move to the follow-on Project 75I, a class of six submarines fitted with air-independent propulsion (AIP).

A request for proposals (RfP) worth $5.6 billion (INR430 billion) was issued in July 2021, as India sought a foreign company willing to work with either MDL or Larsen & Toubro (L&T) under the Strategic Partnership model. Submission dates have twice been pushed back by months – the latest deadline was December 2022 – but Asian Military Review is still not aware of any company lodging a response.

A key criterion in the RfP was a ‘sea-proven’ fuel cell-based AIP for P75I submarines. Of five companies invited to respond, only ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) could fulfil this stipulation.

As the Scorpene/Kalvari programme has shown, building advanced military equipment such as submarines comes with serious risk. Naval Group signed the Scorpene contract in 2005, but the programme is running seven years behind schedule. State-backed enterprises like

Naval Group might be able to absorb risk, cost and reputational damage, but such blowouts ring alarm bells for private companies.

TKMS possesses a ‘sea-proven’ fuel cell-based AIP, now in its fourth generation, but the provenance of DSME’s fuel cell technology is not so clear. A likely origin is technology transfer when South Korea’s navy built nine Type 214-based submarines. Naval Group announced last year it would not compete in P75I; the French Navy does not use its MESMA system.

Indian MoD requirements and expectations raise several serious issues. It is common for the nation’s military to set the bar so high that nobody can jump it. Furthermore, suffocating contractual conditions usually do not sit well with potential vendors.

India is ambitious - it wants indigenous-built AIP-equipped submarines, but it wants a foreign partner to help underwrite the risk.

What does India do next?

One option is to reissue the RfP and relax specifications relating to the AIP and burden of risk. Another is to quietly let the old RfP die, and then directly negotiate with one or more foreign OEMs.

Yet India is taking an unexpected, alternative path for, on 23 January, Naval Group announced it would perform detailed designs for integration, and certification, of the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) indigenous AIP into India’s first Scorpene, INS Kalvari.

Installation by India will occur when Kalvari is due for a refit in 2025, before

– fingers crossed – returning to service in 2027. If this work proves successful, the IN will presumably outfit all its Scorpenes in this fashion.

While the DRDO insists its AIP is ready for installation in submarines, gigantic risks loom. Promises from Indian state-owned entities make everything seem easy and straightforward. However, such confidence is often misplaced, for the DRDO has a proven track record of digging holes that take years from which to extract themselves.

Technically, this will be a complex procedure. The Kalvari’s finely balanced and quietened hull will have to be extended to accommodate the DRDO’s modular marine-grade phosphoric acid fuel cell AIP. This is not a simple plugand-play exercise, as lots of redesign work will be required by Naval Group.

L&T will manufacture the AIP unit, while Indian firm Thermax will manufacture the fuel cells. Neither company has done such work before.

Yet this effort to ‘AIPise’ the Kalvari class does not solve the IN’s fundamental problem – it still needs additional conventional submarines.

The navy relies on four Type 209/ Shishumar-class, seven Kilo-class and soon six Kalvari-class boats. With the fleet well below mandated numbers, the German and Russian submarines are necessarily undergoing life extension upgrades.

Furthermore, MDL’s submarine workforce will disperse after P75 finishes, unless Delhi urgently concludes a deal for new boats. Can India really find a way out of its self-inflicted plight? The jury is out.