N. S. Kohli Wednesday 13, July 2005
Source: Daily Excelsior
Captain Richard Sharpe in the editorial of the 2003-04 editions of Jane's Fighting Ships had bemoaned the decline of the Indian Navy. Ships under construction are running behind schedule, those in service are suffering from lack of spares and refit updates are postponed. Comparatively, Pakistan Navy is on an acquisition spree. It has acquired four Type 21 Amazon Class frigates from the UK and is fitting them out with the harpoons. The Pakistan Navy early retrofitted their Agosta and Daphne submarines with Harpoons at Karachi and acquired under water missile capability by 1987, leaving the Indian Navy behind. It has also acquired a Dutch replenishment ship Momin and has acquired three Agosta class submarines from France.
The US Congress has approved the $368 million arms package for Pakistan and so its Navy is all set to induct three PC3 Mark II updated Orion long-range, lethal harpoon missile firing patrol aircraft. These will operate from PNS Mehran at Karachi for which facilities and most training have been completed. Once inducted, the Indian Navy can forget about ambitions of sea control in the Arabian sea. Defence of a big target like an aircraft carrier, against Harpoon firing Orions escorted by F-16 and submarines will be challenging. To recall matters in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant was assigned to the East Coast as it was considered vulnerable on West Coast.
The Indian Navy and the defence ministry have been engaged in the great debate as to whether money should be put into submarines or aircraft carriers and procrastination has delayed decisions on both options. Fortunately in the 80s, thanks to the largesse of erstwhile USSR, India acquired 8 kilo class and leased a Charlie class nuclear submarine INS Chakra on easy terms. Generous naval budgets, courtesy Indira and Rajiv Gandhi governments, also ensured the debate and decision took back stage. Today, even rich nations have to decide on where to place the accent, submarines or carriers if both are not affordable and that decision has to be based on the threat perception, in India's case vis-ââ¬Â¦-vis Pakistan and China for the present
The fallout of the aircraft carrier versus submarine debate has plagued many navies in the last two decades. It is a debate in which the emotional aspects of the people at the helm play a role. Only professional appreciation of financial outlays of these two madonnas of the seas can lead to any sensible conclusions. In the US, Admiral Rickover steered the nuclear submarine's case with political finesse and the result is that the US Navy has no diesel submarines and 118 nuclear boats in its inventory. The US carrier fleet is being cut from 13 to 9. In the Royal Navy, a minister and admiral resigned in 1979 when the wings of Royal Naval Aviation were clipped in favour of the Trident class submarines. The British Navy then termed their three new construction, Harrier-equipped aircraft carriers by the misnomer "Through Deck Cruisers." The Royal Navy also decided to sell one of these three ships the HMS Invincible to the Australians Navy for $300 million in 1993. The Australian needed a replacement for their aging carrier HMS Melbourne. However, the euphoria of the Falklands victory ensured the HMS Invincible staying with Britain and the HMS Hermes, now the INS Viraat was offered to the Australians.
Historically, in the late 70s naval aviation lobby plugged for the only aircraft that could operate from the INS Vikrant the British Aerospace vertical take-off and landing VSTOL Harriers to replace the aging Sea Hawks. At one seminar, when a junior officer surmised that if the navy acquired Harriers then it would need to look at an expensive $400 million platform too, he was politely told that the seminar was to loot at the Harrier and he could come when the seminar on the Carrier would be held.
When the grapevine of staff requirements indicated that one version of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) would be carrier borne and catapult capable, and aviators did not wish to miss the boat a 24,000 tonne platform has adorned the navy's designing boards. A naval ship from design to operational service takes 10 to 15-years even in advanced countries, so the eyes of the navy have fallen on the huge 40,000-tonne Russian carrier Gorshkov. The team that visited Murmansk saw her lying dodo and the Russians were in no mood financially to operate her. In any case, Russians had made the mistake of fitting her out with a huge fixed bulbous bow and a protruding sonar dome, which neither fits into India's operational scenario or allows this 39-foot deep draft ship to enter Bombay unless she lightens herself, a practice no naval ship should be encouraged to do. However, the carrier is undergoing retrofitting and will join the Navy in less than three years.
In industry, internal rate of return (IRR) has come to stay but life cycle costing for expensive toys like ships and aircraft was only attempted by the late air chief marshal PC Lal, and many thought he was well ahead of his times for an armed force like that of India's, steeped in bureaucracy and strong non-professional civilian-led decision making.
In the case of submarines, the nuclear option for power plants is overwhelming if the experience of the US, Russia, France, China and UK are anything to go by. The Indian Navy learnt the ropes of nuclear propulsion on INS Chakra when she was on loan from 1986 to 91, but the Indian Navy is back to square one and the great submarine - versus - aircraft carrier debate will continue in the corridors of South Block for some more time
Regards
Tiger
