A fresh footnote to the battle precis

“The balanceis not going to shift with one submarine but it gives Pakistan a qualitative edge this is a submarine designed in the late eighties, is quieter and faster and has greater capabilities,” says Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

Roy-Chaudhury believes that the Agosta deal is part of the Pakistani Navy’s efforts to retain the qualitative rather than the quantitative edge over the vastly superior Indian Navy.

The Khalid comes armed with the SM-39 Exocet submarine-launched anti-ship missiles (AShM) with a range of 50 km. Launched from beneath the surface, an AshM gives a submarine valuable manoeuvring time after firing the missile and is inherently more dangerous than a torpedo. This capability is currently not available with the Indian Navy.

Pakistan’s navy now has four vintage French Daphne class SSKs which are over 30 years old and two 20-year-old Agostas making for an average age of 27 years per hull.

A decade ago, Pakistan retrofitted thisFrench-built fleet to deploy the lethal US-supplied sub-Harpoon anti-ship missile, making it the only third world country with an undersea missile capability. The Pakistan Navy has looked to these undersea vessels to further a small country’s policy of sea denial denying the larger Indian Navy unrestricted use of the sea during war.

But it is the imminent transfer of revolutionary Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) technology with these three new submarines that could prove to be really worrisome for the Indian Navy. AIP increases the underwater stay of conventional submarines nearly four-fold from five to 20 days, giving them the sort of endurance usually associated with nuclear submarines.

Conventional diesel-electric submarines can stay under for five days, after which they have to approach the surface to suck in air to run their diesel engines, which in turn charge the batteries which propel the vessel. In an anaerobic AIP plant, which is fitted into the submarine, a combination of pressurised oxygenand ethanol in onboard tanks feed the engine internally, increasing endurance to nearly 20 days.

As per the contract with France, the third Agosta 90B to be built indigenously by Pakistan (around 2005) will be equipped with a French Mesma AIP plant, which will later be retrofitted n the two other vessels. In effect, the third indigenously-built submarine in this deal will give Pakistan the critical capability to indigenously build submarines in the future, which Roy-Chaudhury calls a great leap forward from building mere patrol boats.

Components for assembling a second submarine have already been shipped to Karachi by France. “The programme is unlikely to end with the third submarine and will certainly form the basis for a follow-on class of subs.”According to Roy-Chaudhury, the strengthening of the Pakistani submarine arm with the acquisition of the Agosta 90Bs only means that India has to strive harder to maintain its multi-dimensional force structure in terms of anti-submarine warfare (ASW)helicopters on ships, newer submarines and aircraft carriers. More orders will be placed with naval shipyards.

However, India’s response is proceeding at a snail’s pace and bureaucratic delays have critically affected the Indian Navy’s capability to replace obsolete ships and keep production lines running. A critical factor, given that it takes six years to build a single submarine. In 1982, India signed a Rs 420 crore deal with German shipbuilder HDW for a class of four Type 1500 submarines. The first two were built in Germany in 1986 and the next two built indigenously at a production line started at Mazagon Docks between 1992 and 1994. The four Type 1500s are arguably the best submarines in the Navy. However, five years after halting production and watching its sophisticated submarine yard decay, it is yet to get orders for two additional Type 1500s, to be manufactured as the indigenous Project 75 class.India’s present submarine force stands at 17 vessels, which include four early seventies vintageFoxtrot class boats, nine Russian Kilo class subs bought in the mid-eighties and the four German submarines. Insufficient, considering the country’s 7,500 km coastline.

It will take at least seven precious years to deliver both indigenous submarines, by which time all the four vintage Foxtrot class submarines would have been retired, reducing the Navy’s force to 14 vessels.

Meanwhile, to compensate for the loss of time and declining force levels, the navy ordered two Kilo class submarines from Russia in 1997. The two incomplete submarines, originally intended for the bankrupt Russian Navy, were completed for the Indian Navy as the Sindhurakshak, which joined service last year and the Sindhushastra, which will be commissioned in Russia early next year.

Naval authorities say that this will be the last purchase of foreign-built submarines. The restarted submarine production line of the Mazagon Docks will meet the Navy’s future requirements as outlined in its 30-year submarine and shipbuilding plan.

In anattempt to decisively tip the balance in its favour, the Indian Navy has purchased the submarine-launched version of the formidable Russian Novator 3M-5431 `Klub’. This 300 km range supersonic cruise missile, which has not even entered service with the Russian Navy, will be fitted in the torpedo tubes of the INS Sindhuvir, a Kilo class submarine that has finished its refit in Russia, as well as the INS Sindhushastra next year. The missile system will later be retrofitted on the other Indian submarines as they go in for periodic mid-life refits.

Admitting that Pakistan already has a ten-year lead over the Indian Navy in the realm of sub-launched missiles, naval officials admit it will take them a few more years to master the technique of firing underwater missiles before integrating it into their battle precis.

—Sandeep Unnithan