The Submarine Fleet Indian Navy Planned... But Never Got | In Our Defence S3 | Ep 16

India's 30-year submarine plan promised a world-class fleet. A mix of conventional diesel-powered submarines and both nuclear-powered attack and ballistic submarines. But decades later, delays, policy paralysis, and shifting priorities have left the Indian Navy with far fewer submarines than it planned for. In this episode, Dev Goswami and Sandeep Unnithan dive deep into the Navy's Project 75, 75I, and beyond -- exploring what went wrong, where things stand, and why building a submarine is far harder than it seems.

From nuclear-powered ambitions to the delays in conventional fleets, this is the full story of India's undersea puzzle.

Produced by Garvit Srivastava

Sound mixed by Rohan Bharti

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for

(00:27):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is in our Defense. Welcome to Another Defense.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
This week, We're going to take a deep dive pun
maybe intended into India's summary and ambitions, especially projects that
are sort of under development right now.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
We won't look as much.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
As as much at what India currently has in terms
of somebody around seven to eighteen submarines that India currently possesses,
but more in terms of what India's future outlook is
in terms of developing more and newer and more technologically
advanced submarines. On this episode, I'll look at the various
projects that we have, especially focusing on Projects seventy five

(01:09):
I Projects and five India, which right now seems the
closest to sort of getting getting seeing light of day basically.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Once it gets government approval, though it still hasn't gotten that.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
On this episode, I think I'm going to be quite
out of depths again, but may be intended because with me,
I is somebody whom everybody in the field of defense
regards as the foremost expert when it comes to the
world of somebody except apart from people from the forces itself,
but when it comes to journalists, I think is the

(01:42):
name that comes comes to mind when you think of
some marines.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Hi, that's a lot of things, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
I have a Hubris alarm which goes, you know, blaring
right now.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, but but yeah, that's tru though. Actually, and in
fact it's not just people who've told me, you know,
when I've researched for somebody, not just for this episode
but also previous episodes. I think the pieces that have
been of most help to me are actually pieces that
you wrote more of, many of them for us actually,
for the in tow Day magazine, especially the one that
you wrote on the Top Secret Project back in twenty seventeen,

(02:19):
which was about the Advanced Technology vehicle the SSBNs the.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
RS. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, So I don't think I am I'm going overboard
when I say what I said about you, which is
exactly why I want to begin this podcast and this
episode on a personal note actually and sort of do
what every journalist avoid's doing in the lifetime, which has
become the story themselves. I want to know about how

(02:49):
you ended up on this submarine beat. You know, as journalists,
we all reported especially, we all have beats, but you
have those broad based beats. You know, you have reporters
covering crime, you have reporters covering the parliament, your parliament.
You have reporters covering defense like you and several of
your colleagues and contemporaries. But you've developed this niche of

(03:09):
writing about submarines, not just navy. By the way, even
that would be understandable that even within defense you have
a fascination for navy, and most of your coverage is
about the Navy. But you've seem to have developed this
fascination for submarines and this extensive reportage that obviously I've read.
So how did it happen? Was it something of a
personal interest to you?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
What just happened? Well?

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Firstly, thanks again Dave for all those kind words about me,
not all of which are true. But you know the
thing is that, you know, I was just over the
years when I've been reading about submarines, I kind of
understood that this was literally the arm of the future,
and it has always been the case for one hundred
and ten years now, ever since. Submarines have been around

(03:53):
since the First World War. In fact, if you even
go back into time in the eighteen sixties, when the
first submarine was deployed in combat, it was a Confederate
ship called the Hunley with eight crew members most brave
submarine actors, literally a suicide mission where they were trying
to break a blockade where the Union warship called the

(04:15):
Hohusta Tonic was on patrol outside Charleston Harbor, and the Hunley,
with its eight man crew and a spar torpedo, went
and struck at the side of this warship. It exploded,
the spar torpedo exploded, but the blast sank the hunleye
and the remains of that submarine were recovered only a
couple of years back, so all crew perished in that

(04:38):
first significant attack by a submarine on a warship, and
that was in the nineteenth century, just a couple of
years after our eighteen fifty seven War of Independence. I mean,
that's how long the West has been working on submarines.
And that's the kind of leap technology leap that they
have ahead of us. And you know, if you look
at the numbers also, this has nothing to do with

(05:00):
you know, them being better than the surface navy or
anything of that side. I think in terms of return
on investments, submarines as weapons of war, as offensive instruments
of national power, bringing a bigger bang for the buck
when there's an all out war, for instance. And this
has been felt all through conflict, whether it's the First

(05:21):
World War, it's the Second World War, and of course
through the Cold War and our own particular history, particular
between India and Pakistan and now most lately with China.
But once when I read more about the submarine campaign,
and it wasn't just the U boat campaign that I
was reading. I was looking at the way the Americans

(05:44):
wage that submarine war against the Imperial Japanese. The Empire
of Japan was destroyed not by just by the US Navy,
it was destroyed by the U S Submarine Arms, where
they launched the most devastating submarine campaign in history and
sank more than fifty percent of all the Japanese merchantmen
and warships that were sunk during the war. And when

(06:07):
that happened such a large number of losses, the Empire
of Japan ceased to exist because it was a thalasocracy
depended on the secure Ceilians of communication. And when the
Americans mounted this campaign, the Empire of Japan ceased to exist.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
And this was.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Mounted with just about sixteen hundred submarine patrols, so they
were very powerful weapons of war. Of course, we know
the German u boat campaigns, but that was a disaster.
It ended in disaster because you know, while the German
submariners were second to none, literally they had all the
technological advantages, but when it came to sheer numbers and

(06:49):
as w they had no match for that. They met
their match with the Americans and the British and they
lost that war literally. But it was the American submarine
campaign in the Pacific which was so important. And then
later also when you know, when I studied military history,
I found the Western Pawers being more reluctant to give
us top of the line submarines. Well they would be

(07:14):
I mean, when it comes to nuclear submarine. But the
Russians kind of capitalized on that. They used submarines as
literally the calling card we are talking with, the Make
twenty ones is a top of the line supersonic aircraft
that they offered us first. They were also the first
to offer us advanced submarines, which the West would not
offer us simply because of our location where we are
located in the Indian Ocean region. The West did not

(07:36):
want a powerful submarine fleet in the region of one
of the most vital shipping lanes, that is the Indian
Ocean region. And that explains our attack towards Russia. First,
the Soviet Union and of course now Russian submarines have
been a very integral part of this journey and also
these have become political instruments as well. Back in the

(07:59):
day when India was developing nuclear weapons, the Advanced Technology
Vehicle Project, the ATV project for the nuclear submarine was
for a submarine that would carry nuclear weapons. So the
political leadership understood this way back in the sixties.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
You know, I keep going back to this paper by
p and Huxter where he talks about the need for
India to have nuclear submarines. Uh, you know, uh and uh,
nuclear submarines carrying nuclear weapons, right, which is a ballistic
missile submarine. So the political leadership understood this and they
have been pushing and nurturing our strategic submarine program. Of course,

(08:37):
there are you know, two types of submarines. There are
sub strategic submarines which carry nuclear weapons, and there are
tactical boats which are used by the navy for which
are part of the surface fleet, which are part of
the carrier battlegroups.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
You know that.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
But this interest in submarines actually grew as a result
of reading all of this, uh, the you know, the
how utility that the utility of submarines to shaping you know,
maritime warfare, and how they're so integral today to our
not only our defense strategy, but also to our nuclear doctrine.

(09:14):
Because ultimately, you know, they've given the kind of advances
in sensory tech or you know, satellite imagery, we will
have no option but to move most of our warheads
out to see whether the most secure right. Interesting, Yeah,
you would be under the water and no one could
see where you are. You're in a floating you know,

(09:35):
missile based far away from the no first strike and
knock out your capacity to launch a second strike. So
they're the most secure arm of the triad, which is
the mix of air, land and sea launched nuclear vectors.
So I think all of this, combined with the kind
of technological breakthroughs that we had made in the nuclear

(09:57):
submarine program, which is when I first report down it
in the early mid two thousands, when the ATV project
has begun picking up steam, and I saw that while
our conventional boat line was floundering because we didn't seem
to have the kind of vision that we had for
the strategic fleet, you know, the kind of breakthroughs that

(10:18):
we have made over there, like entire ecosystems have been
set up, and we've discussed it in past installments of
your show where we spoke about how we need to
adopt that model for other key cutting edge R and
D programs like you know, fighter jet engines and a
fifth generation fighter aircraft and all this this is a
model for us to study, and I think I was
really impressed by how for a country which had never

(10:40):
really made that kind of cutting edge technology, we had
managed to not only perfect you know, the submarine propulsion package,
which is the nuclear reactor but also to you know,
feel a fully operational SSBN nuclear power ballistic missile submit,

(11:00):
which is something that is one of the most complex
differense platforms ever. I would think that, you know, apart
from a US super carrier, this would be one of
the most complicated pieces of complex pieces of defense technology.
I mean, you have a nuclear reactor which can theoretically
run a submarine forever. You know, as long as the

(11:22):
reactor is running, it can you.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Know, keep going. It's the endurance.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Of the submarine is only limited by the endurance of
the crew and the food supply that you carry on board.
So all of these actually, you know, propel my interest
in the submarine. Now it's primarily the strategic side, which
I actually started reporting about primarily because there was very
little writing about it given the kind of secrecy around it.

(11:46):
And this is a project that's you know, it's done
really well, and I think we've not only has it
got a lot of attention and funding, but the interest
from our political leadership in that the difference and strategic interest,
and of course the Indian Navy, you know, and the
ecosystem that you've managed to create for that eighty percent

(12:07):
indigenization in this ninety percent, you know that. And for
a platform, I'm talking of a platform that's about over
six thousand tons, right, that is huge. Conventional submarines are
you know, a little over fifteen hundred tons. This is
something like three four times the size of a conventional submarine,
which you will always see in the public eye, by
the way, a Scotpeon submarine or a Kilo class or

(12:29):
but but you'll never see a nuclear power attacks up.
I mean, they are quiet, they stay away from the
public gaze. But the Arihunt possibly has like three or
four four photos. That's four photographs exactly. And yeah, if
someone's carried a picture of an ari Hunt in an
article that they're writing about the ATVP, you can be
pretty much sure that there's a ninety percent chance that

(12:52):
that photograph is going to be a wrong picture. That's like,
there are just about four images. And you're tired of
telling the organizations that I worked in the past. Look,
there have only been four or three or four photographs
of the Arihan that have ever been taken. One released
by the government, the second one behind Prime Minister Moody
when he felicitated the crew for their deterrent patrol and

(13:13):
possibly two others. One clicked on a beach and the
third fourth one was clicked with it was some distance
away from the dockyard. So I mean, that's that's the
way the submarine fleet is that. I think, I think
this is one area that we should be really proud
of as Indians because of the kind of exclusive club
of countries that we've you know, entered into. There are

(13:35):
just five other countries that have done what we have done.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Here, right, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
You know, and I somebody who works in the desk
of a website news website, it's very frustrating when you
have to do stories about India's nuclear samarines, nuclear ballistic
samarines and not have photos because you want to have variety, right,
but you run into the same three or four photos
that you were talking about. Uh, and the it's it's
so secret of actors only that Ariha. This is the

(14:00):
only one that was you know, publicly sort of recognized.
You're launching the submarine, the Arigath and the Arithma, and
if I'm not from the third one that's called no
one even knows if it was formally launched into out
into water. What's happening with them, whether that porto is
there's been no chatterable that at at all.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
There's never going to be any information to any information.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
But you know, by the way, it's not just uh,
it's not just the ballistic submarines, for which there has
been not not not a lot of extensive writing. I
think the submarine projects of the Navy in general don't
really seem to have gotten that much attention, uh and
that much writing, which is exactly why I wanted to
do this episode with especially.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
You uh and UH.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
We're gonna mostly steer clear of the ballistic missile submarines
because I think that's that deserves a special episode on
its own, but really talk about the conventional ones and
the various projects that we have ongoing. So at the beginning,
like I said, we have around six seventeen eighteen D submarines. Again,
I'm not counting the nuclear ballistic besides urbside submarines. I'm
only counting the conventional ones. But they are digel electric

(15:03):
or the newer ones. Now you have an alphabet soup
is what I came across. You have the Project seventy five,
you have the P seventy five India, which earlier was P.
Seventy five Alpha. There is apparently something P. Seventy six,
but that has apparently been read into P. Seventy seven.
I'm not so American fused, right. What's with this seventy series?
What are these different projects so laid out for us?

(15:24):
What are we looking at when we talk about conventional
submarines for India? What are the different kind of tech
that you can get in terms of the future outlook,
not what we already have?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Do you want me to start in the beginning, yes, okay.
So you know, the reason you don't hear a lot
about the submarine arm is because it's called the Silent Services, right,
and it stays underwater and it's mostly silent. Though you
ask my submarine of friends, they'd be very upset the
fact that the Silent Service isn't getting its view, you know,
because they are meant to be silent and out of

(15:53):
sight and as it turns out, out of mind as well.
So you know, the thing is that we entered the
submarine race rather late. We entered only in the late sixties,
in nineteen sixty seven, when Pakistan already had its first submarine, right,
the USS Diableau, which was at tench class fleet submarine

(16:14):
of the United States Navy, which was designed for operating
against the Imperial Japanese Navy. As I told you, it
was meant to transit the Pacific and fight in the
Japanese home territory. You know that is how long range
these submarines. Well, literally tens of thousands of kilometers. It
had a patrol it could patrol something like endurance of

(16:35):
about ten thousand kilometers or more right, a very very large,
very competent submarine which the Pakistan Is called the Ghazi
the Pianis Gazi, which was inducted in nineteen sixty four
if I remember correctly, and it was used in the
nineteen sixty five war. And that's when India realized that, hey, listen,
we don't have our submarine now. And while officers have
been trained in submarine technology and you know how it operates,

(17:00):
we don't have submarines of our own.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
That's when we started going.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Out to the British, of course first, and we asked
them for a submarine. They didn't want to part with
one of their contemporary ones. They said, loo, why didn't
you take an old Second World War submarine, which we
didn't want to. We said, look, we don't want that submarine.
It's an old boat. We want something more contemporary. And
that's when the Russians entered the Soviet Union said listen,

(17:23):
take our Foxtrot class submarine, state of the art, and
that's how we tacked to the Soviet Union. My co
author Captain Salmonth, emin Ar Salmon, who he was the
commanding officer of the third submarine which came from the
Soviet Union, the Foxtrot class submarine, the Iron s Currune,
and there were four. They were a Culvery Country, Currunch

(17:46):
and Kursura. So I think a lot of my love
for submarines also comes from Captain Salmonth. Then all his
old submarner tales. But he's an interesting case of an
officer who was trained by the Royal Navy in the
hope that we would get a a British submarine, but
then it so happened that we didn't get it.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
So he quickly went to the Soviet Union.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Captain Summa then he came with the third submarine, and
so it was a political issue at that time. We've
kind of figured the West was denying us technology. We
started building those submarines, and then we bought a second
batch of Fox short class submarines, eight of them. We
finally had about eight. Then what happened, And I think

(18:26):
this is what I call the original sin. In the
nineteen seventy one war, our submarines did not draw blood
in terms of not sinking enemy warships or merchantmen. And
I think that has to do with another bit of politics,
which is, you know, submarines are not ordinary instruments of war.
When you deploy submarines, there is a lot of political

(18:49):
you know, angst around the topic. Positive identification was made
mandatory for the submariners in seventy one, which means that
you have to positively identify this ship as being an
enemy combatant, thereby jeopardizing your own safety, you know. So
it is quite possible that our submanrianas, who were all
of them, were deployed in active combat, but this thing

(19:11):
of positive identification is something that worked against.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Them, you know, engaging the enemy.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
And I've heard this from some of our veterans who
took part in the war, and they were disappointed. But
still the Navy actually went ahead with the submarine m
despite the blood being drawn. In seventy one, and we
had a very robust submarine acquisition program early eighties. We
went to the Germans nineteen eighty one, we signed a
deal for the Type two nine fifteen hundred class submarines,

(19:40):
very very advanced submarines. The Germans were very happy to
share technology with us, you know, and I hear stories
of how they gave us all the blueprints on microfilms,
and they even gave us the microfilm readers just to
make sure that we didn't we couldn't say that, hey,
we can't read your microfilms. But they were very generous
sharing technology, and that was our best bet at true

(20:04):
transfer of technology. But then you know what happened, corruption
political issue. The system went into a you know, into
a freeze, into a funk, and they said, look, we
can't deal with the Germans. There's been this bribery allegation.
HGW became a bad word, just as Beaufor's had become.
So you know, Beffors was meant to give you one
hundred and fifty five AMM, Howitzer's HGW was meant to

(20:25):
give you suborline building technology. And we assembled two. We
bought two, we assembled to and we were supposed to
build two more on our own from scratch. That never happened,
and so then we started looking around. So then the
Soviets centered again. We bought eight kilo class submarines off
the shelf from them, but more building technology. We bought

(20:46):
two more from the Russian Federation ten So we had
this whole big mass of numbers that we were looking
at three different types of submarines. So in the late nineties,
the Indian Navy came out with one of the most
far sighted defense actual programs, which was the thirty year
Submarine Building Program, where they said that over the next
three decades, we want to acquire twenty four conventional submarines

(21:12):
and this would be done in the following process that
we would acquire some submarines from abroad, from six of them,
and we would then build the rest of them in India.
Eighteen of them would be built in India based on
the transfer of technology that we got from the foreign OEM.
There was also another plan for six essns nuclear power

(21:33):
attack submarines, so that would be a total of about
thirty submarines. Right, so thirty submarines in over the next
three decades. Now that plan came out in the late nineties.
It was kind of it wasn't approved. It was approved
by the government, but not given budgetary support. You see,
that's the most important thing. If you approve a plan
without the budgetary support, without an industrial building plan, you know,

(21:57):
all of this is just it's a good proposal on paper,
it remains on paper. So in that sense, I think
that was what hobbled this plan. The idea was excellent.
No other service had come out with such a forward
looking policies as the Navy had done in the late nineties.
But now, if you ask me, they've five years from now,
it's going to be thirty years. Where are we with
the conventional submarines. How many of those twenty four submarines

(22:20):
have we acquired? I think not a single one six
of them. So we are eighteen submarines shot. And the
number how the twenty four submarines actually came up is
the idea is that at any given point you would
have one third of these submarines service would be offline,
would be you know, repairs, renovation, repair, all of that thing,

(22:42):
and you would have the remainder of this inactive duty.
Now here's the other thing. Now, did this thirty year
submarine building plan factor in the PLA Navy.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
No, it did not.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
It was only meant to tackle the Pakistani threat. The
parks stand Navy's threat surface ships and submarines, of course,
So now you're looking at the game have been completely
changed after twenty five years. You're looking at not just Pakistan,
which is a very robust submarine arm of its own.

(23:16):
They sank one of our warships in the nineteen seventy
one war in the ins Cokri. They have acquired eight
submarines from China. They are progressively going to be inducted
over the next couple of years, beginning this year. The
first unit of that, which is a Chinese built version
of the Kilo class submarine which we've operated the un class.

(23:36):
Now we are in a crisis when it comes to
the conventional submarine arm, which is the SS case, because
of these numbers, right, we are looking at block obs solescence,
which is where block obsolescence is when entire batch of
submarines goes out of service because they were inducted at

(23:58):
roughly the same time, be time for them to exit
at roughly the same time. So in a sense, the
India's Indian Navy submarine arm would be looking at the
same crisis that the Air Force is looking at. When
it comes to scad and numbers. We go down surface ships, right,
we have a fair mix of surface ships destroyers.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
We're well resourced there.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
When it comes to submarines, I think we're looking at
we've already crossed one lost decade, which is roughly from
the mid nineties to the mid two thousands, when we
hadn't acquired any submarines, which would be from the years
nineteen ninety four to about two thousand and.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Four.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
I think in this decade we'd acquired just two submarines
or so, and these were just quick off the shelf
buys from the Russian Federation. But we hadn't, you know,
acquired any other major thing. We didn't have the submarine
building capability either. So now we're going to be looking
at another lost decade starting from our induction of the

(24:59):
last submarine, the last Scorpeen class submarine this year to
say about twenty twenty four twenty twenty five, when possibly
the first Project seventy five by submarine would enter service. It's,
of course it could happen a little earlier. Maybe if
if everything flies, you know, permissions come through and all
of that.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
The deal goes through well and lives in hope.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
You know, the first submarine could come in about seven
or eight years if everything goes well.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
But if it.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Doesn't, then you're looking at a big hole in our
submarine capabilities, conventional submarine capabilities, when you'll have to start
retiring all the submarines that you acquired in the nineteen eighties.
So the eighties were literally the high mark of India's
conventional submarine fleet where you inducted a whole lot of
German submarines, Russian submarines at something like ten plus fourteen

(25:52):
submarines were inducted in the nineteen eighties. Beginning from eighty
two to about ninety four, ten twelve years, you're induct
literally you're inducting a submarine every two years or so,
one or two years now that hasn't happened. And what
you're having to do is that you your older submarines,
you're giving them life extensions. You know, you're giving them

(26:12):
instead of you know, one submarine would have just one
medium reefit. Yeah, you're giving them a second medium reefit
and an MR as it's called to extend its life.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Right, A bit of a tangent here, and I was
going to ask this much later in the episode, but
I think right now is the right moment is to
talk about the two different technologies that you are largely
talking about in your previous answer.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
The seventy five I project.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
You have what is known as the AIP, the air
independent propulsion plug that is supposed to be added in
the submarines. That essentially, basically what it means on my
brief understanding, it's a diesel powered engine essentially, but it
does not have to surface to grab air as often,
so it sort of gives that submarine endurance my head,

(27:00):
I like to sort of say it's like a pseudo
nuclear submarine because it can stay underwater flight. And then
you have the SSON project, which is nuclear powered attack
submarines submarines that do not carry ballistic missiles, but they
are powered by nuclear reactors, so they have the same endurance,
but they're faster and they are.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Like sort of a fighter jet basically.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yeah, So break down these two technologies for us, and
a very crucial and big question for me, why are
we trying to attempt both technologies? Why not put all
your eggs in one basket, say that, you know, let's
just go the nuclear away and invest heavily in nuclear
powered attack submarines and build all of them that because
if I'm not wrong, I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
You can correct me.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
I think the US submarine fleet is totally nuclear powered.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
A good question, and you know.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
To explain your The first part of the question is
that there are there is only one kind of nuclear submarine.
A true submarine is actually a nuclear subm Okay, everything
else is a submersible, right, So conventional submarines are essentially submersibles.
They submerge, they operate underwater for a fixed period of time,

(28:11):
and because they are diesel electric, so what they do
is they have a diesel engine which runs underwater, which
then charges the batteries, and that battery gives them the
underwater endurance. But the thing is that the diesel engine
is an air breathing engine. So every forty eight hours
the submarine needs to either surface or it needs to

(28:32):
stick up a mast a snorkel from which it will
draw air to run its diesels so that the diesels
can charge the batteries. So when the submarine is running underwater,
it's actually running on batteries. On battery part, it's like
really silent, so it's like a it's like you know,
all of us with our phone charge, you know, looking
for a charging point. So that's how submarines are usually

(28:54):
underwater after about forty eight hours underwater, you know, so
they're looking for a charging so they have to kind
of get up for that air, that breadth of it,
and that is when you're most vulnerableness, right because today
with the kind of sensors that are available, you have
infrared sensors where you will have not just manned larmps aircraft,
but you will also have drones which can cover vast

(29:15):
swats of the ocean and all it needs to see
is that little heat spot there, there's a little red
dot in the middle of the ocean.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
What's that?

Speaker 3 (29:24):
But that's a snorkilling submarine, right, So that's when the
submarine is most vulnerable. And all technologies over the last
hundred years, all submarine building technology has been to increase
the underwater endurance of the submarine. And you had all
kinds of things that the Germans, of course, the Germans,
it has to be the Germans. They are the first
ones to come up with this electric boot, the electro

(29:46):
boot thing, and the AIP. You know, they had a
something called the Waalter peroxide engine which would generate oxygen
underwater which would then you know, run the diesel underwater
so you didn't have to surface for air. So they
would always look at extending the life of their underwater thing.
But of course the Americans were one step ahead. They
you know, perfected the atomic weapon, and one of the

(30:08):
byproducts of that, and of course the nuclear reactor was
the undersea nuclear reactor. So they had the first nuclear
part submarine, which is the Nautilus USS Nautilus, which entered
service in the fifties and ever since the Americans have
not looked back. The Russians, of course, caught up after them,
and today we have just five countries six countries including India,

(30:30):
which operate nuclear parts submarines. And you know, nuclear submreefs
are the ultimate submarines. They like I said, they just
they once they sail out of port, they can stay
underwater almost indefinitely. You don't know where they are. They're
out there the underwater. They're making you know, air, they're
cracking seawater to get oxygen, and you know, they have

(30:53):
unlimited literally unlimited steam power from the turbines that they're
running and the nuclear reactor which is used to power
everything over there, so they are almost power independent. But
what we're looking at is air independent propulsion basically extends
the underwater stay of a submarine from both forty eight
hours when you need to come up for your breadth

(31:14):
of air to charge your diesels, to something like ten days,
twelve days, you know, based on how many how big
your AIP plug essentially is. So that's what we are
looking at. We're looking at a number of technologies. That
is the MESMA technology which the French have. We have
a lithiumine technology that's also there for EIP. You have

(31:40):
the DADO that's working on its own AP capsule, which
will be retrofitted into the Scorpion class submarines when they
come for their refits, all six of them. So there's
a fair bit of react you know, technology that's going
into aps. But these are essentially, you know, poor man's
alternatives to nuclear propulsion.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I was gonna say ju guard, but that word again,
if you like that word, I know that.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
So, but the thing is that you know, there are
certain countries that do not operate conventional submarines. Americans don't,
the British don't, the French don't. Right, the Chinese and
the Russians do because of their very unique geography.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
If you look at China, there are a lot of
choke points, there are a lot of shallow water areas.
Primarily you need conventional submarines when you're looking at operating
in shallower reaches.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
You know, choke points, those kind of things.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
These are all great for operating conventional submarines. And we
are logic is also the same that we do need
a large number of conventional submarines. We do need nuclear
power attack submarines. We needed them not yesterday, but day
before yesterday, if you asked me. Because we've been operating
nuclear power attack submarines since nineteen ninety one, more than
three decades thanks to the Russian So we know the

(32:57):
power of a nuclear powt at submarine. You know, it
is the ultimate undersea predator. You know, it is just
because it has this unlimited power. It has this It
can sprint at high speed, it can chase down aircraft carriers,
it carries missiles, and it is the only platform that
you can actually project into contested enemy waters. You have,

(33:22):
say the South China See. I don't see us sending
carrier battle groups into the South China Sea right because
it is so heavily defended and you know, despite yeah,
and it is, it's like a bastion. And if you want,
the ideal platform that you would want to send into
the South China See would be a nuclear part attack
submarine or even a conventional submarine. But those have their

(33:43):
limitations basically of range and endurance and all that, because
by the time you reach your patrol station, it's already
you know, you've expended nearly fifty percent of your time.
Your transit times are horrendous because of the geography involved.
So the nuclear part submarine is the ultimate undersea predator,
and I think we need a make of both. And
the Navy and its wisdom is said that, look, we

(34:03):
need the twenty four submarines that they're planning, and we
possibly need six more nuclear power attacks. You can debate
about the numbers, but essentially I think going forward, India
will have both because the advantages of the submarine are
tremendous and given the kind of weapons that are now
coming on board submarines, like you have very long range

(34:28):
land attack cruise missiles. You have long range anti ship
missiles one thousand kilometer range plus, right, you know, you're
looking at cruise missiles that can strike at fifteen hundred
kilometers and all that, so incredible ranges. We have indigenous
programs for this. That Diado has an indigenous cruise missile
program for submarine.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Launched versions as well.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
The Russian Federation has caliber missiles which I'm told they
are planning to offer to us when President Putin visits. So,
you know, the submarines utility as a as a instr
trument of seed denial is formidable, and it's only going
to increase in the years ahead as weapons and sensors

(35:07):
you know, are are more and more advanced and they're
integrated into you know, submarines.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, you know, on nuclear power attack submarines, there was
a very nice quote from one of your pieces actually
of Rear Admiral Raja Menin, who actually calls them the
ultimate arbitra, ultimate arbiter of sea power. Yes, yes, Admiral
Menon is like literally he is the the go to
person for nuclear submarines and nuclear submarine strategy and in fact,

(35:34):
not only that, it's also about nuclear strategy itself. And
you know the reason for we have a second strike
capability is that you need to put a certain number
of nuclear weapons out at sea, yes, so that it
ensures a survivable deterrent and that will allow you to
launch a second strike. And this is to basically threaten

(35:58):
your potential adversary that do not try to take out
my assets in a first strike, because there will be
a second strike that will follow. So he's he's a
master of that in terms of he has got all
the numbers right, and I believe he's uh inputed into
the numbers, which are of course highly classified, the actual

(36:18):
numbers of weapons that we need to put out there.
And so he works nuclear you know, strategy and deterrence
and all of that. So his his cotes are you know,
his interactions have actually thrown up a number of interesting
possibilities about why we need to in the years ahead
increasingly go towards the under undersea realm for uh not

(36:41):
only you know, attack submarines, but also almost shifting your
nuclear deterrent underwater, especially for a country like us because
we have a defined no forced use policy. So and
that no force use policy also says that, but if
you do strike it as then you know, yes, Hell
is going to come to you, right and inheritor.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Right. We'll talk more on this topic, but after a
quick break.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
The art of listening and also the art of saying,
truly you know what your boundaries are.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
It is growing, correct, It really is growing, you know,
I see it. Even though gen Z doesn't like much time, but.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
They do know how to listen, and they do also know.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
How to very fanky see what's on them. Man, absolutely,
which makes it much easier. Now you say that you
don't want love, I'm fine alone.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
I don't need you, but you.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Actually do need me, So it's better you say you
need me only you know correct, So it is you're
there is a lot of.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
Hope, and Sally, you gave that example. And I very recently,
you know. It was at this conference and our own conference,
and somebody had got their kid along. He is a
ten to fifteen year old guy. So I asked him did.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
You like it?

Speaker 5 (37:59):
And he was absolutely blunt he said, no, I didn't
like it. I think it was a waste of my tie.
And I'm looking at him, and you know, the father
is aghast, you.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
Know, but they say their mind and and they say
it very you know, very openly, uh, you know, not
not trying to buffer things. And and we see this
characteristic in the in the in the gen.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
Z particularly because they're challenging the norms and they're willing
to be very you know, they're willing to shape their
lives as they want.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Welcome back. Uh something.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
We were just talking about nuclear power attack subrines and
you know, you describe them, and I think I can
picture them as it's sort of the special forces. Uh
if you were to say, off the Indian Navy, where
you can send a small unit one submarine, fast lethal
light people are detected, It cause maximum damage and they
come back.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
From from the enemy nights.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
And the thing is that they've they've tied down very
large numbers of the enemy who have to look for you.
Then you know, if you're able to push out one
SSM into a certain area, you will have the entire
enemy surface and subsurface sources looking for you. So it's
able to tie down a large number of enemy combatants,
you know, and this is something that the enemy can

(39:19):
do to us vice versa. So you have to be
you know, wary of that as well.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Right, My next point is two questions sort of linked together.
Why is it that any approval from the government when
it comes to some main projects, it takes very, very
very long.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Let's take the example of projects tventy five I.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
The one that we are talking about is to build
the IP based somebodies essentially the conventions sumbodies that are
not nuclear powered, but they're like, you know, high tech
and the most advanced. The idea itself was first floated
in two thousand and seven around not the I think
the idea was part of the third project we're talking
about late nineties, But two thousand and seven is when
I think Indiana the first brother formal requests proposals, yes,

(40:07):
and it in twenty twenty four is when you have
the first winning bid. This is the entire between the
India's mask got doc Limited and a German company TKMS
something Tison Group, Yeah Systems.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
There is still no contact.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
By the way, in twenty twenty one, euro Topiece and
you had said that we are unlike to see a
contact until the.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
End of twenty four and you are banged.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
And we still haven't seen that contract because right now
we are waiting for a Cabinet Committee Security approval. Similarly
with the nuclear power attacks and beanis again I'm guessing
that was part of the thirty year project back in
the nineties. However, the CC's approval for that came only
just last year. So what is it and why is
it that the government takes so long to approve projects
at different stages because obviously you need to have a

(40:54):
civilian oversight on the answerch projects, and you know, differences
of approval and the linked question what makes them so
goddamn expensive?

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Back of the calculation.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Based on based on numbers I got over different years,
the ATV project for your ballistic missille sumborines that costs
around ninety six thousand koror, the SISM project for nuclear
power attack submarines costs around ninety thousand koror. The seventy
five India project has now ballooned up to seventy six
thousand koror. It was supposed to be around forty five

(41:25):
three forty three. That's going to seventy six thousand crore.
Based on clearest estimate that all of that together comes
to around two lacks sixty thousand korre, which is the
double of what was the capital expenditure allocation, which is
the money government gives for new projects every year to
the defense armed forces I'm sorry in twenty twenty five,
which was one like eight eight thousand kor which was

(41:46):
for all the three services. So navies alone would be
obviously the money would not be given in one go.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
It would be in stages.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
But you again, and what I'm trying to show to
our listeners and viewers right now is the eye popping
amounts of money it takes to place some marines.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
So why are this expensive?

Speaker 2 (42:02):
And my earlier question, why does the government say it
take so long to approve them?

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Well, you know a good question again, Dave. The thing
is that submarines are extremely complex technology platforms, especially you know,
the bigger they get, the more expensive.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
They are, you know, and you bring in nuclear propulsion.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
For instance, I can give you a ballpark figure for
the arihanth class. The last boat would have cost close
to nine or ten thousand per boat. But that's that's
cheap if you look at it. That's just a billion
dollars right. A comparable submarine, if it's built in a
western yard, would cost twice as much. Two billion dollars.
So nothing for a nuclear submarine is nothing below a

(42:44):
billion dollars, right. And now if you were to build,
if you were to continue the arihanth class line, for instance,
as I've argued in my writings, we should have never
stopped that line. We should have just kept that line
going while we, you know, build the perfect nuclear power
attack submarine, which is a bigger submarine twelve thousand tons plus.

(43:05):
We should have continued what we had developed an expertise
on and not shut the line at the fourth unit. Now,
all nuclear part submarines are a billion plus. The fact
is that even conventional submarines today are going to be
that much. Right, So you're looking at your Project seventy
five India, which is going to be close to a
billion dollars plus per bot. And that is where you

(43:30):
get sticker shocked, right, because you've actually delayed for so long,
and you've budgeted forty three thousand core twenty years almost
two decades ago. That price is not going to hold
for two decades, right, Because I think what has happened
is that we kind of were not able to decide

(43:50):
the technology, the build partners, how are you going to
build it? Are we going to build it with this
country or that country, or you know, the whole r
The bureauer process overwhelmed the result that we were supposed
to see, which is to start replacing all your aging platforms.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
And that is what has happened here.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
It's a very unfortunate dealay of nearly two decades that
you came up with this plan in the late nineties
and today a quarter of a century later, we still
haven't signed the first deal. And now what has happened
is again it's it's the classic Howitzer case that you know,
you were unable to decide on imports for the howitzer,

(44:31):
and meanwhile your domestic capabilities have slowly caught up. You
have people in the private sector who are now making
guns howitzers. You have the public sector as it is,
which reopened their uh you know, blueprints and started building Howitzer's.
You have the same thing happening here, but though not
as as many companies are there, because you know, somebody

(44:53):
in building is literally the acme of technology, whether it's
convention or it's nuclear conventional, somebody there's be a handful
of companies in the world that build it. But today
in India you have the happy situation or having two people,
one private company that can build submarines and one public
sector company that can build it. Ellen and Mazgon Docs

(45:15):
Limited MDL. Right, So I think what we've now kind
of focused on in after twenty five years of trying,
is that MDL is going to make all the conventional submarines.
Llen T will make all the strategic submays. The big ones,
whether it's the SSENS two have been sanctioned, they will start.

(45:36):
They're at an advanced stage of design of course, that
is you know, that's also a very complex piece of technology.
It's going to be more than a decade before the
first indigenous SSN hits the water. It's a twelve thousand
plus done boat. It's a large boat, one hundred and
ninety megaw reactor, the same as the S five, so
it'll have a common reactor. It will be a large

(45:59):
one like the Akula class boat that we got from
the Russian Federation. We have a third one coming in
at least Chakara THI. So you're looking at, you know,
a situation where you'll have conventional submarines like I said,
and nuclear part submarines, but you know the cost again.

(46:19):
One one reason that we kind of we're looking at
high we could have bought brought down the costs was
if we had pursued a single line for conventional submarines,
we should have just gone down that one Indian submarine line,
you know, made it with a combination of the private

(46:39):
sector or the public sector. While the ATV project was
being built, you could have built a conventional submarine also
in parallel without wanting to go and you know, get
technology from foreign countries like and we've always got into
this technology loop, you know that first with the West
Germans in eighty one, then we shut down that line.
Then we went to the French two thousand and five scorpion,

(47:02):
we didn't get any technology. So then we're running again
for seventy five I to a third country to get technology,
which is the Germans again. And then you have the
Russians waiting around the corner with more kilo class submarines,
and you know, so everybody's and we are in a
bit of a crisis here because of this constant shifting
of goalposts. I see over the last two decades, we've

(47:25):
not been able to you know, identify our requirements and
go help for leather go.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Down that straight path.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
And we have this very interesting case which I came
across a couple of years back, of South Korea. South
Korea is a country that goes to the same West
German yard HDW in nineteen eighty seven, six years after
we bought our submarines from them, they pick up the
type two nine submarine and they start building their own

(47:52):
through transfer of technology, which as I told you, the
West Germans were very generous and sharing tech. Then the
Koreans pursued that one line of submarines and they had
some infusions, but they continued down that line, the German submarine.
I think they had an two one two. At some
point the two nine became the two one two, but

(48:12):
they continued that submarine building line. They captured the submarine
building expertise, the design expertise, which is the really which
is the clincher. If you design your own submarines, then
your your gods, you know. So they mastered that technology
and lo and behold, a couple of years back, they
came back to India and they said, listen, we want

(48:33):
to build submarines for you. So these are the This
is the country that bought submarines six years after US,
and now the using the coming back to us with
the iteration of that same submarine thing. And that, to
my mind was the biggest, you know, in your face
embarrassment that you have a country that pursued the single

(48:56):
part of monogamy and here we were multiple partners, French, Russian, German,
we couldn't figure out what the Indian thing was never explored.
But now there is an Indian design also underway, the Dado,
Lent and the ATVP, most importantly the ATV project, the
Strategic Submarine Project. People are putting their heads together because

(49:19):
they have design expertise to design submarines. Mas Docs is
not a submarine designer, they're a submarine builder. Lent is
a submarine builder, but they haven't designed submarines yet, so
it's only the Indian Navy that's actually designed the submarine.
So they are now coming up with an indigenous SSK,
which would be the submarine that we're going to get
after seventy five I. So seventy five I kind of

(49:41):
becomes a stop gap, you know, it will be a
lifeline which will give you about six boats before you
can start building your own.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
So it's a.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
It is a bit of a you know, crazy situation
when you're looking at numbers and you know, I think
if you are confused about these numbers and these you know,
different programs, you can imagine what it will be out
there for the person who's reading this or even watching it.
The number of it's a alphabet soup it is. It
just needed to be one class of submarines, which we

(50:10):
should have just pursued. We could have had various variants
of it in you know, maybe a lighter version of
eight hundred ton version and a heavier version so that
I have been such designs in the past. And I
think the original sin was that we didn't pursue the
German line. We should have possibly continued down that line
through some means that you know, look, this is taxpayer

(50:32):
money that went exactly with the Beauforts as with the befs,
that somebody at some point decided, hey, listen, we're not
getting any guns. Mattis will take the blueprints and start
building these subs. And they should have done that with HGW.
And who knows that we probably wouldn't have needed seventy
five IY or seventy six and seventy seven and all
these numbers we could have, you know, actually built the

(50:53):
true Indian design developed submarines, you know, and it's really
important now they have to get our submarines because when
we don't have submarines to offer, every navy in the
world today wants them. There is a massive submarine race
across the world, especially in Asia. Smaller navies are looking
at it as a very effective means of seed denial,

(51:15):
right they want to get their threatened.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Say that by the rise of China.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
What is the first thing that Vietnam did when they
were faced with the Chinese aggression? They buy a whole
lot of warships, but they went and bought a whole
lot of submarines from the Russians. So they have between
six and eight kilo class submarines on the largest deals.
Pakistan navy they have a surface navy, but they went
and got a whole lot of submarines when they realized

(51:40):
that the Indian navy was growing to such an extent
that would threaten their lifelines, so they went for that.
So a whole lot of countries are going in for submarines.
Bangladesh's got it to submarines. Thailand is buying submarines. Indonesia
wants submarines, but when they turn to us, we don't
have a submarine design of our own, and therefore we
can't give them a submarine, and therefore that becomes an

(52:01):
opportunity for another country to enter the China of course,
so we uh in the past, we've a couple of
years back we transferred one of our Kilo class submarines
to the Miyan Mari's navy because we wanted to kind of,
you know, build bridges with them and sure the Chinese
don't get a you know, free walk through. So these
are very powerful instruments of diplomacy, foreign policy and also

(52:24):
building bridges with other countries.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
And subury is a very very powerful instrument.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
And till the time you don't build your own, you
don't you know, operate them yourselves, you're not going to
be able to offer it to other countries. So this
is something we should have done a long long time ago.
But you know, I'm hopeful, glass half full, glassful.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
I think that answers my what was going to be
my follow up over there is that that this contrast
I see within the Indian Navy where you have your
surface ships yes, primarily being made in India by indianship builders,
because I think the Navy realized long ago that for
it the only option was making India prohibitive costs of
almost anything maybe anything water is just very expensive.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
And anything under the water is even more expensive.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
So they knew long ago that you know, this is
the way to go. So I think the ship building
is pretty much ordered. You have world class shifts coming
out of Indian Indian dock yard.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Aircraft carriers, we've built aircraft carrier.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
A couple of last points. I'm guessing this one must
have come to you very often. Uh and uh, this
is for somebody.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
So when you when you think of a nuclear ballistic submarine, uh,
and you think of a nuclear power attack submarine, it
just seems very odd to me that you have managed
to develop a nuclear ballistic submarine but have not managed
to develop a nuclear powered attack something because to my
mind that the other one seems more difficult to do.

(53:54):
How did we do it the other way around? Or
did we actually well, uh, you know.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
It is actually easier to do a ballistic missile submarine
than it is a nuclear part attack submarine. Because so
the difference is an SSBN is a bomber, right, it
carries bombs, in this case nuclear weapons. The nuclear power
attack submarine is a fighter jet. But you have to

(54:19):
understand when it's operating underwater at such high speeds. It
has to do, you know, speeds of over thirty notes.
It has to accelerate, decelerate. The reactor has to have
a whey, it has to have a very different kind
of reactor, whereas in the case of an SSBN, once
you've cracked the reactor tech, we've been building our own

(54:40):
reactors for the four Arian class submarines. All the SSBN
has to do is to just go out there quietly
and look out there. He's not chasing any task forces,
he's not attacking targets at land. He's just quiet and
he just has to remain out at sea for months
on end. That's what a deterrent patrol really is. And

(55:03):
then he has to return to base and then another
submarine will go out, so you have what is called
continuous at seed deterrent patrols csdps. So that is what
ballistic missile submarine is. Paris for a nuclear power attack submarine,
he's a fighter jet. He's shooting around the place he's
he's he's got multiple tasks. He has to accompany the fleet.

(55:25):
He's the screen of the carrier battle group. So ideas
that we have two carrier battle groups, each one must
have at least one attack submarine who's guarding the perimeter,
looking around for other enemy submarines, moving ahead of the fleet,
carrying out special missions. The other role that they have
is to escort your sspns, especially when they're in the

(55:46):
exiting the bastian areas. Bastin area is the area that
you secure when your submarine kind of exits a base
when it's most vulnerable. So he moves ahead of the SSBN,
escorts the SSPN, looks around for enemies and stuff like that,
and carries out special missions, enters the enemy territory, and
you know, like I said, the only platform that can

(56:07):
enter contested waters is attack submarine. So he has multiple roles,
and he has to have a very high performance reactor,
which is what many countries have not been able to
address very successfully. Only five countries have. Possibly they will
be a sixth before us, and that is Brazil. So

(56:28):
Brazil is got the SBR program, which we we're're getting
a nuclear pot submarine with some assistance from the French,
and possibly we will have a submarine and a nuclear
pot attack submarine, but on lease from the Russian Federation
the Chakarti which will end twenty thirty.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
End of this decade is when it will be in
service twenty eight or twenty nine.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
But our indigenous nuclear part attack submarine is way into
the future and into the next decade, possibly even towards
the end of the next decade. These are complex platforms
to build. It's not just about you know, making the hull.
That's the easy part. You just build those sections, you
join them together. It is the nuclear pot reactor, right,

(57:15):
the pressureized water reactor, which is so complex and given
the size that we have in mind, the one nine
t megawat, it's a big beast. So for us to
do that, it's going to be, you know, an uphill
climate technology thing, and you have to give it time.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
These things are not built overnight.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
Which is why I've been arguing again in my writings
there is that we should have continued the Arihent line.
You know, you have four sspns modest size six thousand tons,
the smallest sspians in the world, built four more of
this class, you know, call them as sessence. They may

(57:54):
not be the fastest and the most dynamicssence, but you
will have a very big force of undersea weapon carriers
long range with you know, long range missiles. We're getting
hypersonic missiles from the DRDO. It could be like a SSGN,
a cruise missile carrying submarine which just goes there and

(58:16):
does pretty much what an SSN is supposed to do,
minus the very high reactor you know output, which the
Project seventy seven SSN is supposed to bring in. But yeah,
you have you know, a modest size kind of thing
which which will allow you to hone your technology further.
You've done four iterative you know manufacturing, do four, a fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth,

(58:41):
but never allow that production to end. This is something
that Chinese would have done for sure. You know they
will not you know, kill a project saying oh no,
it's you know on the power, it's there's that remember
the Maruth right, So I think we should have just
continued down that thing and got those four more units. Uh,
they would have come you know, of great use for

(59:03):
us in say when you're fighting long range campaigns to
influence the land battle. For instance, you know hit targets
deep in land. These submarines, which are actually SLBM carriers
can be retrofitted to fire long range cruise missiles, long

(59:24):
range hypersonic missiles, you know those kinds of things that
that is an option we should have started some time back.
But there again, you know, it's a matter of yard capacity.
Now that you know your yards which are to build
the a TV are now the r N class are
now switching over to the new class.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Which is S five, the bigger one which is actual
twelve thousand. Yeah, s SBM.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
But I think there is always capacity that can be
found to continue this line. The idea is that you
know these are national capacities. Expertise is that you've built
over decades. The ATV program has been almost three decades.
You've got dedicated personnel, you have submarine builders builders.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
This is a very very high.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
Tech game which the Americans are now restarting relearning. They've
projected a doubling of their submarine fleet primary to handle
the Chinese threat.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
But here we are very happy with our small numbers.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
And you know, just to tell your viewers, the Chinese
are building in one and two years more nuclear submarines
than India has built in thirty years.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Right, that is the kind of lead that they're taking
in the submarine building arena. And they see this as
great powers. They see the utility of submarine nuclear power
attack submarines and these are great power tools. And I'm
not saying that we must match the Chinese up in numbers,
but we should definitely do it in with intent and

(01:01:02):
some amount of you know, get six eight, twelve, maybe
not fifty and sixty. The Americans we have no agenda
to pursue far across the Indo Pacific. We are very
content in this sphere. But even there you need to
have numbers, and those numbers will come when we get

(01:01:23):
our Summary Building Act together.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
And also, I think, because I think also we should
make this clear to our listener and viewers as well
as that when it comes to the Navy, it's not important.
It's not an asset that comes to your aid or
help only at times of war. Unlike with the Air
Force or the army, the Navy plays a much bigger
one in ensuring your economic stability. Absolutely because your global
trade lines are majority of them are through the water.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Of our trade by value volume.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
If you have the Chinese navy, which it already is
coming into the Indian Ocean trying to intersect your trade lines,
that's going to be an economic.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
You've hit the nail on the head. And this is
what I worry about, is that I don't worry about,
you know, intentions, because like everyone says that, intentions just
change overnight. But I'm worried about capabilities. At what point
does the Chinese navy get the ability, the capability to
project large numbers of nuclear pot attack submarines into the
Indian Ocean region, thereby threatening your own ceilions of communications. Right,

(01:02:23):
So you can argue, yes, we have a very competent
DSW architecture and we have assistance from our Western allies
and all that. But till the time you are not
able to project power into his backyard kind of a
quid pro koho, you know, you will not be a
very credible maritime power. And that or a blue water navy.
It's a very important component of blue waters given the

(01:02:46):
fact that how crucial, as you mentioned, the seas are
to India's economy. Without the oceans, we cannot have a
vixed Baharat or you know, the third largest economy. By
the end of this decade. We are entirely dependent on
the seas for all our you know, communication, even with

(01:03:08):
the seabed cables right, your your trade, imports, exports, energy,
everything is on the seas, right and we cannot have
the situation where an anniversary things that. Look, there is
something that I can do on India's western and eastern seaboards.
You know, the next standoff, God forbid, may not be

(01:03:29):
at Galvan It might be in the ocean, or in
the oceans, in the Arabian Sea or the Indian Ocean,
on the Bay of Being.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Or final question rather the age old question for the
Indian Navy, especially because of the prohibitive costs evolved when
it comes to naval assets submarines versus aircraft carrier.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Because okay, you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Can have great ambitions of you know, of being like
the US Navy having tens of aircraft carriers, so many
nuclear power submarines, but that's the amount of money you
have until your economy becomes the third largest, second and
so on. At some point that question has to be
finally answered once and for all, and that that time
is running out, I think, because like with the SSBN project,

(01:04:10):
the expertise that you built with the i SB grant,
the homemade aircraft carrier, Yes, that's going to be running
out soon. The people employing that project already might be
looking for different jobs if they haven't gotten them already,
by the way, So that expertise will soon go out
of the system. For you to be able to salve
keep that expertise and make the most of it, maybe

(01:04:30):
make another aircraft at cheaper cost, you have to decide soon.
But again that means allocating money, and that money sadly
will come out of your summary budget. Then, so has
that question been answered once and for all? Our are
still I think you know what the hell the Navy
looks at. It is that it is it is able
to pay for both submarines and aircraft carriers. And I think,
as you correctly pointed out, the very basic requirement for

(01:04:52):
US is to build another aircraft carrier to replace the
which will go out of service in the next decade
or so. Because she he has already been in the
water since nineteen eighty seven, right, so he's approaching the
fourth decade now. It is it will need a replacement,
and that replacement you should start building now and that

(01:05:13):
will come to about two carriers and navies of course
projected a three carrier navy, but it seems unlikely to
me because unless you get to the capability or.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
You know, of the American aircraft carriers of the size
that they have, the midst class, the four class carriers,
which are actually true blue aircraft carriers, you know, which
are almost one hundred thousand tons displacement, which carry fifty
sixty fighter jets, which are true aircraft carriers capable of
projecting power.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
But then you have to look at the number.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Can you afford the you know, the five six billion
dollar sticker costs with an you know, additional two three
four billion dollars for the fighter jets, more than ten
billion dollars you know per carrier? Can you afford it
right now? If you can't, then what is it in
the interim that you need to do to ensure that

(01:06:08):
you have the capability you influence the maritime battle and
the battle online from the sea. You know, so you
have to do those mats, whether it is how many
vertical long silos can you carry out to sea? For instance,
where will it come from? Where will that ordnance be?
Will it be from the submarines, will be from aircraft carriers,

(01:06:30):
will it be from surface ships, all of that, I
think a fair mix has to be worked out. Looking
at our current you know, threat horizon, which is China
and Pakistan possibly operating you know, collusively in the not
so distant future, so I think this call has to
be taken by the Navy very shortly, and that one
carrier replacement is an urgent requirement they need to replace that.

(01:06:53):
But into the near future, if you look at in
the next twenty thirty years, I think the ocean is
going to be very the surface of the sea is
going to be very hostile for anything on the surface
of the water because you can be detected, tracked, and
monitored and attacked in real time, in real time. And
the only safe, secure space for you, at least in

(01:07:15):
the next couple of decades is going to be the underserealm,
and I think that is where a lot of navies
have now begun investing all their resources. The Americans already there,
the Russians have been there for a while. The Chinese
are going big time, so which is why you see
the kind of activity that in the ioar with their
spy ships and their hydrographic vessels coming looking for the

(01:07:38):
areas where the submarines can operate and all that. So
the Chinese are literally shaping the maritime battlefield here in
the Ior region. And it is for us to you know,
respond to it, either by creating our own organizations to
handle that, our own commands, underwater commands perhaps, or investing
in the platforms that can address this threat. And this

(01:08:01):
is I'm talking of the next ten twenty years. It's
already begun, and it's going to get hit a crescendo
in the twenty forties and the fifties when the race
for seabed minerals and all that happens. And that's a
whole new, different kind of warfare that you're looking at.
So I think that is something that we should be
already thinking about planning for, you know, and resourcing and

(01:08:23):
thinking ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
So I think it's not just.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
About a carrier or a submarine battlet. It's about the
race for capabilities as well. Right, what are the kind
of capabilities that you need to build. It's quite possible
that in beyond the twenty forties twenty forties, you might
not even need submarines, because you're looking at a time
when everything on the seabed is going to be networked.
Manned submarines might be a thing of the past. So

(01:08:47):
you're looking at very large unmanned submarines carrying torpedoes and
missiles and all that large drone ships you know, flying underwater,
underwater craft carriers. Even it's been in the realm of
science fiction now for massive aircraft carriers carrying drones that
you know, submerge and then they pop out, they launched

(01:09:09):
their aircraft and then they you know, submitgine. So the
ocean is going to be a very interesting realm in
the next couple of decades, especially given the kind of
you know, investments in technology and R and D that's
going on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
In the world right now, right aren't you glad then
you picked this topic to like sort of focus or
during the during your career.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
Yeah, well, it's I think it's one of those interesting
areas of uh, you know, niche areas as you mentioned,
And it just so happened that I see this as
literally the future of warfare, and you know where where
our destiny basically is on the seabed if you're able
to you know, get the kind of capabilities to mine

(01:09:52):
the minerals on the seabed. Who knows, we might not
be the kind of resource poor country that we are now,
and so that that's yeah, it's a future looking move.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
I thought, right, all right, great Sand the excellent chat
more than I mean it's an excellent at all times,
but this one was I think even more fun because of,
like you said, your expertise in this field.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
So thanks so much, thank you for having me there,
always a pleasure, and thanks to all our listeners and humors.
That's it for this week's Defense stores. For more, tune
in next week. Till then, stay safe and do not
cross any boundaries to that passport by