In April 2022, the shipyard Magazon Dock Shipbuilders Limited was accepted as part of a technology transfer from the French Naval Group [MDL] launched the INS Vagsheer, the sixth and final Scorpene-type attack submarine [ou classe Kalvari] destined for the Indian Navy.
Only in the face of the ambitions of the Pakistan Navy and the increasingly assertive presence of the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean and around the Strait of Malacca is India making modernizing its submarine fleet a priority. Indeed, and despite the contribution of the Scorpene, this one is relatively old with seven Sindhughosh-class submarines [de conception russe] and four other Type 209s [de facture allemande].
However, for New Delhi it is also about being able to accompany the increase in power of the oceanic component of its deterrence, which must be based on two nuclear-powered submarines with ballistic missiles [SNLE]namely INS Arihant and INS Arighat [dont l’admission au service est prévue cette année].
For this, the Indian Navy, which also returned the nuclear attack submarine, has [SNA] INS Chakra, which had leased it from Russia for ten years, launched the 75i project to add six additional units to its submarine fleet.
By and large, the Indian Navy wants larger submarines than the Scorpene, equipped with an anaerobic propulsion system [AIP] to increase their autonomy when diving, and capable of carrying cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles.
Only almost all manufacturers who could supply such submarines have withdrawn their application for this tender. Or at least they pretended to be… So the Swedish Kockums [A26] and Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industry [classe Sōryū] let it know they would pass. As well as the Naval Group, which had proposed a variant of their Shortfin Barracuda, and the Russian Rubin, which claimed “technical reasons”.
The German ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems had previously submitted the candidature of its Type 214 submarine [TKMS] had also announced that it would throw in the towel, citing “inconsistencies” on certain technical clauses of the Indian process, notably on liability, technology transfer and workload.
However, TKMS has visibly returned to the race, with only South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and Spain’s Navantia still in the running.
In fact, the signing of an agreement – government-to-government – for the joint construction of six submarines will be one of the challenges of the visit that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will make to India on February 25 and 26 onwards. This is the confidence that the Portal agency has given four officials [dont deux indiens et deux allemands] near the file.
A priori and according to a source from the Indian Defense Ministry, Navantia’s offer was rejected. So TKMS and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering would stay in the running. An Indian diplomatic official said Chancellor Scholz was “determined to revitalize trade and defense ties” with New Delhi.
And that even if it means accepting technology transfers – particularly to the AIP system, which the Defense Research and Development Organization [DRDO] India is currently trying to develop and that submarine construction is done exclusively in India.
According to Portal, Berlin recently eased its policy on arms exports to India.
“We would like to continue doing that,” assured an “official” from the federal government. “India is largely dependent on Russian arms. It cannot be in our interest for this to remain the case,” he reasoned.
Whether the Type 214 submarine can actually meet the needs of the Indian Navy remains to be seen, as it is little larger than the Scorpene and cannot carry cruise missiles. Unless TKMS suggested the Type 216, an evolution of the Type 214 that was being developed for the Australian contract… won by the Naval Group in 2016 with the Shortfin Barracuda.
Photo: U214 – TKMS