Indian Navy to be doubled in 15 years

[rock127]

Indian Navy to be doubled in 15 years

Expanding its combat assets by inducting several new platforms including nuclear submarines, fighter planes and aircraft carriers, the Navy has decided to almost double the size of its manpower in next 15 years.

The Navy has also decided to give B.Tech degrees to its officers to handle the high end technology being inducted into the force and the first batch of its officers with these degrees will pass out from the Indian Naval Academy (INA) in Kerala on Saturday.

"The present strength of Navy today is over one lakh personnel including 8,700 officers, 50,000 sailors and 43,000 civilians. In next 15 years, we plan to increase the numbers to 1.80 lakh with 10,600 officers, 85,000 sailors and 75,000 civilian work force," Navy's Human Resources in-charge Rear Admiral Sachin Ghormade said.

He was briefing the media on Navy's plans to upgrade the educational standards of its young officers at the INA in Ezhimalla in Kerala.

Asked if the size of the fleet would also be doubled, he said, "The manpower perspective plan and the maritime capabilities perspective plan have been gelled together for the purpose."

Under the maritime capabilities perspective plan, the Navy caters for the increase in the size of its fleet including warships, submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter aircraft and other war-fighting equipment.

In the near future, the Navy has plans of inducting around 20 maritime reconnaissance aircraft, over 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines, around three new nuclear submarines, three aircraft carriers and a large number of warships and fighter aircraft including the Russian MiG-29s and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA).

 

[TrueSpirit]

Navy pilots to train in civil aviation institute

As the demand for pilots in the Navy is set to rise in the coming years, Indian Navy will send its first batch of pilots to a civil aviation training institute in Uttar Pradesh to find out if the centre, which is training commercial pilots for close to two decades, is good enough for the men in service uniform.

The first batch of 20 officers will begin their six-month long basic flight training course at Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) at Rae Bareli on May 27. The rookie pilots will take off in DA-40 aircraft from a runaway at Fursutganj.

Till now, the?Navy was sending its would-be aviators to the Indian Air Force flight training institutes for basic training after which they were given advanced training in Kiran jet trainer at the naval aviation base in Goa.

But with Kirans set to retire in a year or two, the Navy is getting 17 Hawk advanced jet trainers, which will be stationed at Visakhapatnam (INS Dega). The first Hawk is expected to arrive in July, 2013 and the first batch of advanced flight training will commence from January. For a short time, the trainee pilots will fly both Kirans and Hawks before graduating to carrier-borne fighters like MiG-29K and Sea Harriers.

Once Kirans are phased out by 2014, Hawks will be the sole platform for advanced fighter training for naval operators just like the air force. "Because of the shortage of Kiran aircraft, we were sending our pilots to the USA since the last one and half years where they flew T45-Goshawk aircraft, a variant of Hawk. Subsequently they undertook qualification tests for being able to fly from an aircraft carrier," a seasoned naval aviator told Deccan Herald.

With a number of inductions in the pipeline, the Navy requires at least 300 more pilots – a 50 per cent jump from the current strength of 600 pilots. The first long-range surveillance aircraft – P8I – arrived on Wednesday. Two more P8I will come later this year and the remaining five will join by 2015. India is negotiating the price of another four of this aircraft with the USA as a follow-on order. The Navy has also received four additional MiG-29K fighters that will be a part of the second naval fighter squadron at Visakhapatnam.

In the next decade, the Navy plans to double its number of platforms creating a "mini-force" with close to 400 fighters, surveillance planes and helicopters.

The first batch of 60 BTech officers will pass out of the Naval Academy, Ezhimala on May 25 filling up key vacancies in technical branches.

The academy will offer BTech degrees to those who entered after 12th standard and MSc (telecommunication) degree to those who will join the naval academy after spending three years at National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla.

Link

 

[The Messiah]

That should be the bare minimum.

 

[datguy79]

What are the roles of civilians in IN?

 

[DivineHeretic]

"The present strength of Navy today is over one lakh personnel including 8,700 officers, 50,000 sailors and 43,000 civilians. In next 15 years, we plan to increase the numbers to 1.80 lakh with 10,600 officers, 85,000 sailors and 75,000 civilian work force," Navy's Human Resources in-charge Rear Admiral Sachin Ghormade said.

Rather odd, I'd say. Normally when the force levels are increased, the officer cadre is increased proportionally. But here, for an increase by70% in the manpower, the officer intake only increases by ~21%. For the increased manpower to translate into increased effectiveness, there must be enough increase in officer levels to manage and command them.

This implies either one of the three scenarios.....
1. The IN is overstaffed/bloated as of the present and will be balanced only when the additional manpower is added.
2. The manpower increase is not really an increase in capability, which would generally be expected with increased force levels.
3. The IN is struggling to recruit officers/has a high attrition rate.

Another fact to ponder over is that the number of IN ships are expected to be nearly static at 140-160 vessels over the next 2 decade, while at the same time due to increased automation, the crew size od the Ships are shrinking.

The only way this makes sense is if the IN will induct a amphibious Division or an even larger Ampibious force under it, or a dramatic expansion in number of vessels and bases are secretly planned

 

[roma]

solid decisions being made here - especially the intertwining of Navy and BTech academic studies and hopefully, later, even more intensive study and specialization .

 

[natarajan]

first when i read title i thought number of ships would be doubled

 

[TrueSpirit]

first when i read title i thought number of ships would be doubled

That would need massive capacity expansion at our major shipyards, setting up huge assembly lines from scratch at new shipyards & allowing private players a level playing field. Not impossible, but PSU players see to it that they garner the lion's share of all Navy contracts & private players are usually left in lurch, even when they have the requisite economy, scale & expertise. This would continue for years to come, irrespective of what all changes govt. tries to enforce in defence procurement policy.