I am not seeing any point being made.
Yes I think I see that.
Yes, submarines are difficult to detect and kill and are a potent threat. There is the reason why IN hopes to induct ~2 dozen submarines. So?
So!!!
You are still trying to avoid the obvious. The obvious that has been debated ad nauseam by the navies around the world and a debate that has already been concluded.
The IN has assessed the need for 3 carriers, in addition to the sub fleet. These acquisitions probably fight for budgets, but neither can play the other's role (sea control vs sea denial).
Sea Control, Command of the Seas, waghera-waghera, is all very good but currently and for foreseeable future the Indian Navy is looking to merely police IOR region, which is what a 3 Carrier force allows effectively. There really is nobody, not even US who has Sea Control. That is why US is effectively retreating from the Eastern Pacific and the IOR. That is why nearly all the US Carriers just stay at home port most of the times. One Sub is enough to challenge Sea Control because you don’t know what it could be carrying. By repeating such phrases that are not borne out in real world today you are seriously passing into prehistoric times. Alfred Mahan was born more than 150 years back. And much of his theorizing got supported in practice only because the world till recently was structured around Colonial Loot. Countries like India, Vietnam, Russia and even China have ensured that the Colonial times are dead and gone forever. So going on and on about old concepts is little more than a child crying – la la la la – at something he does not like.
When you see a small country like Vietnam buying 6 Kilos to face a mortal enemy several times bigger, you have to be able to explain the know-why of it.
You are assuming that the CBG deploys ASW choppers in defensive role and not in offensive role against subs. Infact, the invincible class and the current Japanese flat tops are built will explicit ASW missions. Furthermore, the CBG will also consist of a hunter killer submarine.
No I am not assuming that. Rather I know that they do. I am saying it is rather in-effective and for various reasons. The Japanese flat tops you are talking about are a case in point, because it is your choice to see it as ASW capability. I rather see it as general in-effectiveness and highly challenged nature of a pure ASW fight.
In fact I gave you specific examples of both the 1962 US-Soviet face off where the US could not track one Sub out of four. And mind you these were noisy as hell Foxtrots. By 1973 and despite the Soviets still lagging in technology relied on their 23 submarines to keep things interesting for the 3 Carriers of the US Navy ultimately dashing all hopes of Sea Control. Chinese probably took that lesson to heart and build up a formidable submarine arm. The US Navy did chase a few Subs but really the ultimate results on ground (in the sea
) tells us how much that really helped.
In between in 1971, the Soviets had committed only 1 nuclear sub under the Indo-Soviet Pact. You can see the results. By 1978 Indira Gandhi had learnt the lesson regarding nuclear submarine effectiveness.
Carriers are considered laggards - when we are going from a 1 carrier navy to a 3 carrier navy, UK is building 2 65K ton carriers, and Japan is inducting through deck cruisers which are carriers by another name, PLAN has inducted its first carrier, Australia and Spain are inducting Juan Carlos LHD?
Carriers are not considered laggards. I merely characterized them as such and merely for the sake of taking my argument forward. I agree Carriers are not useless. But the way world-wide the Navies are treating them shows where the priority lies.
The 2 UK Carriers you mention are slower with lesser range then even the INS Vikramaditya, which is already 2 decades old. In fact commentators like Saurav Jha have already hinted at how there are moves afoot to saddle Indian Navy with one of these floating jokes.
The Japanese are going to fly aircrafts, in any serious manner, from their flat tops only in some distant future. Actually Japanese navy too is larger in terms of tonnage then Indian Navy and they actually have made the best possible use of Carriers, in Pearl Harbour. And yet they are going slower. They have expedited Soryus instead.
PLAN is inducting Carriers only after they have already made a formidable submarine arm. PLAN size is nearly 3-5 times our Navy, depending on how you begin to calculate.
Frankly even the South Korean Navy is not much smaller than the India Navy and they are simply not interested in carriers.
Australia is an interesting case. They had one carrier, which when retired, became the cause of much grief for their Naval Brass. One big guy from their Navy actually said that without the Carrier Australian Navy could not claim to be a ‘Blue Water Navy’. Now tell me if any joke can be funnier than an – Australian Blue Water Navy.
Spain is NATO, they will do what subservient states do. In any case how will they sell it if they do even induct it.
In 1971 the complete Navy's strategy was a defensive one on the West and offensive on the East. What could a carrier have achieved in the West? And since you quote the 1971 example: If INS Vikrant's performance was wanting, then what is your appraisal of our submarine fleet in 1971?
You have got to be able to sift of historical fact from historiography. The strategy in Arabian Ocean was also offensive, and the Indian Navy brass had to convince political bosses to make it so. Just that against West Pakistan, no mission involving denial of escape to retreating forces was envisaged, while the shore based attacks were carried out by the Missile Boats unlike in the Bay of Bengal.
The IN submarines arm (started just 3 years back) too were busy in the Arabian Sea. Old Submariners of that time have recounted interesting ‘fictional’ tales of having intercepted unknown nuclear subs in 1971 (for those interested, Diego Garcia build up by US was started sometime before the 1971 war). Unfortunately the brand new Foxtrots that India had, were armed with only torpedos and were under express instructions to shoot only after positive identification or on being attacked. But the situation has dramatically changed since then. Today an Indian Navy submariner will ask you - what is it that you want fired from an IN Submarine.
Note – to correct your misunderstanding. I did not cast doubt on performance of INS Vikrant in 1971. The performance was excellent. But we were lucky that US had gifted only one Tench Class sub to the Pakis. What if they had gifted two?
But if you really wish to understand how effective the submarines in 1971 were, you can refer to the story of the PNS Hangor threat. An old tech submarine that had very nearly wiped off the IN ASW capabilities in the Arabian Sea. We escaped, probably because of poor seamanship of the Pakis on board. But that is not a plan – relying on poor leadership of the opponents. Also the sole Soviet nuke sub assigned against the Task Force 74. Or the ‘story’ told by Commodore Franklin of IN, about the high stakes game against the unknown nuclear Sub inside Paki waters. Or the multiple defensive moves that IN had to make to shake off PNS Ghazi. Mind you PNS Ghazi too was not a bad move. It was only poor seamanship of the Pakis and some deft intel handling by IN, that cleared the way for INS Vikrant.
There are other interesting stories too that show how the surface fleet is really limited against a submarine. For example when the Foxtrots were coming in from Russia, the then IN Brass decided initially to ‘Escort’ the Foxtrots. Unfortunately the fairly large ship of British origin that was assigned to do the job had to stop for fuel nearly 5 times more compared to the Foxtrots and the Foxtrot crew wondered if they were being escorted or if they were escorting. For later Foxtrots the IN did not bother to send any escort. Escort was not needed to begin with. It was just some old fantasy that some in the Brass were acting upon. A foxtrot goes nearly 30000 km plus with one fuel load.
Instead of being super confident about ones own strategy it helps to really think through why some other people act the way they do – Soviet, Chinese and now Viet reliance on Subs. Today even IN is correcting this bias. In fact US Navy too has 7 times more subs than Carriers. There has got to be a reason for that. You have got to stop the defensive thinking pattern of ASW being the answer to Subs. You could start a more aggressive thought process of - Subs being a counter to Subs, before you tell us how somebody is g@nd-fatoing. Remember arguments depend on facts and not on vacuous bragging. Fati Submarine fanboys ki nahi Carrier fanboys ki hai
.
