vampyrbladez
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Yay! Three nuke submarines!!!!!!
Indian nuclear submarines
- Thread starter nitesh
- Start date
lcafanboy
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Those 3 are visible. I am sure there's at least 1 submarine in that pen and at least 1 on deterrence patrol if not 2 or 3. That only proves that we have got at least 4 ssbn in addition to ssn ins chakra. Not bad at all if we consider China has just now been able to sport potent nuclear submarines.
sayareakd
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new facility is being constructed to house bigger subs.Those 3 are visible. I am sure there's at least 1 submarine in that pen and at least 1 on deterrence patrol if not 2 or 3. That only proves that we have got at least 4 ssbn in addition to ssn ins chakra. Not bad at all if we consider China has just now been able to sport potent nuclear submarines.
and attachment shows that K4 is being operational. Looks like they planned to use K4 from its base to both our adversaries, just in case.
Attachments
One on the outside is the INS Chakra and the other two are our SSBN's from the look of it. Chakra can be identified by its tail towed sonar housing
tsunami
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So they are building 4 ships and 2 submarines at the same time???
binayak95
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Thats not a ship being built, that is the Jalashwa under refit.
As a matter of fact, I see a Khukri class corvette, a Type 209 sub, a LST(M) among others under refit.
With a fleet as big as ours, all our dockyards are busy 24x7 refitting and refurbishing ships.
Defcon 1
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Angles and Dangles: Arihant and the Dilemma of India’s Undersea Nuclear Weapons
Editor’s Note: This is the 24th installment of “Southern (Dis)Comfort,” a series from War on the Rocks and the Stimson Center. The series seeks to unpack the dynamics of intensifying competition — military, economic, diplomatic — in Southern Asia, principally between China, India, Pakistan, and the United States. Catch up on the rest of the series.
After INS Arihant, India’s first ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), finished its maiden deterrent patrol in November 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphatically declared India’s nuclear triad complete. Arihant’s operationalization has catapulted India into a select group of states with an underwater nuclear launch capability. It has also raised alarm over the safety and security of India’s nuclear arsenal because a sea-based deterrent may entail a ready-to-use arsenal and less restrictive command and control procedures, increasing probability of their accidental use. For Pakistan, India’s nuclear force modernization endangers the balance of strategic forces in the region and could intensify the nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.
Modi’s triumphalism belies Arihant’s modest capabilities. The submarine does not add substantially to India’s second-strike capability — at least, not yet. Until and unless India deploys an SSBN fleet carrying missiles with intercontinental range, which could take decades, its sea-based deterrent vis-à-vis China will lack credibility. And for deterring Pakistan, India’s air and land-based nuclear arsenal is sufficient.
If triumphalist assertions about Arihant are unwarranted, so, too, are alarmist concerns over the safety and security of India’s underwater nuclear arsenal. India’s Strategic Forces Command has done much more to ensure robust command and control at sea than many commentators acknowledge. India’s sea-based nuclear assets are neither on hair-trigger alert nor are they in the hands of the military. They remain firmly under the control of political decision-makers.
Arihant’s operationalization is an opportunity for New Delhi to reflect upon its nuclear trajectory. With China and Pakistan as nuclear adversaries, India confronts a unique challenge. It has to build up its nuclear capability enough to ensure that Chinese decision-makers fear it, without sending Islamabad into panic and undermining regional stability. This “Goldilocks dilemma” will be difficult to resolve, and India should not leave it to chance — especially as the United States, once South Asia’s chief crisis manager, loses both interest and influence in the region. India should reassure Pakistan by reaffirming its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons and a retaliation-only nuclear doctrine. More importantly, India should rethink its deterrence requirements vis-à-vis China.
Ultimately, the risk is that India will fail to achieve its aim of deterring China while unintentionally provoking its smaller rival. Understanding how India reached this stage in its nuclear trajectory and how it is trying to manage this challenge requires examining the peculiar history of its ballistic missile submarines as well as its robust efforts to enhance civilian control of its nuclear weapons.
Project Samudra and the Burden of History
The peculiar history of India’s long quest for a nuclear submarine leaves a long shadow over Arihant’s capabilities.
India’s nuclear submarine program began in 1966 with feasibility studies on marine nuclear propulsion. Rather than being driven by any military necessity, the program was influenced by considerations of the nuclear establishment’s organizational prestige. As Homi Bhabha, father of India’s nuclear energy program, argued at the time, maritime reactors “could demonstrate India’s impressive capabilities in the field of nuclear energy.” Military justification for the program came much later when, during the 1971 Bangladesh war, the United States sent the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal to support Pakistan. Thereupon, as a conventional fighting platform, nuclear attack submarines attracted the attention of the Indian Navy because they could raise the threshold of superpower intervention in the region. However, the nuclear scientists could not produce a viable marine reactor. In the early 1980s, therefore, the Indian Navy turned to the Soviets for assistance.
In April 1982, the Soviet Union agreed to lease an attack nuclear submarine (SSN) to the Indian Navy and provide technical assistance to India in building its own submarines. This was the beginning of Project Samudra (Project Ocean), which was to include two vessels codenamed S-1 and S-2.
The stated intent was to produce a “cost-effective deterrent against Pakistan’s enlarging military machine,” according to a top-secret report explaining the program that I obtained from a former government official. The larger objective of these acquisitions, however, had little to do with nuclear deterrence — it was directed towards the growing naval presence of the great powers in the Indian Ocean, more focused on conventional operations than nuclear issues. The report stated, “more significantly, such acquisitions would enhance India’s credibility particularly in view of the increasing presence of the outside powers in the Indian Ocean.”
Project S-1 culminated with the loan of a Soviet Charlie-class SSN in 1988. Project S-2 paved the way for the establishment of the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) Directorate, a dedicated research and development agency responsible solely for building an indigenous SSN. The project suffered major delays as India’s nuclear establishment continued to face technological hurdles in producing a viable reactor design. Still, the path was set: India was designing and developing a nuclear attack submarine.
The Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests of 1998 changed the nature of India’s nuclear submarine program. Indian decision-makers were keen to explore avenues that could render their nuclear forces more survivable, including placing nuclear weapons at sea. The first step towards building a sea-based deterrent was to place modified Prithvi missiles on board two Sukanya-class missile boats. The ATV Directorate, however, soon proposed modifying the nuclear attack submarine into a strategic weapon system. The navy was also keen to have its share of the nuclear pie. Thus, soon after the 1998 nuclear tests, India decided to convert what was originally designed as a nuclear attack submarine armed with cruise missiles for conventional naval operations into a strategic weapon system for nuclear delivery. Project S-2 became the first of India’s SSBNs.
Yet this revised mission left the program highly limited in its capabilities. India had started developing a 300-km earth-skimming cruise missile called Sagarika with Russian help in 1991. When India decided to convert the attack submarine into an SSBN, the size of the boat and its missile block was fixed based on the earlier SSN design — meaning only a modest missile with limited range could be retrofitted in. The only option was to replace the Sagarika cruise missiles with ballistic missiles that could carry a one-ton nuclear warhead. Today, the limited range of the K-15, the primary weapon system on Arihant, is the result of these post-hoc technological fixes. Arihant can carry 12 of these 750–1,000-kilometer range missiles, barely sufficient to hit a few major cities in retaliatory strikes against Pakistan, let alone Chinese targets. Its small reactor size also restricts its endurance at sea. In fact, the nuclear reactor onboard Arihant is of vintage Soviet design. Arihant is not Pakistan-specific by design but only by default: Its technological evolution rendered it incapable of anything else.
The burden of history continued to inform the trajectory of India’s SSBN program. To achieve meaningful deterrence vis-à-vis China, India not only needed more SSBNs, but also longer-range missiles that could strike deep inside Chinese territory. In the early 2000s, the Indian government, therefore, sanctioned the ATV Directorate to produce two more SSBNs of the S-1 type and to increase the range of the missiles to 3,500 kilometers. The increase in range entailed a consequent decrease in the number of missiles. The problem, again, was the fixed size of the submarine: Given the immutability of the S-1 design, the long-range missile could only be accommodated by increasing the missile diameter and reducing the total payload. But reduction in nuclear payload meant lesser bang for India’s buck, since it reduced the number of nuclear weapons it could deploy at any given time against China.
When the cabinet of ministers pointed out this problem in 2004, the ATV Directorate decided to include another missile block by increasing the length of the next two boats. Yet in 2006, a major technical review of the program concluded that all five boats proposed so far fell short of a true SSBN force capable of deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could reach all parts of China. It also required a nuclear reactor double the size of previous boats that could endure longer operations at sea. The review committee recommended a new class of boomers with a reactor double the size of previous S-Class boats and capable of launching ballistic missiles in excess of 6,000 kilometers. S-5, as the boat is officially designated, was approved in 2015. This evolution of Project S is symptomatic of mission creep in India’s deterrent requirements, especially as it attempts to achieve deterrence parity with China. The piecemeal expansion of India’s nuclear submarine program severely undermines its deterrent capability. Until India fields an SSBN fleet with ICBM capabilities and improves upon the designs of its nuclear propulsion package, its sea-based deterrent will remain a paper tiger. As Admiral Arun Prakash estimates, it will take India “50-60 years” to field a credible SSBN force.
Arihant’s historical evolution also leaves doubts about its robustness and reliability. There are more than a few rumblings within Indian Navy circles regarding reactor designs based on second-generation Soviet submarines. Arihant’s first deterrent patrol lasted merely 20 days, suggesting endurance issues with its nuclear propulsion package. Finally, the Indian Navy would have to develop very robust infrastructure for training, maintenance, and repair of its SSBN fleet before the sea-based deterrent could be realized. In fact, the fleet has recently suffered from a series of accidents, including the 2017 mishap onboard Arihant. Only extensive operational experience will build the required confidence both in the men and the machine.
Given the twists and turns of its nuclear submarine program, the resulting technological limits, and the underlying problems with Soviet legacy platforms, Arihant’s first deterrent patrol is just a modest beginning in India’s effort to deploy a credible nuclear triad. For the prospective future, its nuclear deterrent will continue to rely on the land- and air-based legs. Indian decision-makers must accept the reality of this modest enterprise. Rather than engaging in premature triumphalism over Arihant, India should take a page from the Chinese playbook to hide its capacities and bide its time.
Operationalizing Deterrence at Sea
Even though Arihant, in its current form, has limited utility against China, its operationalization has nonetheless raised serious questions about how India would deploy its nuclear submarine force, whether this will entail a “ready-to-use” arsenal, and whether India has developed a sufficiently elaborate command and control mechanism to avoid unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. Such alarmist reactions, however, do not fully capture the efforts India’s Strategic Forces Command has made in establishing operational protocols for its SSBNs. The command’s standard operating procedures for the nuclear triad alleviate three major concerns. First, a sea-based deterrent would not engage in conventional operations, nor does it automatically translate into a “ready-to-use” arsenal. Second, custody of India’s nuclear weapons has not necessarily been delegated to the military. Last, India’s political leadership will maintain firm control over nuclear assets.
First, as far as deployment is concerned, India is most likely to follow a bastion strategy rather than putting its SSBNs on constant patrol in open seas. A “bastion” or a “citadel” model entails operating submarines in waters close to home and away from hostile forces. In India’s case, the most suitable geography is in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea, and in the Northern Indian Ocean. The Pakistani Navy has very limited capability to operate in these waters, while India’s overwhelming naval presence through its conventional fleet and anti-submarine warfare operations will be able to create a cordon sanitaire against Chinese submarine activity.
While some fear the nuclear submarines will have a dual (nuclear and conventional) role, my interviews with Indian Strategic Forces Command officials suggest otherwise. The nuclear submarines will remain solely under the operational command of the Strategic Forces Command, which handles nuclear forces, rather than the Navy, (which handles conventional naval forces). A clear division of labor between the two has been codified, reducing the risk that Indian nuclear forces at sea could get entangled in conventional operations.
In fact, Indian SSBNs would not operate alongside the Navy’s conventional fleet as any coordination could lead to the nuclear submarines’ exposure by enemy intercepts of fleet communications.
Relatedly, the operationalization of Arihant does not mean India’s nuclear weapons are now on hair-trigger alert. It is highly unlikely that the submarines will carry a nuclear payload during peacetime. In fact, insofar as India’s SSBN force will not perform constant patrols armed with nuclear weapons at all times, it does not entirely fit the definition of a true triad. India’s operational plans for its nuclear submarines consist of a three-stage process. The first is nuclear alerting, or mechanically mating missile launch tubes with missile canisters armed with nuclear weapons at specialized naval facilities. This would start at the first indications of a crisis situation (Strategic Forces Command defines a crisis not as the start of actual conflict, but any scenario where Indian decision-makers foresee a possibility of military escalation with Pakistan or China). The second stage involves dispersing the submarines on deterrence patrol. It is only after the boats receive political authorization that they will maneuver to predetermined positions to prepare for the eventual launch of nuclear weapons. This strategy does entail a risk of a “bolt from the blue” nuclear strike against India’s major naval bases, but decision-makers are willing to run this risk given the other legs of the nuclear triad and the inherent uncertainty that any first strike would eliminate all its nuclear assets. Since at least 2008, Strategic Forces Command has consistently strived to develop and put into practice such operational plans for India’s SSBN force.
Lastly, India has developed an elaborate command and control apparatus to maintain firm political control over its sea-based nuclear assets. When the submarines encounter a crisis situation, nuclear weapons will be physically mated with ballistic missiles, per the first of the three steps described above. For this reason, India needed positive command-and-control mechanisms to ensure that when authorized a launch will always occur and that unauthorized or accidental launches never occur. Former Strategic Forces Command personnel have told me in interviews that India has developed such mechanisms: Even after nuclear weapons have been mated with missile tubes, the military will not be in command of nuclear weapons. Any ballistic missile launch requires a two-step authorization, in which civilian authority plays a key role. Even in situations where an imminent enemy strike may be about to take out the submarine’s ballistic missiles, civilian authority will remain the sole custodian of India’s sea-based nuclear forces.
These operational procedures would require extensive testing and training, and a robust communications network. Strategic Forces Command has to establish beyond doubt that the controls will work under the fog of war and that decisions will be securely communicated to the submarines’ battle stations. The infrastructure for these communications has grown alongside the SSBN program, but will still take a lot of time to mature and attain operational effectiveness and reliability. These concerns will continue to cloud the readiness of India’s SSBN force.
Thus, Arihant’s operationalization should not lead to a conclusion that its nuclear weapons are now fully mated with delivery systems and that control has shifted to the military, as many alarmists seem to fear. India has strived to ensure complete political control of its nuclear assets at sea, ruling out any unauthorized use.
Indeed, Arihant’s problem is not that it has nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, that it suffers from loose command and control, or that it increases the risks of accidental nuclear use. Rather, Arihant is yet another manifestation of India’s deterrent dilemma between China and Pakistan. As Pakistan responds to India’s sea-based deterrent, it will exacerbate the subcontinent’s nuclear tensions while providing no meaningful change in India’s nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis Beijing in the foreseeable future.
Deterrence Stability and Crisis Stability: The Search for Equilibrium
Against China, India’s objective is to achieve deterrence stability: a true second-strike capability that insulates its nuclear arsenal against the risk of a Chinese first strike. Much of India’s technological force development in the post-1998 period has been motivated by the desire to decrease nuclear asymmetry with China. With Pakistan, the situation is almost the opposite: Pakistan cannot threaten India with nuclear annihilation without getting annihilated in return. Yet Pakistan’s strategy of employing sub-conventional conflict under the shadow of nuclear weapons has rendered Indo-Pakistani relations prone to crisis instability: the danger that a low-level crisis may escalate into an inadvertent use of nuclear weapons.
These factors create a “Goldilocks dilemma” for India: Its attempts to boost deterrence stability with China endanger crisis stability with Pakistan. China’s and Pakistan’s reactions to Arihant’s first deterrent patrol were illustrative of this dynamic. China hardly raised an eyebrow because unless India fields a credible SSBN force capable of launching ICBMs that can strike deep inside Chinese territory, it has nothing to fear. Pakistan, on the other hand, was quick to suggest that Arihant dilutes its nuclear deterrent and that it will opt for “cost-effective options” to maintain strategic stability. As Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry claimed, “no one should be in doubt about Pakistan’s resolve and capabilities to meet the challenges posed by the latest developments both in the nuclear and conventional realms in South Asia.” Recent statements by high-level Indian officials calling for elimination of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons through preemptive use of nuclear and conventional forces have only worsened Islamabad’s nuclear nightmares.
How can India achieve a balance between these two strategic imperatives? Regarding China, India should set some limits on what it considers a credible nuclear deterrent, rather than pursuing open-ended nuclear force development. As Rajesh Basrur has argued, India’s deterrent should not be based solely on establishing a credible response; it should also take into account an adversary’s appetite for risk. A limited capability should be sufficient to deter Beijing. India has exhibited such restraint in the past: After China tested nuclear weapons in 1964, Indian decision-makers were convinced that any Chinese nuclear threat or use against India would risk nuclear retaliation from the great powers and that this “minimal risk” was sufficient to deter Chinese decision-makers. Today, Beijing could facilitate a similar rethinking by accepting India as a nuclear power (the current policy of non-acknowledgment may spur India to continue its buildup in order to be taken more seriously) and initiating nuclear confidence-building measures.
Crisis stability will be harder, because for Pakistan, nuclear weapons provide not only a deterrent, or “shield” against India’s nuclear capability, but also a “sword” that permits it to continue fomenting sub-conventional war on the subcontinent.
To increase stability, India should publicly reaffirm its policy of no first use and adopt a retaliation-only nuclear posture, particularly since prominent voices in India’s strategic community have questioned these principles in the recent past. It should clarify that it has no intentions to use its nuclear forces in a preemptive mode. One Strategic Forces Command official told me that Arihant will only be used for countervalue strikes — that is, retaliatory strikes against Pakistani cities. Such declarations ought to be made at the highest levels of the Indian government. Arihant’s job — and, for that matter, the job of India’s entire nuclear arsenal — is to not create “fearlessness” in the Indian mind, as Modi’s office claimed. Rather, it is to ensure that India’s nuclear adversaries fear the consequences of their actions. A nuclear dialogue with Pakistan should therefore be reopened and shielded from the vagaries of domestic politics.
The nuclear competition between China, India, and Pakistan is a classic case of a triangular security dilemma. As India pursues deterrence stability vis-à-vis one adversary, it makes another adversary feel increasingly vulnerable. In theory, India could arrest this cascade through tailored deterrence: by employing specific nuclear capabilities against each of the two adversaries. In fact, in the conventional domain, India’s military posture towards China and Pakistan has long attempted such balancing. After the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, for instance, India erected 10 mountain divisions to deter the Chinese on the Himalayan frontier, but promised never to employ them on the Pakistani front.
Such tailored deterrence, however, is impossible to achieve in the subcontinent’s nuclear domain. First, compared to conventional forces, developing a variety of nuclear forces is extremely costly, particularly for states with pressing development needs. Second, tailored deterrence is difficult to attain at low numbers of nuclear weapons where the survivability of the arsenal is harder to guarantee. Last, increasing cooperation between China and Pakistan could leave India vulnerable to their combined nuclear might.
Developing robust deterrence against China will continue to drive India’s nuclear trajectory, as it has for years, but Pakistani reactions will make the ride extremely bumpy.
https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/a...e-dilemma-of-indias-undersea-nuclear-weapons/
Editor’s Note: This is the 24th installment of “Southern (Dis)Comfort,” a series from War on the Rocks and the Stimson Center. The series seeks to unpack the dynamics of intensifying competition — military, economic, diplomatic — in Southern Asia, principally between China, India, Pakistan, and the United States. Catch up on the rest of the series.
After INS Arihant, India’s first ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), finished its maiden deterrent patrol in November 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphatically declared India’s nuclear triad complete. Arihant’s operationalization has catapulted India into a select group of states with an underwater nuclear launch capability. It has also raised alarm over the safety and security of India’s nuclear arsenal because a sea-based deterrent may entail a ready-to-use arsenal and less restrictive command and control procedures, increasing probability of their accidental use. For Pakistan, India’s nuclear force modernization endangers the balance of strategic forces in the region and could intensify the nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.
Modi’s triumphalism belies Arihant’s modest capabilities. The submarine does not add substantially to India’s second-strike capability — at least, not yet. Until and unless India deploys an SSBN fleet carrying missiles with intercontinental range, which could take decades, its sea-based deterrent vis-à-vis China will lack credibility. And for deterring Pakistan, India’s air and land-based nuclear arsenal is sufficient.
If triumphalist assertions about Arihant are unwarranted, so, too, are alarmist concerns over the safety and security of India’s underwater nuclear arsenal. India’s Strategic Forces Command has done much more to ensure robust command and control at sea than many commentators acknowledge. India’s sea-based nuclear assets are neither on hair-trigger alert nor are they in the hands of the military. They remain firmly under the control of political decision-makers.
Arihant’s operationalization is an opportunity for New Delhi to reflect upon its nuclear trajectory. With China and Pakistan as nuclear adversaries, India confronts a unique challenge. It has to build up its nuclear capability enough to ensure that Chinese decision-makers fear it, without sending Islamabad into panic and undermining regional stability. This “Goldilocks dilemma” will be difficult to resolve, and India should not leave it to chance — especially as the United States, once South Asia’s chief crisis manager, loses both interest and influence in the region. India should reassure Pakistan by reaffirming its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons and a retaliation-only nuclear doctrine. More importantly, India should rethink its deterrence requirements vis-à-vis China.
Ultimately, the risk is that India will fail to achieve its aim of deterring China while unintentionally provoking its smaller rival. Understanding how India reached this stage in its nuclear trajectory and how it is trying to manage this challenge requires examining the peculiar history of its ballistic missile submarines as well as its robust efforts to enhance civilian control of its nuclear weapons.
Project Samudra and the Burden of History
The peculiar history of India’s long quest for a nuclear submarine leaves a long shadow over Arihant’s capabilities.
India’s nuclear submarine program began in 1966 with feasibility studies on marine nuclear propulsion. Rather than being driven by any military necessity, the program was influenced by considerations of the nuclear establishment’s organizational prestige. As Homi Bhabha, father of India’s nuclear energy program, argued at the time, maritime reactors “could demonstrate India’s impressive capabilities in the field of nuclear energy.” Military justification for the program came much later when, during the 1971 Bangladesh war, the United States sent the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal to support Pakistan. Thereupon, as a conventional fighting platform, nuclear attack submarines attracted the attention of the Indian Navy because they could raise the threshold of superpower intervention in the region. However, the nuclear scientists could not produce a viable marine reactor. In the early 1980s, therefore, the Indian Navy turned to the Soviets for assistance.
In April 1982, the Soviet Union agreed to lease an attack nuclear submarine (SSN) to the Indian Navy and provide technical assistance to India in building its own submarines. This was the beginning of Project Samudra (Project Ocean), which was to include two vessels codenamed S-1 and S-2.
The stated intent was to produce a “cost-effective deterrent against Pakistan’s enlarging military machine,” according to a top-secret report explaining the program that I obtained from a former government official. The larger objective of these acquisitions, however, had little to do with nuclear deterrence — it was directed towards the growing naval presence of the great powers in the Indian Ocean, more focused on conventional operations than nuclear issues. The report stated, “more significantly, such acquisitions would enhance India’s credibility particularly in view of the increasing presence of the outside powers in the Indian Ocean.”
Project S-1 culminated with the loan of a Soviet Charlie-class SSN in 1988. Project S-2 paved the way for the establishment of the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) Directorate, a dedicated research and development agency responsible solely for building an indigenous SSN. The project suffered major delays as India’s nuclear establishment continued to face technological hurdles in producing a viable reactor design. Still, the path was set: India was designing and developing a nuclear attack submarine.
The Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests of 1998 changed the nature of India’s nuclear submarine program. Indian decision-makers were keen to explore avenues that could render their nuclear forces more survivable, including placing nuclear weapons at sea. The first step towards building a sea-based deterrent was to place modified Prithvi missiles on board two Sukanya-class missile boats. The ATV Directorate, however, soon proposed modifying the nuclear attack submarine into a strategic weapon system. The navy was also keen to have its share of the nuclear pie. Thus, soon after the 1998 nuclear tests, India decided to convert what was originally designed as a nuclear attack submarine armed with cruise missiles for conventional naval operations into a strategic weapon system for nuclear delivery. Project S-2 became the first of India’s SSBNs.
Yet this revised mission left the program highly limited in its capabilities. India had started developing a 300-km earth-skimming cruise missile called Sagarika with Russian help in 1991. When India decided to convert the attack submarine into an SSBN, the size of the boat and its missile block was fixed based on the earlier SSN design — meaning only a modest missile with limited range could be retrofitted in. The only option was to replace the Sagarika cruise missiles with ballistic missiles that could carry a one-ton nuclear warhead. Today, the limited range of the K-15, the primary weapon system on Arihant, is the result of these post-hoc technological fixes. Arihant can carry 12 of these 750–1,000-kilometer range missiles, barely sufficient to hit a few major cities in retaliatory strikes against Pakistan, let alone Chinese targets. Its small reactor size also restricts its endurance at sea. In fact, the nuclear reactor onboard Arihant is of vintage Soviet design. Arihant is not Pakistan-specific by design but only by default: Its technological evolution rendered it incapable of anything else.
The burden of history continued to inform the trajectory of India’s SSBN program. To achieve meaningful deterrence vis-à-vis China, India not only needed more SSBNs, but also longer-range missiles that could strike deep inside Chinese territory. In the early 2000s, the Indian government, therefore, sanctioned the ATV Directorate to produce two more SSBNs of the S-1 type and to increase the range of the missiles to 3,500 kilometers. The increase in range entailed a consequent decrease in the number of missiles. The problem, again, was the fixed size of the submarine: Given the immutability of the S-1 design, the long-range missile could only be accommodated by increasing the missile diameter and reducing the total payload. But reduction in nuclear payload meant lesser bang for India’s buck, since it reduced the number of nuclear weapons it could deploy at any given time against China.
When the cabinet of ministers pointed out this problem in 2004, the ATV Directorate decided to include another missile block by increasing the length of the next two boats. Yet in 2006, a major technical review of the program concluded that all five boats proposed so far fell short of a true SSBN force capable of deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could reach all parts of China. It also required a nuclear reactor double the size of previous boats that could endure longer operations at sea. The review committee recommended a new class of boomers with a reactor double the size of previous S-Class boats and capable of launching ballistic missiles in excess of 6,000 kilometers. S-5, as the boat is officially designated, was approved in 2015. This evolution of Project S is symptomatic of mission creep in India’s deterrent requirements, especially as it attempts to achieve deterrence parity with China. The piecemeal expansion of India’s nuclear submarine program severely undermines its deterrent capability. Until India fields an SSBN fleet with ICBM capabilities and improves upon the designs of its nuclear propulsion package, its sea-based deterrent will remain a paper tiger. As Admiral Arun Prakash estimates, it will take India “50-60 years” to field a credible SSBN force.
Arihant’s historical evolution also leaves doubts about its robustness and reliability. There are more than a few rumblings within Indian Navy circles regarding reactor designs based on second-generation Soviet submarines. Arihant’s first deterrent patrol lasted merely 20 days, suggesting endurance issues with its nuclear propulsion package. Finally, the Indian Navy would have to develop very robust infrastructure for training, maintenance, and repair of its SSBN fleet before the sea-based deterrent could be realized. In fact, the fleet has recently suffered from a series of accidents, including the 2017 mishap onboard Arihant. Only extensive operational experience will build the required confidence both in the men and the machine.
Given the twists and turns of its nuclear submarine program, the resulting technological limits, and the underlying problems with Soviet legacy platforms, Arihant’s first deterrent patrol is just a modest beginning in India’s effort to deploy a credible nuclear triad. For the prospective future, its nuclear deterrent will continue to rely on the land- and air-based legs. Indian decision-makers must accept the reality of this modest enterprise. Rather than engaging in premature triumphalism over Arihant, India should take a page from the Chinese playbook to hide its capacities and bide its time.
Operationalizing Deterrence at Sea
Even though Arihant, in its current form, has limited utility against China, its operationalization has nonetheless raised serious questions about how India would deploy its nuclear submarine force, whether this will entail a “ready-to-use” arsenal, and whether India has developed a sufficiently elaborate command and control mechanism to avoid unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. Such alarmist reactions, however, do not fully capture the efforts India’s Strategic Forces Command has made in establishing operational protocols for its SSBNs. The command’s standard operating procedures for the nuclear triad alleviate three major concerns. First, a sea-based deterrent would not engage in conventional operations, nor does it automatically translate into a “ready-to-use” arsenal. Second, custody of India’s nuclear weapons has not necessarily been delegated to the military. Last, India’s political leadership will maintain firm control over nuclear assets.
First, as far as deployment is concerned, India is most likely to follow a bastion strategy rather than putting its SSBNs on constant patrol in open seas. A “bastion” or a “citadel” model entails operating submarines in waters close to home and away from hostile forces. In India’s case, the most suitable geography is in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea, and in the Northern Indian Ocean. The Pakistani Navy has very limited capability to operate in these waters, while India’s overwhelming naval presence through its conventional fleet and anti-submarine warfare operations will be able to create a cordon sanitaire against Chinese submarine activity.
While some fear the nuclear submarines will have a dual (nuclear and conventional) role, my interviews with Indian Strategic Forces Command officials suggest otherwise. The nuclear submarines will remain solely under the operational command of the Strategic Forces Command, which handles nuclear forces, rather than the Navy, (which handles conventional naval forces). A clear division of labor between the two has been codified, reducing the risk that Indian nuclear forces at sea could get entangled in conventional operations.
In fact, Indian SSBNs would not operate alongside the Navy’s conventional fleet as any coordination could lead to the nuclear submarines’ exposure by enemy intercepts of fleet communications.
Relatedly, the operationalization of Arihant does not mean India’s nuclear weapons are now on hair-trigger alert. It is highly unlikely that the submarines will carry a nuclear payload during peacetime. In fact, insofar as India’s SSBN force will not perform constant patrols armed with nuclear weapons at all times, it does not entirely fit the definition of a true triad. India’s operational plans for its nuclear submarines consist of a three-stage process. The first is nuclear alerting, or mechanically mating missile launch tubes with missile canisters armed with nuclear weapons at specialized naval facilities. This would start at the first indications of a crisis situation (Strategic Forces Command defines a crisis not as the start of actual conflict, but any scenario where Indian decision-makers foresee a possibility of military escalation with Pakistan or China). The second stage involves dispersing the submarines on deterrence patrol. It is only after the boats receive political authorization that they will maneuver to predetermined positions to prepare for the eventual launch of nuclear weapons. This strategy does entail a risk of a “bolt from the blue” nuclear strike against India’s major naval bases, but decision-makers are willing to run this risk given the other legs of the nuclear triad and the inherent uncertainty that any first strike would eliminate all its nuclear assets. Since at least 2008, Strategic Forces Command has consistently strived to develop and put into practice such operational plans for India’s SSBN force.
Lastly, India has developed an elaborate command and control apparatus to maintain firm political control over its sea-based nuclear assets. When the submarines encounter a crisis situation, nuclear weapons will be physically mated with ballistic missiles, per the first of the three steps described above. For this reason, India needed positive command-and-control mechanisms to ensure that when authorized a launch will always occur and that unauthorized or accidental launches never occur. Former Strategic Forces Command personnel have told me in interviews that India has developed such mechanisms: Even after nuclear weapons have been mated with missile tubes, the military will not be in command of nuclear weapons. Any ballistic missile launch requires a two-step authorization, in which civilian authority plays a key role. Even in situations where an imminent enemy strike may be about to take out the submarine’s ballistic missiles, civilian authority will remain the sole custodian of India’s sea-based nuclear forces.
These operational procedures would require extensive testing and training, and a robust communications network. Strategic Forces Command has to establish beyond doubt that the controls will work under the fog of war and that decisions will be securely communicated to the submarines’ battle stations. The infrastructure for these communications has grown alongside the SSBN program, but will still take a lot of time to mature and attain operational effectiveness and reliability. These concerns will continue to cloud the readiness of India’s SSBN force.
Thus, Arihant’s operationalization should not lead to a conclusion that its nuclear weapons are now fully mated with delivery systems and that control has shifted to the military, as many alarmists seem to fear. India has strived to ensure complete political control of its nuclear assets at sea, ruling out any unauthorized use.
Indeed, Arihant’s problem is not that it has nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, that it suffers from loose command and control, or that it increases the risks of accidental nuclear use. Rather, Arihant is yet another manifestation of India’s deterrent dilemma between China and Pakistan. As Pakistan responds to India’s sea-based deterrent, it will exacerbate the subcontinent’s nuclear tensions while providing no meaningful change in India’s nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis Beijing in the foreseeable future.
Deterrence Stability and Crisis Stability: The Search for Equilibrium
Against China, India’s objective is to achieve deterrence stability: a true second-strike capability that insulates its nuclear arsenal against the risk of a Chinese first strike. Much of India’s technological force development in the post-1998 period has been motivated by the desire to decrease nuclear asymmetry with China. With Pakistan, the situation is almost the opposite: Pakistan cannot threaten India with nuclear annihilation without getting annihilated in return. Yet Pakistan’s strategy of employing sub-conventional conflict under the shadow of nuclear weapons has rendered Indo-Pakistani relations prone to crisis instability: the danger that a low-level crisis may escalate into an inadvertent use of nuclear weapons.
These factors create a “Goldilocks dilemma” for India: Its attempts to boost deterrence stability with China endanger crisis stability with Pakistan. China’s and Pakistan’s reactions to Arihant’s first deterrent patrol were illustrative of this dynamic. China hardly raised an eyebrow because unless India fields a credible SSBN force capable of launching ICBMs that can strike deep inside Chinese territory, it has nothing to fear. Pakistan, on the other hand, was quick to suggest that Arihant dilutes its nuclear deterrent and that it will opt for “cost-effective options” to maintain strategic stability. As Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry claimed, “no one should be in doubt about Pakistan’s resolve and capabilities to meet the challenges posed by the latest developments both in the nuclear and conventional realms in South Asia.” Recent statements by high-level Indian officials calling for elimination of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons through preemptive use of nuclear and conventional forces have only worsened Islamabad’s nuclear nightmares.
How can India achieve a balance between these two strategic imperatives? Regarding China, India should set some limits on what it considers a credible nuclear deterrent, rather than pursuing open-ended nuclear force development. As Rajesh Basrur has argued, India’s deterrent should not be based solely on establishing a credible response; it should also take into account an adversary’s appetite for risk. A limited capability should be sufficient to deter Beijing. India has exhibited such restraint in the past: After China tested nuclear weapons in 1964, Indian decision-makers were convinced that any Chinese nuclear threat or use against India would risk nuclear retaliation from the great powers and that this “minimal risk” was sufficient to deter Chinese decision-makers. Today, Beijing could facilitate a similar rethinking by accepting India as a nuclear power (the current policy of non-acknowledgment may spur India to continue its buildup in order to be taken more seriously) and initiating nuclear confidence-building measures.
Crisis stability will be harder, because for Pakistan, nuclear weapons provide not only a deterrent, or “shield” against India’s nuclear capability, but also a “sword” that permits it to continue fomenting sub-conventional war on the subcontinent.
To increase stability, India should publicly reaffirm its policy of no first use and adopt a retaliation-only nuclear posture, particularly since prominent voices in India’s strategic community have questioned these principles in the recent past. It should clarify that it has no intentions to use its nuclear forces in a preemptive mode. One Strategic Forces Command official told me that Arihant will only be used for countervalue strikes — that is, retaliatory strikes against Pakistani cities. Such declarations ought to be made at the highest levels of the Indian government. Arihant’s job — and, for that matter, the job of India’s entire nuclear arsenal — is to not create “fearlessness” in the Indian mind, as Modi’s office claimed. Rather, it is to ensure that India’s nuclear adversaries fear the consequences of their actions. A nuclear dialogue with Pakistan should therefore be reopened and shielded from the vagaries of domestic politics.
The nuclear competition between China, India, and Pakistan is a classic case of a triangular security dilemma. As India pursues deterrence stability vis-à-vis one adversary, it makes another adversary feel increasingly vulnerable. In theory, India could arrest this cascade through tailored deterrence: by employing specific nuclear capabilities against each of the two adversaries. In fact, in the conventional domain, India’s military posture towards China and Pakistan has long attempted such balancing. After the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, for instance, India erected 10 mountain divisions to deter the Chinese on the Himalayan frontier, but promised never to employ them on the Pakistani front.
Such tailored deterrence, however, is impossible to achieve in the subcontinent’s nuclear domain. First, compared to conventional forces, developing a variety of nuclear forces is extremely costly, particularly for states with pressing development needs. Second, tailored deterrence is difficult to attain at low numbers of nuclear weapons where the survivability of the arsenal is harder to guarantee. Last, increasing cooperation between China and Pakistan could leave India vulnerable to their combined nuclear might.
Developing robust deterrence against China will continue to drive India’s nuclear trajectory, as it has for years, but Pakistani reactions will make the ride extremely bumpy.
https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/a...e-dilemma-of-indias-undersea-nuclear-weapons/
mayfair
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The author too hard in being a good Gungadeen (he's a JNU product).
Let's see some big holes in his "narrative"
All in all a farticle high on gas and zero on facts. Talks about Arihant powerplant, gives no data. Talks about Soviet subamries and problems, gives no data. No mention of INS Chakra, Arighat and Aridaman.
Not total waste though, Joshiji earned himself a nice fat scholarship and a place at the academic high-table.
Let's see some big holes in his "narrative"
Gives away his agenda quite early in the article
How in earth does a 20 day FIRST patrol suggest "endurance issues"?? Does it not suggest that being a familiarisation patrol, this was to get the crew to understand the system and err on the side of caution?
Now where have we heard this rubbish before...
Hmm setting limits..Now whom will that help??
And this???
Ah yes. If it's "modest" why are your handlers quaking in their boots?
See where this is going? "Open a dialogue"
All in all a farticle high on gas and zero on facts. Talks about Arihant powerplant, gives no data. Talks about Soviet subamries and problems, gives no data. No mention of INS Chakra, Arighat and Aridaman.
Not total waste though, Joshiji earned himself a nice fat scholarship and a place at the academic high-table.
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But is the familiarization not going since the trials? What was the meaning of 20 days mission?
Or was it a media hoax?
mayfair
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The duration of the first mission does not matter, it could be 20 days or 200 days. The bottom line is that this was the first occasion for the system and crew to put their ideas and training into practice. It is natural to keep it manageable at first. Confidence and abilities build up over time.
But Joshiji was quick to link it to endurance issues, without discussing other possibilities.. It fits in with the entire tilt of his article- zero on facts and figures, high on rhetoric and amply jaundiced.
But Joshiji was quick to link it to endurance issues, without discussing other possibilities.. It fits in with the entire tilt of his article- zero on facts and figures, high on rhetoric and amply jaundiced.
Flame Thrower
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Let's not discuss on the ignorance of our reporters....
World does know that Arihant had no issues... China and Paki too know that.
Ignorance of our defense jurnos is well known
sayareakd
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I think news is live nukes on deterrence deep in ocean. Thats what game changer for us and our adverses.
Yes the minute we said deterrence patrol it means we have mated nuclear weapons ready to fire on giving command. Endurance of a nuclear submarine is only related to the needs of its human resources and typically they keep 3 months supplies. the choice of a 20 ,60 or 90 day patrol is the choice of the operational requirement for that patrol..
Defcon 1
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India is Building a Deadly Force of Nuclear-Missile Submarines
On November 4, 2018, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced that the Arihant, the Indian Navy’s first domestically-built nuclear-powered submarine, completed her first deterrence patrol. The Arihant, which means “Slayer of Enemies” in Sanskrit, uses a uranium-fueled pressurized light-water reactor to generate 83-megawatts of electricity, allowing the submarine to swim underwater for months at a time at speeds as high as twenty-four knots.
Even more important than the Arihant’s propulsion system, however, are the weapons presumably stowed in her four vertical launch tubes: up to a dozen K-15 Sagarika (“Oceanic”) nuclear-tipped missiles designed to launch from underwater to annihilate an adversary’s cities and military bases. (Note that the warheads are usually stowed separately from the missiles per Indian doctrine.)
The Arihant is the lead-ship of India’s most expensive defense program ever, valued at $13 billion, with its origins in the secretive Advanced Tactical Vessel program in the 1990s. Indian engineers received substantial Russian assistance designing the Arihant, basing her in part on the Russian Akula-class attack submarine, one of the quietest types operated by the Russian Navy. The Indian Navy’s only other operational nuclear-submarine is the Akula-class Chakra II under lease from Russia through 2022.
However, instead of developing an attack sub for hunting enemy warships and submarines, India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) wanted a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN or “boomer”) to complement India’s land- and air-based nuclear forces . Because nuclear-powered submarines can remain submerged for months at a time and deliver their weapons from underwater, they are considered the asset most likely to survive a nuclear “first strike” by an adversary, guaranteeing an apocalyptic second strike in retaliation.
The Arihant was launched in 2009 but underwent seven years of testing and sea trials before finally being discreetly commissioned in August 2016. However, just four months later, a hatch left open in port caused the 6,500-ton submarine to flood with corrosive saltwater. Because of the bizarre mistake, the Indian Navy was forced to delay deployment for 10 months to replace the submarine’s pipes.
Even with completion of Arihant’s first patrol, however, India’s sea-based nuclear deterrence will require years more of work before it becomes fully credible.
To start with, the Arihant’s ten-meter long K-15 missiles have a range of only around 430 miles, meaning that they cannot strike inland Pakistani targets, including the capital Islamabad. Nor could K-15s hit Chinese cities when launched from the Indian Ocean.
The DRDO has developed a twelve-meter tall K-4 Shaurya SLBM with a range of 2,100 miles that is due to enter service in the early 2020s. Though the Arihant successfully test-fired a K-4 in 2016 , technical problems reportedly scrubbed a later test in 2017.
Once the K-4 enters service, the Arihant will finally be able to serve as deterrence against both Pakistan and China. However, the Arihant, which remains in many respects a testbed, can only carry four K-4s—a fraction of the payload carried by most SSBNs around the world.
The Indian Navy will also need more than one SSBN so that at least a few can rotate on patrols, while others undergo repairs or are used for training. Redundancy is also necessary so that the loss of a single boat—whether to enemy action, accidents at sea, or absent-minded maintenance—doesn’t cripple India’s sea-based deterrence.
Towards this end, India has already launched a second Arihant-class submarine, the Arighat, which is expected to be commissioned between 2019-2021. The Arighat has a more powerful reactor and can carry twice the payload: twenty-four K-15 missiles or eight K-4s.
Additionally, the Indian Navy has already begun construction of two to four more Arihant-class boats of progressively larger configurations—dubbed the S4 and S4*—and carry 3,000-mile-range K-5 missiles. By the mid-2020s, the DRDO then plans to begin construction of four larger and more advanced S5 ballistic missile submarines which displace 15,000 tons and are armed with twelve-sixteen launch tubes that can fire K-6 ballistic missiles. These will have a range of 3,700 miles and separate into multiple independent nuclear warheads (MIRVs) when reentering the atmosphere.
The DRDO also intends to apply experience developing the Arihant towards building six Chakra-III nuclear-powered attack submarines. Reportedly, New Delhi’s decision to pursue the 60,000 crore ($8.4 billion) program was prompted by the 2013 patrol of a Chinese Shang-class nuclear submarine in the Indian Ocean. With a speed of thirty knots and indefinite underwater endurance, the Shang-class could potentially hunt down the slower Arihant-class, which has torpedoes for self-defense but is not optimized for such a fight.
However, devising more powerful nuclear reactors remains a stumbling block impeding development of both the S5 SSBN and Chakra III. The former reportedly may require a 190-MW reactor.
By 2022, the Indian Navy will complete a nuclear submarine base called INS Varsha, located on the central-eastern coast of India, southwest of the shipyard at Visakhapatnam. Theoretically, India’s boomers will depart from there on long, quiet patrols within the “bastion” of the eastern Indian Ocean, with friendly air and naval forces close at hand to ward away hostile sub-hunters. The submerged subs would only launch their doomsday weapons upon receiving orders transmitted via extremely-high-frequency radio from a national command authority.
Despite the many milestones ahead for India to bring its SSBN force to maturity, the Indian Navy may possess the missiles and boats to maintain credible submarine nuclear-deterrence by the mid-2020s.
Does this make the world a more dangerous place? India, China and Pakistan between them have a population of 2.92 billion people—nearly 39 percent of all human beings on the planet. A nuclear conflict could easily claim tens, or hundreds of millions of lives.
Fortunately, despite long-running tensions over their Himalayan borders, New Delhi and Beijing both maintain a No-First-Use policy. This means their militaries are authorized only employ their nuclear arsenals in retaliation for an adversary’s nuclear strike. If both states stick to that policy, neither will deploy nuclear weapons against the other.
Of course, adherence to principle is hardly guaranteed in an anarchic international system, particularly if a country believes it is facing an existential threat. Nonetheless, the No-First-Use doctrine profoundly impacts how India and China’s nuclear forces are equipped, trained and organized—as well as how their respective governments signal to each other internationally.
Pakistan, which is allied with China, is a destabilizing factor: it has dispersed dozens of lower-yield tactical nuclear weapons to its forward military units, and claims it is willing to employ them in response to a non-nuclear attack. Unfortunately, simulations suggested that tactical nuclear attacks on battlefield targets are likely to initiate a tit-for-tat exchanges escalating to horrifying strategic attacks targeting enemy populations. Pakistan is also developing a submarine-based nuclear deterrent using simpler diesel electric submarine that can launch nuclear-tipped Babar cruise missiles .
As China is also developing a nuclear-capable stealth bomber , the world’s two most populous nations will soon likely boast full nuclear deterrence triads on air, sea, and land. Hopefully, the destructiveness of those capabilities will serve to make resorting to nuclear arms an even more unattractive option for resolving disputes, because the outcome of a regional nuclear exchange is horrifying to contemplate.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/india-building-deadly-force-nuclear-missile-submarines-42532
On November 4, 2018, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced that the Arihant, the Indian Navy’s first domestically-built nuclear-powered submarine, completed her first deterrence patrol. The Arihant, which means “Slayer of Enemies” in Sanskrit, uses a uranium-fueled pressurized light-water reactor to generate 83-megawatts of electricity, allowing the submarine to swim underwater for months at a time at speeds as high as twenty-four knots.
Even more important than the Arihant’s propulsion system, however, are the weapons presumably stowed in her four vertical launch tubes: up to a dozen K-15 Sagarika (“Oceanic”) nuclear-tipped missiles designed to launch from underwater to annihilate an adversary’s cities and military bases. (Note that the warheads are usually stowed separately from the missiles per Indian doctrine.)
The Arihant is the lead-ship of India’s most expensive defense program ever, valued at $13 billion, with its origins in the secretive Advanced Tactical Vessel program in the 1990s. Indian engineers received substantial Russian assistance designing the Arihant, basing her in part on the Russian Akula-class attack submarine, one of the quietest types operated by the Russian Navy. The Indian Navy’s only other operational nuclear-submarine is the Akula-class Chakra II under lease from Russia through 2022.
However, instead of developing an attack sub for hunting enemy warships and submarines, India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) wanted a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN or “boomer”) to complement India’s land- and air-based nuclear forces . Because nuclear-powered submarines can remain submerged for months at a time and deliver their weapons from underwater, they are considered the asset most likely to survive a nuclear “first strike” by an adversary, guaranteeing an apocalyptic second strike in retaliation.
The Arihant was launched in 2009 but underwent seven years of testing and sea trials before finally being discreetly commissioned in August 2016. However, just four months later, a hatch left open in port caused the 6,500-ton submarine to flood with corrosive saltwater. Because of the bizarre mistake, the Indian Navy was forced to delay deployment for 10 months to replace the submarine’s pipes.
Even with completion of Arihant’s first patrol, however, India’s sea-based nuclear deterrence will require years more of work before it becomes fully credible.
To start with, the Arihant’s ten-meter long K-15 missiles have a range of only around 430 miles, meaning that they cannot strike inland Pakistani targets, including the capital Islamabad. Nor could K-15s hit Chinese cities when launched from the Indian Ocean.
The DRDO has developed a twelve-meter tall K-4 Shaurya SLBM with a range of 2,100 miles that is due to enter service in the early 2020s. Though the Arihant successfully test-fired a K-4 in 2016 , technical problems reportedly scrubbed a later test in 2017.
Once the K-4 enters service, the Arihant will finally be able to serve as deterrence against both Pakistan and China. However, the Arihant, which remains in many respects a testbed, can only carry four K-4s—a fraction of the payload carried by most SSBNs around the world.
The Indian Navy will also need more than one SSBN so that at least a few can rotate on patrols, while others undergo repairs or are used for training. Redundancy is also necessary so that the loss of a single boat—whether to enemy action, accidents at sea, or absent-minded maintenance—doesn’t cripple India’s sea-based deterrence.
Towards this end, India has already launched a second Arihant-class submarine, the Arighat, which is expected to be commissioned between 2019-2021. The Arighat has a more powerful reactor and can carry twice the payload: twenty-four K-15 missiles or eight K-4s.
Additionally, the Indian Navy has already begun construction of two to four more Arihant-class boats of progressively larger configurations—dubbed the S4 and S4*—and carry 3,000-mile-range K-5 missiles. By the mid-2020s, the DRDO then plans to begin construction of four larger and more advanced S5 ballistic missile submarines which displace 15,000 tons and are armed with twelve-sixteen launch tubes that can fire K-6 ballistic missiles. These will have a range of 3,700 miles and separate into multiple independent nuclear warheads (MIRVs) when reentering the atmosphere.
The DRDO also intends to apply experience developing the Arihant towards building six Chakra-III nuclear-powered attack submarines. Reportedly, New Delhi’s decision to pursue the 60,000 crore ($8.4 billion) program was prompted by the 2013 patrol of a Chinese Shang-class nuclear submarine in the Indian Ocean. With a speed of thirty knots and indefinite underwater endurance, the Shang-class could potentially hunt down the slower Arihant-class, which has torpedoes for self-defense but is not optimized for such a fight.
However, devising more powerful nuclear reactors remains a stumbling block impeding development of both the S5 SSBN and Chakra III. The former reportedly may require a 190-MW reactor.
By 2022, the Indian Navy will complete a nuclear submarine base called INS Varsha, located on the central-eastern coast of India, southwest of the shipyard at Visakhapatnam. Theoretically, India’s boomers will depart from there on long, quiet patrols within the “bastion” of the eastern Indian Ocean, with friendly air and naval forces close at hand to ward away hostile sub-hunters. The submerged subs would only launch their doomsday weapons upon receiving orders transmitted via extremely-high-frequency radio from a national command authority.
Despite the many milestones ahead for India to bring its SSBN force to maturity, the Indian Navy may possess the missiles and boats to maintain credible submarine nuclear-deterrence by the mid-2020s.
Does this make the world a more dangerous place? India, China and Pakistan between them have a population of 2.92 billion people—nearly 39 percent of all human beings on the planet. A nuclear conflict could easily claim tens, or hundreds of millions of lives.
Fortunately, despite long-running tensions over their Himalayan borders, New Delhi and Beijing both maintain a No-First-Use policy. This means their militaries are authorized only employ their nuclear arsenals in retaliation for an adversary’s nuclear strike. If both states stick to that policy, neither will deploy nuclear weapons against the other.
Of course, adherence to principle is hardly guaranteed in an anarchic international system, particularly if a country believes it is facing an existential threat. Nonetheless, the No-First-Use doctrine profoundly impacts how India and China’s nuclear forces are equipped, trained and organized—as well as how their respective governments signal to each other internationally.
Pakistan, which is allied with China, is a destabilizing factor: it has dispersed dozens of lower-yield tactical nuclear weapons to its forward military units, and claims it is willing to employ them in response to a non-nuclear attack. Unfortunately, simulations suggested that tactical nuclear attacks on battlefield targets are likely to initiate a tit-for-tat exchanges escalating to horrifying strategic attacks targeting enemy populations. Pakistan is also developing a submarine-based nuclear deterrent using simpler diesel electric submarine that can launch nuclear-tipped Babar cruise missiles .
As China is also developing a nuclear-capable stealth bomber , the world’s two most populous nations will soon likely boast full nuclear deterrence triads on air, sea, and land. Hopefully, the destructiveness of those capabilities will serve to make resorting to nuclear arms an even more unattractive option for resolving disputes, because the outcome of a regional nuclear exchange is horrifying to contemplate.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/india-building-deadly-force-nuclear-missile-submarines-42532
ramdas hegde
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Forgot to see second Submarine INS Arighat??
lcafanboy
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HuJu forgot. Did you people noticed missile hatch is open in ins Arihant, maybe just for reloading after testing k4...
sayareakd
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Posted itHuJu forgot. Did you people noticed missile hatch is open in ins Arihant, maybe just for reloading after testing k4...
Posted it about a month back. Here K4 pic in clear view, with help of image editing tools. Single missile.
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Sir which image editing tool you used.
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