Possible SSGN for Indian Navy

[Lost user]

The real question is: how your submarine can see a hostile fleet incoming in a hostile area?

Detecting, tracking the hostile fleet and providing the terminal navigation, all need a massive and complicated network which itself is very vulnerable. In the case of Russia and China, both of them are putting the majority of the network on their coast.

You have drones, satellites and surveillance aircraft like dornier, tracking the hostile fleet, providing precise co-ordinantes.. A SSGN can fire a volley of 1000 km range cruise missiles, from a safe 500 km distance, from the enemy fleet and slink away. Also the cruise missiles could take a detour to further mask the direction from which the missiles were launched..

 

[FalconSlayers]

You have drones, satellites and surveillance aircraft like dornier, tracking the hostile fleet, providing precise co-ordinantes.. A SSGN can fire a volley of 1000 km range cruise missiles, from a safe 500 km distance, from the enemy fleet and slink away. Also the cruise missiles could take a detour to further mask the direction from which the missiles were launched..

Even a satellite can easily detect a huge naval formation.

 

[Lost user]

Even a satellite can easily detect a huge naval formation.

Detect yes.. but accurate tracking, so as to target the fleet would have to be done by other assets like surveillance drones, aircraft

 

[FalconSlayers]

Detect yes.. but accurate tracking, so as to target the fleet would have to be done by other assets like surveillance drones, aircraft

Once detected can be enough for our passive sensors and radars at A&N Islands.

 

[no smoking]

You have drones, satellites and surveillance aircraft like dornier, tracking the hostile fleet, providing precise co-ordinantes.. A SSGN can fire a volley of 1000 km range cruise missiles, from a safe 500 km distance, from the enemy fleet and slink away. Also the cruise missiles could take a detour to further mask the direction from which the missiles were launched..

The problem is how are you going to protect your drones and survelliance aircrafts in the area which is closing to the hostile fleet. Don't you think that enemy's jet will keep cleaning its surrounding area?

As I said, Russian and Chinese are expecting to do the anti-ship work in the area near their coasts. They can send as many drones and aircrafts as they want from the land bases along with escort. And they can quickly send more to repair the survelliance network too.

In the middle of ocean, the story is different. Your surveillance aircrafts are limited and those destroyed can't be replaced quick enough.

 

[Lost user]

The problem is how are you going to protect your drones and survelliance aircrafts in the area which is closing to the hostile fleet. Don't you think that enemy's jet will keep cleaning its surrounding area?

As I said, Russian and Chinese are expecting to do the anti-ship work in the area near their coasts. They can send as many drones and aircrafts as they want from the land bases along with escort. And they can quickly send more to repair the survelliance network too.

In the middle of ocean, the story is different. Your surveillance aircrafts are limited and those destroyed can't be replaced quick enough.

The Chinese/ Russian navy will have to come via The Malacca and the Sunda straits. These are closer to our home bases in the Andaman.. so India will be able to maintain the necessary kill chains..

 

[no smoking]

The Chinese/ Russian navy will have to come via The Malacca and the Sunda straits. These are closer to our home bases in the Andaman.. so India will be able to maintain the necessary kill chains..

Well, if you are assume your anti-ship battle is going to happen closing to your coast or your island, you don't need SSGN. The flying platform with anti-ship missiles will give your much more battle efficiency and cost efficiency.

 

[Gessler]

If you use the Arihant class for SSGN, it won't be able to keep up with a surface fleet. An SSN with VLS is much better for this.

Any SSGN outside the air defence cover of surface ships would be toast the minute it is located. Do you have any tactics that can be employed to offset this disadvantage?

There is no submarine submarine class in the world that can keep up with a fast-steaming surface fleet (above 25 kts) without cavitating badly & setting off every hydrophone & sonar in the region. Thereby defeating the submarine's one true asset - surprise factor. Might as well use a ship to attack land targets in that case.

The advantage of SSGNs is that they can silently position themselves off the coast of the enemy by travelling at silent speeds of ~10 kts, and ripple fire their load of LACMs, giving themselves the maximum surprise factor & giving the enemy the least amount of time to detect & prepare defences.

When using a surface flotilla to escort & provide air covert for the sub (besides trying to mask its signature among so many surface contacts), the flotilla is obviously not gonna do anything to force the sub to cavitate (travel very fast) and give itself away. They'll travel slow to allow the sub to stay hidden.

The problem of 'keeping up' with surface ships emerges when you're trying to use the sub to hunt down enemy surface contacts. That's not what we're trying to do here.

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

There is no submarine submarine class in the world that can keep up with a fast-steaming surface fleet (above 25 kts) without cavitating badly & setting off every hydrophone & sonar in the region. Thereby defeating the submarine's one true asset - surprise factor. Might as well use a ship to attack land targets in that case.

The advantage of SSGNs is that they can silently position themselves off the coast of the enemy by travelling at silent speeds of ~10 kts, and ripple fire their load of LACMs, giving themselves the maximum surprise factor & giving the enemy the least amount of time to detect & prepare defences.

When using a surface flotilla to escort & provide air covert for the sub (besides trying to mask its signature among so many surface contacts), the flotilla is obviously not gonna do anything to force the sub to cavitate (travel very fast) and give itself away. They'll travel slow to allow the sub to stay hidden.

The problem of 'keeping up' with surface ships emerges when you're trying to use the sub to hunt down enemy surface contacts. That's not what we're trying to do here.

In that case, I don't see the need for SSGN at all, in India's case. Why would Indian Navy need the capability to attack so many land targets? Maybe to bomb the heck out of Karachi and bypass any missile defences Pakis might have if we try to do the same from land based launchers from Gujarat? But do Pakistanis have missile defences of significant enough capability to necessitate an Indian SSGN? And even if they did, attacking Karachi can be achieved by warships too, right? SSGN are expensive platforms. We need to buy them only if that capability is indispensable.

Another question: If the SSGN are meant to be stealthily deployed off the coast of the enemy, what happens the minute that SSGN fires a volley? Won't the enemy pounce on the general area of that submarine with every available ASW asset? Its not like the SSGN can just scoot after the shoot can it?

 

[Gessler]

In that case, I don't see the need for SSGN at all, in India's case. Why would Indian Navy need the capability to attack so many land targets?

Payloads over platforms.

If you have a VLU that can launch Nirbhays against land targets, it can also be used to launch BrahMos NGs against ships. Plus Nirbhays with SAR seekers (much like Block-4 Tomahawk) can attack moving targets as well i.e. ships.

Maybe to bomb the heck out of Karachi and bypass any missile defences Pakis might have if we try to do the same from land based launchers from Gujarat?

And even if they did, attacking Karachi can be achieved by warships too, right?

It just goes back to the survivability of the force. A missile battery sitting in Gujarat is not immune to pre-emptive or counterattack by Pakistani forces. A submarine, relatively speaking, is.

But do Pakistanis have missile defences of significant enough capability to necessitate an Indian SSGN?

You don't build these things based on how threat perceptions are now, you build them based on assessment of future - we're talking about 2030s and 2040s here. The threat of Chinese amphibious invasion of A&N will be very real by that time. Any effort to retake the islands will be moot without massed cruise missile strikes on entrenched Chinese positions.

Plus we could have an increasing role in Middle East. Being a Top 3 economy and with declining US the responsibility will at least partly be on our shoulders to defend allies like Israel & increasingly KSA & UAE from Iranian & Turkish aggression, either directly or via proxies.

Look at the role played by Russian sub-launched Kalibrs in Syrian conflict. ISIS doesn't have ASW assets so a diesel sub was sufficient - but against likes of Turkey?

Pakistani coastal infrastructure (Karachi, Gwadar Chinese naval presence, etc.) will only be a small part of the puzzle.

Another question: If the SSGN are meant to be stealthily deployed off the coast of the enemy, what happens the minute that SSGN fires a volley? Won't the enemy pounce on the general area of that submarine with every available ASW asset? Its not like the SSGN can just scoot after the shoot can it?

Why not? A nuclear-powered sub is just the right kind of platform to shoot & scoot. Unless the enemy has assets directly on top of the sub at that time, there's no way an enemy asset reaching the supposed spot even 10 mins later has a hope in hell of finding the SSGN which has dived deep & moved away at a constant speed.

You can't do that with any other platform. Not with ships, not with diesel subs.

 

[Lonewolf]

Furst question , how good are our reactor compared to world standard .

Can we have a improved reactor for arihant class with somewhat higher power say 100mw , now instead of ssn which have fixed size vls for single missile generally , why don't we go for big vls with multi missile cannister fitted in a big vls like american ssgn , there we can fit our brahmos or lrlacm or brahmos 2 or hstdv based missile or lfrj based indigenous missile in it , with varying number of missile in vls .

This can be a formidable platform like the seeker on hypersonic and supersonic missile send back data on how much damage our preliminary stike has caused , if enemy AD are neutralized we can fire salvo of subsonic cheap missile and destroy a full port for say karachi port , considering we are mtcr signatory so our brahmos 2 and hstdv will have range in 1000km + , then we can destroy their whole fleet anchored and all their support equipment , our expenditure of say 20 million of missile will cause loss of hundreds of million or even a billion to them . It can serve as a major threat to enemy .

 

[FalconSlayers]

In that case, I don't see the need for SSGN at all, in India's case. Why would Indian Navy need the capability to attack so many land targets? Maybe to bomb the heck out of Karachi and bypass any missile defences Pakis might have if we try to do the same from land based launchers from Gujarat? But do Pakistanis have missile defences of significant enough capability to necessitate an Indian SSGN? And even if they did, attacking Karachi can be achieved by warships too, right? SSGN are expensive platforms. We need to buy them only if that capability is indispensable.

Another question: If the SSGN are meant to be stealthily deployed off the coast of the enemy, what happens the minute that SSGN fires a volley? Won't the enemy pounce on the general area of that submarine with every available ASW asset? Its not like the SSGN can just scoot after the shoot can it?

PLAN already has the world’s largest Navy and is already trying to infiltrate into our Andaman and Nicobar Islands, it is the Indian Navy that doesn’t fry those Chinese assets with Anti Ship Cruise Missiles.

Having an SSGN armed with BrahMos NG like small high range supersonic cruise missiles will be a nightmare for the enemy, an SSGN has the capability to wipe out a whole carrier battle group in a single salvo. So you need atleast 3 SSGNs, 1 for Porkis, 1 for Crynese and the third as auxiliary.

By 2030s their economy will be far larger than US Economy and their naval size might become 1.25 times the size of US Navy by then considering their advantages in low cost production due to lesser labour cost compared to USA and the fact that their ship building industry is the most advanced in the world, they build ships very quickly and they’ll already have the largest economy in the world overtaking USA. So you can imagine the threat to the world caused by their navy alone especially to USA and India as China’s primary opponents are QUAD nations due to our economic might and proximity and adverse relations and disputes. They are spending money mostly on Navy. So in an event of war an SSGN will be the biggest deterrent to PLAN not Porkistan Navy as Porkis don’t have a significant navy. US Navy has SSGNs and it may don’t get all the hype which SSKs or SSBNs get but is by far among the most effective deterrents which USA Has against her enemies.

So you’ll need SSGNs for atleast Anti-ship role.