Nothing is ever certain in Indian defence procurement. But sense most definitely appears to have prevailed with the Indian Government all set to sign up for 3 more Scorpene-class (Kalvari-class in India) submarines that will be built at a production line in Mumbai. The line, which has built six submarines so far, has been anxiously idle since 2022 when the last of those six, Vagsheer, was dropped into the sea. Vagsheer, currently in pre-delivery trials with the Indian Navy, will be commissioned into service in the next few weeks.
The eminent sense of getting the Mumbai production line — built at exhorbitant cost and energy typical of such an enterprise — to simply churn out more specimens of the Scorpene to battle India’s modest (and dwindling) submarine force levels may have seemed obvious. But the fact that India is set to top-up its order well after the last submarine from the line has floated out to sea shows just how touch-and-go things can be in Indian defence. The production line began cooling down in 2022, and has effectively spent the last two years turning luke warm and wondering if it’s going to get fresh production contracts. Sense, as we said, has prevailed.
To be sure, French firm Naval Group (it was called DCNS when the Scorpene deal was signed in 2007) has pitched the idea of India building additional Scorpenes at the Mumbai production line since at least 2013. At the time it had proposed supplying two Scorpene submarines off the shelf to the Indian Navy, and concluding a deal on options for three more that could be built at the production line. The two foreign supplied boats, it was proposed, would arrive around the time the Indian Navy inducted its first India-built Scorpene in 2017. As it happened, India declined the foreign supply offer and deferred a decision on adding numbers to its local production facility.
Better late than never usually applies, but in Indian defence procurement, ‘late’ almost always means that a culture of procrastination is normalised, with the government-military complex happy to make piecemeal procurements for the most near-term of force level considerations. With submarines, the Indian Navy has had an especially turbulent ride. In fact, the decade we’re in is frequently and ruefully referred to as the ‘Lost Decade’ by planners, to commemorate the tiny fraction of submarines entering service this decade compared to the number that the navy’s submarine modernisation plan had envisaged some decades ago.
Anxieties over the Scorpene line in Mumbai wasting away and being wound up are not even remotely far-fetched. Lukewarm submarine production lines in India turning stone cold are all to real in the Indian Navy’s shipbuilding history. Of the four German HDW (now Thyssenkrupp) Type 209 (Shishumar class) submarines in service, two were built at the sprawling production line, incidentally also at Mazagon Docks Ltd (MDL) in Mumbai. But in the wake of a political scandal over kickbacks, the line didn’t produce any more submarines. It sank, as it were, without a trace. The ‘scam’ itself turned out to be more hot air than substance, but it was too late. When you shut a submarine production line, you shut it.
The Indian Navy’s quest for another submarine line is also making progress under Project 75 (India), where the government will choose between a partnership of Spanish shipbuilder Navantia in a partnership with Indian private sector giant L&T, and German shipbuilders Thyssenkrupp in a partnership with MDL. The Spanish S80 submarine will compete with the German Type 214. The new generation submarines will, at the very minimum, need to demonstrate AIP capabilities and levels of stealth. The troubled and delayed P75I has shapeshifted for over a decade now to now be a European two-horse race. Once considered to be a shoo-in for the Russian Amur 1650, the latter has since dropped off the table.
News of the additional Scorpene orders tops off an unusually decent year for the Indian Navy’s submarine arm. India’s long-anticipated program to build homegrown nuclear powered attack submarines (SSNs) has been formally flagged off. Indian Navy chief Admiral DK Tripathi told a press conference today that the boats would come on line by 2036-37, with plans to build at least six. Separately as part of India’s strategic program, the second SSBN INS Arighaat entered service in August, with the next boat to follow next year.