Not everything is hunky-dory with the newly-acquired MiG-29K fighter planes on board the second-hand Russian carrier, as revealed by the Comptroller and Auditor General in July. The retirement of INS Viraat has left India with just one aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya. The missile should have been delivered in 2012 but was test-fired for the first time last December. “Three of our warships have the LR-SAM but we need 13 more sets for new platforms,” the sources said. Navy sources said delay in placing orders for the long-range surface to air missile (LR-SAM), co-developed by India and Israel under a Rs 2,606-crore project, had upset the calculations of maritime planners. The navy needs a mix of 242 helicopters for different roles. If one deal is stuck at the contract negotiating stage, the tender for another has been withdrawn,” the officials said. “The majority of our 139 warships are without choppers. The helicopter fleet is another headache as there’s no indication when the navy will get new choppers. Older German SUT torpedoes will be used for upcoming trials. India imposed a partial ban on Finmeccanica two years ago. Just like the naval gun deal, a proposal to equip the submarines with Black Shark torpedoes is stuck as the weapon was to be supplied by Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei, again a Finmeccanica subsidiary. Comparatively, China’s sub-sea warfare capability is superior – it operates 53 diesel-electric attack submarines, five nuclear attack submarines and four nuclear ballistic missile submarines.Īlso, the navy is unsure about which torpedoes will arm the Scorpenes, the officials said.
The first of the six Scorpene submarines being built under licence from French firm DCNS was to be inducted in 2012 but will now join the fleet only next year, thanks to problems relating to transfer of technology.Įfforts to build six more next-generation submarines have not taken off. “The deeper malaise of obsolescence has afflicted the military for over a decade, and the situation hasn’t changed in the last two-plus years,” said Commodore C Uday Bhaskar (retd), director, Society for Policy Studies. The navy operates 13 ageing conventional submarines and an Akula-II nuclear-powered attack boat leased from Russia, but not all are battle ready at any given moment. Even before the leak, India’s underwater capabilities were a cause for concern, the officials said. Already grappling with diminished fighting capability, it is struggling to assess the impact of the data leak. The August revelations about the secret capabilities of Scorpene submarines being built in India couldn’t have come at a worse time for the navy. He said the force was working on “mitigating capability gaps” but it would take time as “complex acquisition programmes” were involved. “There have been some delays but it’s not as if things are not moving,” said navy spokesman Captain DK Sharma.
Hurdles faced by projects include technology transfer, partial ban on vendors, a fund crunch, as well as delays caused due to some of them being re-launched under the Make in India plan. Besides being dogged by capability gaps in its submarine fleet, navy officials said other worries include ship-borne utility helicopters, multi-role choppers for anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare, weapons, maritime fighters and minesweepers.įormer navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash (retd) said, “Lack of decision making is a major flaw and that coupled with frequent corruption charges is creating voids in India’s military capabilities.” “The deck design is modelled on the Oto Melara 127 mm gun specifications,” he said. Italian company Oto Melara was short-listed to supply the guns but the project has been in limbo following corruption allegations against its parent firm Finmeccanica in the VVIP chopper deal, he said.īritish, Korean and Israeli firms could provide an alternative but floating a new tender would delay the project by several years. The point he is trying to make is that no decision has been taken on guns to be fitted on 12 major warships being built in the country. “Do we build a spa there?” asked a senior navy officer, pointing towards the empty bow gun deck on the pencil drawing of an Indian destroyer.
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