Saturday 31 May 2014

Shang class submarine on patrol in Indian ocean, where are our subs???

China had informed the Indian MEA that one of their nuclear powered attack sub would be entering Indian ocean and would patrol it for two months starting from December 13,2013 to February 12,2014.

It was the "shang" class sub other wise known as Type 093.

Indian intelligence RA&W in one of its report has clearly predicted a carrier battle group being deployed in Indian ocean in the next 3-4 years.

This will be done to demonstrate China's capability to protects its interest in Africa and west asia.It may seem as a muscle flexing move by Chinese to force countries on the Indian Ocean to bow to its will.

While this was going on guess what was Indian Navy doing? Yes you guessed it , we were waiting for the appointment of the next navy chief.

The navy that considers Indian Ocean as its own backyard is suddenly faced with a submarine with land-attack as well as anti-ship cruise missiles. China already has two of these and reportedly building 4 more.

Indian navy now has only 10 old fashioned kilo class subs and 4 german shishumar class. Added to this is one Akula class sub on lease from Russia.MoD is still not ready to build 4 SSN's to escort our SSBN and go on patrol with our Aircraft Carrier.

The SHANG's range and weaponry will give the PLA its first non-nuclear global strike capability. As with the Song SSK, the new submarine incorporates advanced quieting with a hydrodynamically efficient hull form, a single shaft and a highly skewed 7-bladed propeller.
The submarine is equipped with torpedoes, antisubmarine warfare missiles, and a submarine-launched antiship cruise missile, possibly a follow-on to the C801, as well as the projected Land Attack Cruise Missile. Despite the early rumors that the Type 093 was based on the design of the Russian Victor III class nuclear attack submarine, it appears that the two submarines bear no resemblance in appearance. However, it cannot be ruled out that Russian technologies were being incorporated into the Type 093's design.
While there is no direct indication of Russian technology transfer to China connected with this program, Beijing's next-generation nuclear submarine programs reflect Russian influence.China's new indigenously produced nuclear attack submarine, the SHANG class, benefits greatly from Russian technology and design - it is armed with both ASCMs and LACMs. The Type 093 is estimated to be 6,000~7,000t displacement when dived, significantly larger than the 4,100 -4,500tons (surfaced) and 4,500-5,500 (dived) displacement of the earlier Type 091 Han class.
As revealed by the submarine model and Modern Ships photograph, the submarine features a water-drop shape hull, with a pair of fin-mounted hydroplanes and four diving planes. The submarine is fitted with sophisticated sonar systems, including bow-mounted sonar and H/SQC-207 flank-mounted sonar. Three flank-mounted sonar arrays are clearly visible on the hull of the submarine.
 The Type 093 submarine has six 533mm bow torpedo tubes (4 above, 2 below), and is presumed to be equipped with a range of anti-submarine and anti-surface vessel torpedoes of wire-, acoustic- and wake-homing, based on both Chinese and Russian designs. The torpedo tubes can also be used to launch Chinese indigenous YJ-82 anti-ship missiles. Some reports suggested the capability of launching land-attack cruise missiles (LACM), but this cannot be confirmed.
Read the complete article here

Higher FDI In Defense a master stroke or a lame duck initiative?


Unfortunately, unless new investments are made in R&D, modern factories, personnel Indian defense industry is going to stagnate.
Till now India has not been able to attract any FDI in our defense sector as told by Anthony to the Parliament.
We do not have the modern technology to make everything in India.
Lets take the case of Arihant, we could not have built the nuclear reactor in the next 50 years, it was the Russians who stepped in and gave us the technology to do so.
Next are the destroyers we are building, actually the word should be assembling, none of the high end components being put in those destroyer are Indian.
Then comes the case of Arjun, again we have bought 50 equipments from 50 different sources and assembled it thus the quality is so "ify".
Now why is no money flowing into FDI or the private sector not bothering to  come in a big way.
PROFIT........ As civilians we look at the finished product but the case is drastically different for the three services, after we buy a Mirage2000, every time it fly's a small part inside that huge body either finishes its life term or is about to, where do we get these parts from????
1) Cannibalize our own Mirage200 to have at least one in the air.
2) Ask France to give it, If france has stopped the assembly line it will just say sorry.
3) Look for other countries who have spare parts, if we find some, they will try to cheat us by selling old spare parts or asking 100rs for 1rs product.
4) Build our own!!!!!!!
4th point is where privates sector comes in.
So IAF needs 10000 of these small parts for the next 5 years.
Fine, a private player with the help from the french sets up a factory to build these parts, it supplies 10,000 parts to the IAF within one or two years, now what??????
What happens to the factory????The equipments??? The workers???? The Investment????

This is the huge bottleneck in our Private/FDI policy.

Just imagine if the French move their production of some high end lethal weapon to India and after 500-1000 unit we say ok now stop production because we will not allow you to sell these items to anybody else. You can imagine the four letter word French will throw at us.

Thus no FDI or privatization policy will work unless we can assure profits to the private sector.

These views have been formulated after talking to a Gen(retd), Air Marshal(retd) so this is the situation on the ground.
Given below is an excellent article written by Maj Gen Mrinal Suman
fdi in defence dispelling the myths

Government wants to raise FDI in defense
NEW DELHI: The department of industrial policy & promotion (DIPP) has prepared a draft Cabinet note that proposes to allow up to 100 per cent foreign direct investment in defence as part of its plan to boost domestic manufacturing. The move comes two days after Nirmala Sitharaman took charge as the new commerce & industry minister. Defence Minister Arun Jaitley had indicated on Tuesday after taking charge of the ministry that he would consider the issue of FDI in the sector.

Friday 30 May 2014

Extended Range Pinaka Mark II Tested Successfully

The extended version of the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket system was tested successfully in Odisha.

The original system which saw action during Kargil war and was instrumental in flattening enemy positions had a range of 39-40km. This version has a range of around 60-65km.
This system can fire a salvo of 12 HE rockets weighing 1.2 tonnes in 44 seconds, neutralizing a target area of 3.9 km2. The system is mounted on a Tatra truck for mobility.

PXE Director R Appavu Raj confirmed that all three tests were successful meeting the mission objectives. “The rockets travelled nearly 61 km as coordinated thus proving the efficiency and capability of the system. The tracking radars have monitored the movements of the rockets till the point of impact,”





This a home grown solution capable of taking out enemy bunkers due to the different kind of warheads it can carry.
Warheads:
  • Fragmentation high explosive
  • Incendiary
  • Anti-Tank and Anti-Personnel minelettes
  • Anti-Tank bomblettes



Thursday 29 May 2014

Russians want to place three GLONASS ground stations in India

It has been in the making for quite a few years but now senior Roscosmos official confirmed that they would like to outsource GLONASS navigation equipment manufacturing to India.

It is believed that the countries may start the process in earnest after a visit from a Russian team in June or July.More information could be found at the page inside the frame.
Things are moving in a direction where India may sign an agreement with the Russians for the deployment of three GLONASS stations here. This was confirmed to some newspapers by  Sergey Savelyev, deputy head of Roscosmos.

Unknown to us is the fact that we have been using Russian tech for some time now. Not only civilian applications like IPhone4 but India Army uses these signals too. Some of the satellites for this network has been launched from India. Many big chip set manufacturer in India utilize this technology some of them are  Qualcomm, Broadcom, STMicroelectronics.

“We would like to place our own GLONASS ground stations here, as well as jointly produce user equipment and work together on the implementation of technologies such as the ERA-GLONASS. It would be interesting to create a joint venture in India,” Savelyev said.

Some of the related news articles could be found here

India strikes deal with Russia on Glonass
SANDEEP DIKSHIT 
Now, it can get precision signals from Russian constellation of satellites
A day before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here last weekend for his annual summit with the Russian leadership, an Indian defence team of scientists and defence brass returned to Delhi after inking an agreement for receiving precision signals from Glonass, Russian constellation of satellites. 

These signals will allow missiles, including those fired from nuclear submarine Chakra, to strike within half a metre of distant targets.

Glonass is an alternative to the U.S.-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS).
.
Indian military's access to Glonass has been considered important enough to find a mention in half-a-dozen joint statements issued after India-Russian annual summits.

As has been the case earlier, the issue lay in an indeterminate state for long time after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussed it with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during their meeting in Delhi last year.

india-strikes-deal-with-russia-on-glonass


Russia and India navigational satellites launched
by Simon Chester on 1 April, 2014 in GPS & Navigation 

On 24 March, a Russian Soyuz rocket launched a Glonass navigation satellite into orbit from Russia’s northern Plesetsk space center, inserting a Glonass-M satellite into orbit where it is now functioning normally.

Additionally, India’s latest navigational satellite, IRNSS 1-B, will be launched on board a PSLV C-24 rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on 4 April. The Glonass-M satellite (designated number 54) was manufactured by ISS-Reshetnev and is designed for a seven-year operational life.

It is planned that five satellites of the Glonass-M series will be delivered into orbit in 2014 in order to maintain the national navigation system GLONASS in its full operational capability. Three satellites will be launched in a batch of three, while the rest two will fly into orbit in two single launches.
Russia and India navigational satellites launched