Indias nuclear sub: There she lies like a supine beast, hidden from satellite eyes
SUJAN DUTTA
Visakhapatnam, July 26: The conning tower is a crusty jet black. It sits on a hull rolled with a mat of black squares. The surfacing is uneven. Reflections of saffron sodium and white mercury lights from the workshops ceiling gleam off the mosaic of silvery black that wraps the body of the vessel.
Indias first nuclear submarine is supine like a slothful beast in a narrow strip of water flanked by concrete banks inside the super-secretive Ship Building Centre here. It does not look like the ultimate weapon the Brahmastra that it is supposed to be.
But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is here and he announces the launch of Indias first indigenous nuclear-powered submarine. His wife Gursharan Kaur unveils the metal plaque on the front of the conning tower (a raised platform from which an officer can con or control the vessel by giving directions to others).
It reads INS Arihant, Sanskrit for destroyer of enemies.
In the 30 years of the project, no Prime Minister has even acknowledged its existence publicly. Schedule and serendipity have worked for the Prime Minister whose main task so far has been to take India out of nuclear isolation.
The Arihant is now fit for trials, not fit for war. That will take about four years, maybe more.
First, we go into harbour trials, says Vice Admiral B. Kannan, programme director, ATV. In it, we will test each piece of equipment. First, we get its fluids running and then we will get its heart ticking.
It will be at least a year before the (nuclear) reactor is fired and after that the sea trials.
The Indian Navy owns the submarine now. The vessel is towed by the tail by two tugboats. The tugboats are out in the water in the naval channel of Vizag harbour. The sub is towed a few metres, maybe 20, in slow motion. The vessel is not on own power.
A yellow light revolves on its conning tower where the commanding officer, Captain Anshuman Dutt, is standing, and emphasises the movement. The conning tower itself is to the fore, closer to the bow, rather than in the centre like older, conventional submarines.
Below and behind the conning tower that is stepped, sailors in white uniform drape yellow life jackets around their necks. Some are on the hump, just aft, three are on the bow.
The hump, one officer says, will open a hatch to fire missiles vertically. There may be four tubes underneath, each capable of holding three nuclear-tipped SLBMs submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
The Arihant is gliding again, tail first, but it is still under the roof of the workshop. It will not be towed across the naval channel, out in the open, in daylight, to its next base Site Bravo right now. Site Bravo is the spanking new workshop across the naval channel, about in landlubbers terms a kilometre away. There is a flurry of satellite activity suspected overhead, maybe spy satellites, eager to take images.
Inside this yard of the Ship Building Centre, the only photography allowed is by three cameramen who are either authorised naval personnel or defence ministry staff. No television. No live images.
The media is confined to a space by the naval band. We are on the starboard (right) side of the vessel. We see only the top half of its profile.
But the length is within grasp. From the tip of its tail to its snub-nosed bow, the Arihant is 112 metres, longer by far than any of the submarines in the Indian Naval fleet. At its widest, it is 11 metres in diameter.
The size of the SSBN the ship submersible ballistic nuclear missile that the Arihant is, registers first-up.
Russias ambassador to India and Russian technologists associated with Indias nuclear submarine programme are present here. Their contribution is richly acknowledged.
We never had a nuclear submarine, and we needed design consultancy from them, Vice Admiral Kannan says. The Arihant has about 40 per cent indigenous content. The next two submarines of the same class that are planned are likely to have more.
Commodore C.S. Rao, from the ATV programmes design department, explains that the undulating surface is probably the outcome of the mosaic of anechoic rubberised tiles. Is it bad workmanship?
Rao says the special tiles are said to be capable of absorbing sound waves the way sound navigation and ranging (sonar) operates and give the Arihant more stealth. Sonar tries to identify and detect by the reflection of sound waves. Submarine detectors, as well as submarines, rely on sonar.
In the middle of the hull the body on the starboard side, there are two rectangular vents. They appear to be perforated. They are meant to take in water when the submarine dives.
This is a double-hull. What you see is the outer hull through which the water will go in and help take the sub down, says Rao. Thats common to all submarines. The inner, pressurised hull, is another cocoon. He is talking of a cocoon within a cocoon.
At the snub-nose in the bow, on the waterline right now because the submarine is still on the surface, is a sheet of white metal that contrasts with the blackness of the rest of the hull. They are the sonar sheets of the Arihant.
Below it, on either side and under the water, are three or four tubes angled upwards. They are the torpedo barrels. The missiles with nuclear warheads wont come out of here. The Arihant may not even have to use this in a conflict. It is a strategic weapons platform, expected to be escorted by the hunter-killer-attack submarines.
The nuclear-tipped missiles that will go into its silos are being tried and tested on land. First, it is likely to be armed with the K-15, that have a range of 750km, and subsequently, a more developed missile, at best called the K-X now, that is being designed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Bharat Dynamics to have a range of at least 1,500km. Even that is not strategic.
The Indian Navy is operating under the belief that it has to compete with the Chinese and must be capable of launching a missile from a submarine with a nuclear warhead that is capable of hitting the target from at least 3,500km.
If a reality check were needed, here it is: The Chinese PLAN (Peoples Liberation Army Navy) has 10 nuclear submarines. Some of them are attack (SSN) and some are SSBN in the same category as the Arihant.
Inside the ship-building yard, the Arihant glides to a stop. The water hardly ripples. Captain Dutt on the conning tower is speaking into a walkie-talkie. The vessel will have a crew of more than 90 but less than 100.
The crew will have to be put through endurance tests. The submarine has enough time, it is the fatigue factor that matters, says an officer from Naval Headquarters, here for todays programme. Its claustrophobic inside a sub; you notice little things about others, it can be annoying. Its a psychological thing for the crew, he says.
The idea behind a nuke sub is to stay quiet and undetected undersea for weeks, possibly months. The Advance Technology Vessel project was officially begun in 1984 25 years ago. The crew will have less, far less, a time to prepare.
Ten years after Kargil, war keeps getting more onerous.
