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Pakistan Navy: The Phoenix Rises

We need an adequate navy not a much bigger navy. We are a peaceful country with no hegemonic designs and delusions for power projection.

Our navy should be small enough to manage / maintain easily and strong enough to deter any misadventure by Indians. We can't match their strength in numbers because we don't need that and we can't afford that. While surface fleet has its importance and role in any naval conflict, a modern and well armed sub-surface fleet works as a force multiplier and provides lethal offensive capability in conventional warfare and strategic 2nd strike capability to deter any adventurism.


Some of my friends suggest me that subs are our answer to Indian Navy surface ships and after listening to this answer, I really want to bang my head on the wall. Seriously guys is this your answer, or you just forgot that India also have subs and and they are buying and producing more. Nobody has stopped India from producing subs neither it's prohibited on them. India will not only keep producing Destroyers and Frigates and Corvettes but also both AIP and Nuclear Submarines. So if some one out there wants to suggest me that 14 to 16 submarines are the answer to Indian Navy which in near future would have around 100 big ships than I would really love to meet that person personally.

We don't stand a chance with only 12 Frigates and 14 Submarines. We need much bigger Navy. I mean much much bigger. Finally people will like to call it radio behavior but which ever Frigate we go for in future, that should have VLS which can fire long range cruise missiles. Answering every threat with nuclear boogy is stupidity and eventually of no use. We need to build conventional power. Yes I know the budget story but we have to take drastic steps. @Oscar @Horus
 
We need an adequate navy not a much bigger navy. We are a peaceful country with no hegemonic designs and delusions for power projection.

Our navy should be small enough to manage / maintain easily and strong enough to deter any misadventure by Indians. We can't match their strength in numbers because we don't need that and we can't afford that. While surface fleet has its importance and role in any naval conflict, a modern and well armed sub-surface fleet works as a force multiplier and provides lethal offensive capability in conventional warfare and strategic 2nd strike capability to deter any adventurism.
Peaceful country my foot. This peaceful country thing only make sures that you end up dead. Specially in case of Pakistan not only because of your location but also because you are a Muslim country and a nuclear power. We need much bigger Navy and need to go for global role for that too happen at least 24 to 30 major Ships are required equipped with VLS to fire cruise missiles. Also need bigger Marine Force
 
Peaceful country my foot. This peaceful country thing only make sures that you end up dead. Specially in case of Pakistan not only because of your location but also because you are a Muslim country and a nuclear power. We need much bigger Navy and need to go for global role for that too happen at least 24 to 30 major Ships are required equipped with VLS to fire cruise missiles. Also need bigger Marine Force

Sure, all we need is $80 billion defense budget and we'll have the global military capability you are dreaming about. We need to increase our tax revenue by 6x if we want to establish a massive military capability beyond our immediate borders.

We need to develop vast indigenous industrial and defence production base, increase our tax revenues by six folds, and expand our economy by 7% on average for a decade before we could lay the foundations of a global military presence.
 
Also non-Nuclear powered submarines (due to their limited range of operations,hence predictability) and SLCMs (due to their low speed due to which they can even be intercepted by WWII class weapons) are very easy to kill.

Bullsh*t is the only way to describe this. Pure bullsh*t.

Non-nuclear submarine, i.e. DE, AIP or electric drive are quiet, small, maneuverable, but deadly and packed with advanced sensors that give them more then enough capability to asset threats - in any domain - and take the appropriate actions.

Take our Ula class - with the highest availability rate in Europe, a range of greater then 10,000nmi and a max speed underwater of +25nmi. The boats are also known as Type 210:

20110308th_098.t4d75f01c.m800.x90e9cde5.jpg


_MG_8490.t555c4f70.m800.x3bfb7548.jpg


It's a fight between Sweden's Gotland and Norway's Ula for the quietest submarine on the continent. They have long legs, can cruise at speeds any nuke boat can, are fully capable of operating in vast ocean waters, despite being classified as an SSC, and if you think they or similar designs like Type 209/212, Gotland, Kilo or any other conventional submarine design is an "easy kill" then you are poorly mistaken.

Fortunately military leaders don't have the same bravado and take the threat very seriously.
 
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Sure, all we need is $80 billion defense budget and we'll have the global military capability you are dreaming about. We need to increase our tax revenue by 6x if we want to establish a massive military capability beyond our immediate borders.

We need to develop vast indigenous industrial and defence production base, increase our tax revenues by six folds, and expand our economy by 7% on average for a decade before we could lay the foundations of a global military presence.
Sir I know about the budget thing but we have to start the process and as economy improves speed up the process. When I was writing about these I knew about the budget
 
What is known by sources close to the PN is that Pakistan’s nuclear delivery ambitions go beyond the 8 subs purchased and include the design and development of two different platforms. This includes a platform capable of launching ballistic missiles. Both these platforms are confirmed to be nuclear powered as per the interviews of Pakistani officials.

These programs are currently well in progress and a correlation of known knowledge and sources suggest that one platform is to serve as a launch platform for both a derivative of the Babur and a Submarine Ballistic Missile. The other platform is an attack submarine designed to escort this platform but primarily hunt an adversary’s second strike ballistic submarine.

If these reports are accurate, the Pakistan Navy will not only be able to provide a second strike capability which could launch weapons against targets from the Bay of Bengal, it could also potentially deploy a submarine for long term duration hunts that last more than half a year along with keeping an eye on adversary movement.

From its days in the 90’s as a step-child branch of the Pakistani military, the current modernization plans along with the pace of force integration with other branches, the Pakistan Navy is slowly bur surely turning into a force to be truly reckoned with.

Hi dear @Oscar
Except the para I have quoted above,rest everything seems fine however if we note carefully,there are a lot of "ifs" and "buts" or in short speculations,there is nothing definite in what you have mentioned above. I happen to know a couple of things pertaining to nuclear plants as I have couple of my batch mates in BARC reactor divison--(kindly note BARC has various type of reactor projects going on from PHWR,LWR to fast breeder reactors and now recently AHWRs as well). Designing your own reactor is one thing and miniaturizing it and making it sea worthy is QUITE ANOTHER! Lets be brutally honest,and instead of living in fancies and drooling over some un-substantiated reports,lets for now focus on facts at hand--pakistan hasnt really designed her own nuclear power plant for generating "energy". Pakistan has couple of plutonium and experimental neutron reactors whose origin is pretty much unknown given the scarcity of published literature.
First step in design of a nuclear submarine is mastering the power plant--there is no short cut--you have to master the design. The reactor needs to be validated in simulations which paves the way for the construction of a land based prototype.The data gathered over years of running the land based replica of your submarine reactor gives enough confidence in design and only then is reactor finally engineered into the submarine hull-- this whole process takes at least a decade or more!Pakistan has no land based prototype running that might indicate the possibility of a nuclear submarine reactor being seriously pursued by PN.
I will briefly highlight some of the challenges associated with design of sea going reactors--these are in indian context as discussed in various open seminars and lectures--kindly note it is equally true in the context of pakistan!
1)First to design a sea going reactor(light water moderated as against heavy water moderated)--one would need to establish reactor physics and required metallurgy in the country.Light water reactors traditionally occupy lesser space and are relatively straight forward in design. The down-side though is ,they require slightly higher degree of enrichment vis-a-vis PHWRs that consume natural uranium. In case of submarine reactors though,the enrichment level is way more high than a land based LWR designed for commercial purposes. Higher the enrichment--longer will the endurance of the sub.

2)In case of land based LWRs the power is generally gradually increased to full capacity however in subs the requirement is such that reactor might have to be reved upto full power setting in a very short span of time--for instance during initial accelerations or running away from enemies. This might seem easy at first glance but requires extensive modifications in the design to enable fast building up of power

3)Submarine reactor should be able to withstand shocks and lateral forces that might result from an explosion etc.It is speculated that the reactor core of Oscar-2 class russian SSGN could withstand a g force of 50!

4)To construct the reactor,country must have established FORGING capabilities to forge reactor pressure vessel,pressurizers,turbines,allied control systems etc etc.

Submarine is just the platform and that is useless without itz primary armament.Pakistan would have to design her own SLBMs and master the cold launch philosophy.Again,pakistan doesnt have a SLBM program going on right now. It takes decades to design and field a reliable SLBM--it is not as easy as lets say land based missiles. Your designers would run into same kind of problems, Indian designers ran into almost 10 years back and those were related to a lot of issues ranging from lowering the weight by using composites,complexities in cold launch to storing liquid fuel for RCS(REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM).
And lastly the r&d cost of a nuclear submarine exceeds $3bn--kindly Note it doesn't include the cost of establishing a production line or whole lot of nuclear engineering and support faculties at the harbour. After spending billions of dollars into nuclear submarine program India has only one yard capable of supporting nuclear submarine or has the requisite nuclear engineering set up.How do you think Pakistan would deal with this particular issue?I don't think there is any yard in Pakistan that has technical know how to support or construct a nuclear submarine.
On a serious note, does Pakistan have a under water pontoon from which to launch the experimental SLBM ?
 
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Hi dear @Oscar
Except the para I have quoted above,rest everything seems fine however if we note carefully,there are a lot of "ifs" and "buts" or in short speculations,there is nothing definite in what you have mentioned above. I happen to know a couple of things pertaining to nuclear plants as I have couple of my batch mates in BARC reactor divison--(kindly note BARC has various type of reactor projects going on from PHWR,LWR to fast breeder reactors and now recently AHWRs as well). Designing your own reactor is one thing and miniaturizing it and making it sea worthy is QUITE ANOTHER! Lets be brutally honest,and instead of living in fancies and drooling over some un-substantiated reports,lets for now focus on facts at hand--pakistan hasnt really designed her own nuclear power plant for generating "energy". Pakistan has couple of plutonium and experimental neutron reactors whose origin is pretty much unknown given the scarcity of published literature.
First step in design of a nuclear submarine is mastering the power plant--there is no short cut--you have to master the design. The reactor needs to be validated in simulations which paves the way for the construction of a land based prototype.The data gathered over years of running the land based replica of your submarine reactor gives enough confidence in design and only then is reactor finally engineered into the submarine hull-- this whole process takes at least a decade or more!Pakistan has no land based prototype running that might indicate the possibility of a nuclear submarine reactor being seriously pursued by PN.
I will briefly highlight some of the challenges associated with design of sea going reactors--these are in indian context as discussed in various open seminars and lectures--kindly note it is equally true in the context of pakistan!
1)First to design a sea going reactor(light water moderated as against heavy water moderated)--one would need to establish reactor physics and required metallurgy in the country.Light water reactors traditionally occupy lesser space and are relatively straight forward in design. The down-side though is ,they require slightly higher degree of enrichment vis-a-vis PHWRs that consume natural uranium. In case of submarine reactors though,the enrichment level is way more high than a land based LWR designed for commercial purposes. Higher the enrichment--longer will the endurance of the sub.

2)In case of land based LWRs the power is generally gradually increased to full capacity however in subs the requirement is such that reactor might have to be reved upto full power setting in a very short span of time--for instance during initial accelerations or running away from enemies. This might seem easy at first glance but requires extensive modifications in the design to enable fast building up of power

3)Submarine reactor should be able to withstand shocks and lateral forces that might result from an explosion etc.It is speculated that the reactor core of Oscar-2 class russian SSGN could withstand a g force of 50!

4)To construct the reactor,country must have established FORGING capabilities to forge reactor pressure vessel,pressurizers,turbines,allied control systems etc etc.

Submarine is just the platform and that is useless without itz primary armament.Pakistan would have to design her own SLBMs and master the cold launch philosophy.Again,pakistan doesnt have a SLBM program going on right now. It takes decades to design and field a reliable SLBM--it is not as easy as lets say land based missiles. Your designers would run into same problems Indian designers ran into almost 10 years back and those were related to a lot of issues ranging from lowering the weight by using composites,complexities in cold launch to storing liquid fuel for RCS(REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM).

You have a lot of detailed knowledge, but your basic premise is that either Pakistan can't do it, or you haven't seen physical evidence of the achievement. I guess the best answer would be 'wait and see'.

Bullsh*t is the only way to describe this. Pure bullsh*t.

Non-nuclear submarine, i.e. DE, AIP or electric drive are quiet, small, maneuverable, but deadly and packed with advanced sensors that give them more then enough capability to asset threats - in any domain - and take the appropriate actions.

Take our Ula class - with the highest availability rate in Europe, a range of greater then 10,000nmi and a max speed underwater of +25nmi. The boats are also known as Type 210:

20110308th_098.t4d75f01c.m800.x90e9cde5.jpg


_MG_8490.t555c4f70.m800.x3bfb7548.jpg


It's a fight between Sweden's Gotland and Norway's Ula for the quietest submarine on the continent. They have long legs, can cruise at speeds any nuke boat can, are fully capable of operating in vast ocean waters, despite being classified as an SSC, and if you think they or similar designs like Type 209/212, Gotland, Kilo or any other conventional submarine design is an "easy kill" then you are poorly mistaken.

Fortunately military leaders don't have the same bravado and take the threat very seriously.

Are you guys willing to sell these subs to Pakistan? If not, then we are limited to whatever technology is accessible to us.
 
You have a lot of detailed knowledge, but your basic premise is that either Pakistan can't do it, or you haven't seen physical evidence of the achievement. I guess the best answer would be 'wait and see'.



Are you guys willing to sell these subs to Pakistan? If not, then we are limited to whatever technology is accessible to us.
"If a monkey can survive in these trails, so will an Imperial Japanese Army soldier" - Japanese solution for the supply chain, stretching all the way down to Burma, during WW2

"Expert help" from "brotherly nations" never hurts...
 
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guess the best answer would be 'wait and see'.

Hi dear @CriticalThought
No that's not my concern, my primary concern is the shady ways with which most of Pakistani r&d takes place. Anyways I'll believe when I either see a launch or a very credible scientific literature from Pakistani side.till then it'd be far more fruitful to wait instead of speculations. What that article written by oscar does is--speculates!Oscar's article, without a doubt seems good and detailed except the last paragraph wherein he speculates the possibility of nuclear subs.it appears more of Pakistani reaction to Indian SSBN and SSN plans without the technical know how, of course!
 
"If a monkey can survive in these trails, so will an Imperial Japanese Army soldier" - Japanese solution for the supply chain, stretching all the way down to Burma, during WW2

"Expert help" from "brotherly nations" never hurts...

Thanks brother. I think Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia would form a very good coalition with far reaching consequences from south asia all the way to the middle east.
 
Hi dear @Oscar
Except the para I have quoted above,rest everything seems fine however if we note carefully,there are a lot of "ifs" and "buts" or in short speculations,there is nothing definite in what you have mentioned above. I happen to know a couple of things pertaining to nuclear plants as I have couple of my batch mates in BARC reactor divison--(kindly note BARC has various type of reactor projects going on from PHWR,LWR to fast breeder reactors and now recently AHWRs as well). Designing your own reactor is one thing and miniaturizing it and making it sea worthy is QUITE ANOTHER! Lets be brutally honest,and instead of living in fancies and drooling over some un-substantiated reports,lets for now focus on facts at hand--pakistan hasnt really designed her own nuclear power plant for generating "energy". Pakistan has couple of plutonium and experimental neutron reactors whose origin is pretty much unknown given the scarcity of published literature.
First step in design of a nuclear submarine is mastering the power plant--there is no short cut--you have to master the design. The reactor needs to be validated in simulations which paves the way for the construction of a land based prototype.The data gathered over years of running the land based replica of your submarine reactor gives enough confidence in design and only then is reactor finally engineered into the submarine hull-- this whole process takes at least a decade or more!Pakistan has no land based prototype running that might indicate the possibility of a nuclear submarine reactor being seriously pursued by PN.
I will briefly highlight some of the challenges associated with design of sea going reactors--these are in indian context as discussed in various open seminars and lectures--kindly note it is equally true in the context of pakistan!
1)First to design a sea going reactor(light water moderated as against heavy water moderated)--one would need to establish reactor physics and required metallurgy in the country.Light water reactors traditionally occupy lesser space and are relatively straight forward in design. The down-side though is ,they require slightly higher degree of enrichment vis-a-vis PHWRs that consume natural uranium. In case of submarine reactors though,the enrichment level is way more high than a land based LWR designed for commercial purposes. Higher the enrichment--longer will the endurance of the sub.

2)In case of land based LWRs the power is generally gradually increased to full capacity however in subs the requirement is such that reactor might have to be reved upto full power setting in a very short span of time--for instance during initial accelerations or running away from enemies. This might seem easy at first glance but requires extensive modifications in the design to enable fast building up of power

3)Submarine reactor should be able to withstand shocks and lateral forces that might result from an explosion etc.It is speculated that the reactor core of Oscar-2 class russian SSGN could withstand a g force of 50!

4)To construct the reactor,country must have established FORGING capabilities to forge reactor pressure vessel,pressurizers,turbines,allied control systems etc etc.

Submarine is just the platform and that is useless without itz primary armament.Pakistan would have to design her own SLBMs and master the cold launch philosophy.Again,pakistan doesnt have a SLBM program going on right now. It takes decades to design and field a reliable SLBM--it is not as easy as lets say land based missiles. Your designers would run into same kind of problems, Indian designers ran into almost 10 years back and those were related to a lot of issues ranging from lowering the weight by using composites,complexities in cold launch to storing liquid fuel for RCS(REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM).
And lastly the r&d cost of a nuclear submarine exceeds $3bn--kindly Note it doesn't include the cost of establishing a production line or whole lot of nuclear engineering and support faculties at the harbour. After spending billions of dollars into nuclear submarine program India has only one yard capable of supporting nuclear submarine or has the requisite nuclear engineering set up.How do you think Pakistan would deal with this particular issue?I don't think there is any yard in Pakistan that has technical know how to support or construct a nuclear submarine.
On a serious note, does Pakistan have a under water pontoon from which to launch the experimental SLBM ?
I am sorry to say but as always from your rigorous mathematics fantasies to this your reply revolves around the delusion that Pakistan CANNOT do it...! You would be a good addition to this forum if you just focus on the problem in hand rather than deciding what Pakistan can or cannot do...! Leave that to us, we know what we can do...!
 
I am sorry to say but as always from your rigorous mathematics fantasies to this your reply revolves around the delusion that Pakistan CANNOT do it...! You would be a good addition to this forum if you just focus on the problem in hand rather than deciding what Pakistan can or cannot do...! Leave that to us, we know what we can do...!

My dear kindly prove me wrong based on solid scientific literature instead of verbose remarks that hold no water.believe me I'll be more than happy to accept it! Now, back to the topic, furnish the literature in support of your claim
 
Hi dear @CriticalThought
No that's not my concern, my primary concern is the shady ways with which most of Pakistani r&d takes place. Anyways I'll believe when I either see a launch or a very credible scientific literature from Pakistani side.till then it'd be far more fruitful to wait instead of speculations. What that article written by oscar does is--speculates!Oscar's article, without a doubt seems good and detailed except the last paragraph wherein he speculates the possibility of nuclear subs.it appears more of Pakistani reaction to Indian SSBN and SSN plans without the technical know how, of course!

Well, they have to be shady because the whole world is out to put an end to our nuclear program. But you can't deny the existence of our nukes (as an example). Look at the kind of manufacturing technology that is needed: centrifuges, storage facilities, machining of plutonium/uranium for the warhead, the list goes on and on. No one can say we just got it from China for free, or that AQ Khan simply stole all of that.

Let's not forget, no one wants to keep helping out an incompetent person forever. In the end, one has to show proof of one's ability to gain respect in the eyes of his benefactors.

It is OK to be cynical, but saying our R&D takes place in shady ways goes much beyond that.
 
Pakistan Navy's ScanEagle UAV...
scaneagle_1.gif


ScanEagle: developed by InSitu and deployed by both Boeing and InSitu. All versions of the ScanEagle cost less than $100,000 each.

scan_eagle_data.gif
scan_eagle_launch.gif
scan_eagle_launch_2.gif
scan_eagle_flying.jpg

ScanEagle: developed by InSitu and deployed by Boeing and InSitu

scan_eagle_camera.gif

ScanEagle payload: photograph taken at the Boeing stand at Dubai 2007 Air Show.
http://www.barnardmicrosystems.com/UAV/uav_list/scaneagle.html
 

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