IMPLICATIONS OF
LEAKED DOCUMENTS OF SCORPENE
On 06 Apr 2015, Parrikar undocked the fully fitted- out, but
yet to be commissioned first of class
Project 75 submarine. It is scheduled to
be commissioned in September 2016 after mandatory sea trials. The project as
contracted with the French builders DCNS had already suffered many slippages in
delivery schedules and in naval parlance is well astern of the original intent
of expeditious delivery to address the force level shortages of diesel electric
submarines of the navy.
The earlier experience at Mazagaon Docks to build the German
origin state of art submarine designed by HDW had to be terminated in late
1980's owing to allegation of corruption in the deal. The Indian navy was
deprived of a well established production line when the Political decision to
terminate it was taken ; more as a knee jerk reaction. The costly investment in
infrastructure and technical manpower was thus wasted away. The opportunity
cost of terminating this prestigious project can be best summed up by the idiom, "cut your
nose to spite your face". The cost was exorbitant to put it mildly.
Even though, the Soviets stepped in to supply the
EKM submarines to bolster the depleting force levels, a 30 year build programme
which was approved at the end of 1990s, was to ensure that our build capacity
was augmented by creating the necessary infrastructure and technical manpower
in two indigenous yards. Inordinate delays in executing the plan has resulted
in Mazagaon docks progressing the construction of the much delayed Scorpene.
The other is yet to take off.
This is the backdrop against which the leaked documents of
today need to be viewed.
The Australian newspaper which broke the story of the leak,
has reportedly carefully redacted sensitive data contained in the leaked
document, under the advice of Military and legal experts. A few pages
exclusively sourced by First Post confirm that the redaction has been
professionally carried out.
Whether it covers the whole document running into over 20000 pages is yet to be
ascertained. Responsible and ethical reportage makes it incumbent on news paper
to blank out what may have undesirable geo political implications. Australia
too is on the threshold of building submarines with similar assistance. They
ought to know the implications of this action.
As regards the sensitive data, acoustic signatures and 'cavitation
appearance' are indeed closely guarded secrets and the sole custodian of such
data is the builder. The builder creates a data bank based on simulated and
empirical studies carried out over a long duration . The customer in turn would
hold him to such data which needs to be proved during sea trials. Hence the
actual recorded and analysed data during sea trials would be more valuable than
what is stated in documents. Tactically the submarine has many options to
deceive sonars by masking its radiated noise. Hence the impact of such a disclosure ( authentic or
not) depends on the quality of submarining-the Indian submariners have decades
of experience on both Western and Eastern origin submarines.
Apropos the need to leak this document and the timing of it, some
deductions are possible..Competitors for the second line of building are most
likely to gain from this
leak . It means Billions of Dollars worth of business at a crucial time
when both economy and employment are critical to their survival. It is not that
MOD would terminate orders on DCNS- which would be another folly of even greater
proportions-but the second line of production is round the corner. Builders
from East and West are possibly salivating on the quantum of order.
The very nature of this leak of over 22000 pages makes it
amenable to hacking. Considering that we are not a fully wired society, it is
unlikely that any single in house source would have all such data on a single
but networked computer. This could have also
been hacked from those OEMs in Europe who were associated with this project. We
can at best speculate at this stage.
Is it critical for operations? Most of the pages, as would be
the case in any documentation, would consist of data which is common to all builders.
The operational profile being common to all submarines, it is likely that factors related to
detection of the submarine from ship, airborne
or a hunter killer submarine are critical to operations. But this is the raison d'être of the submarine arm. Experienced
submariners know how to avoid detection.
As regards data on weapons, whether torpedoes or missiles, these
are well known to all submariners. The greatest advantage that we have is that
our submariners have for decades operated both Western and Eastern origin
submarines and have learnt to innovate when required.
Recent reports suggest that the choice of Torpedoes which is
the primary weapon, has not been finalised. In the extant case that has turned
out to be an advantage as the torpedoes are the main weapon of submarines and
this leaked document pertains to discussions held in 2011.
The navy needs more submarines to address the depletion of
conventional units. Delays caused by events like these ought not to result in
further reduction in force levels.
Parikkar's statement this morning is noteworthy for its
sobriety
No comments:
Post a Comment