US helicopter firm makes commercial offer to Indian Navy

In a bid to counter bad press that they are receiving, the US helicopter company Sikorsky has made a commercial offer to the Indian Navy. The offer includes servicing and spares for six obsolete Sikorsky UH-3H Sea King helicopters that came onboard the USS Trenton renamed as INS Jalashva which have received a lot of flak for their sub standard quality.

The comptroller and auditor general has strongly criticised the quality of the machines on the aircraft carrier that came through US government foreign military sales.

According to the CAG the ($39 million) machines did not come equipped with any type of weather or surface surveillance radar and the defence ministry failed to secure any “guarantee for the replacement of defective rotables due to obsolescence”.

Talking to FE, AVM (retd) AJS Walia, managing director for India and South Asia, Sikorsky Aircraft said that, “We have sent an unsolicited letter to the Indian Navy offering to provide whatever support they want. We have also offered to supply spares which will finish by 2010.”

“These helicopters came through the government to government route. It was not a commercial deal. And that we are offering now will be a commercial deal between us and the Indian Navy,” Walia added.

According to the comptroller and auditor general, the 1960s vintage aircraft – decommissioned by the US Navy in 2005 – were “life-expired and had defects that could compromise their operational effectiveness”.

The INS Jalashva, is the second largest ship with the Indian Navy, after the aircraft carrier Viraat and is believed to ‘add punch to India’s maritime forces’ with its capacity to participate in naval operations, peacekeeping operations, tri-service operations and humanitarian relief.

The US Congress had cleared the transfer of the vessel under the Foreign Military Sales Program in August 2005 and the government signed the ‘Letter of Acceptance’ on July 31, 2006.

Project 75I : Unexplained decision to sideline L&T

Near Ennore, an hour’s drive north from Chennai, a stream of dump trucks ferrying boulders from mines in Andhra Pradesh marks the site of Katupalli shipyard, the centrepiece of L&T’s audacious diversification into warship building. Curving into the ocean like giant pincers are the two arms of what will be a 4-kilometre long breakwater, keeping out the choppy Bay of Bengal from a lagoon calm enough for shipbuilding. The pincers extend steadily as the dump trucks drive to the end and tip out their loads; some two million tonnes of boulders will finally go into the breakwater.

Elsewhere in L&T’s 1225-acre facility at Katupalli, hundreds of engineers and workers labour round the clock, three shifts a day, building a giant ship-lift capable of lifting a 14,000 tonne ship — the Indian Navy’s largest destroyers are just 6,800 tonnes — clear out of the water and onto one of several dry docks where vessels can be serviced at leisure. Rows of massive workshops, some 250 metres long, have almost been completed. By June 2011, says L&T — and the engineering giant does not miss many deadlines — Katupalli will be commissioned as India’s biggest defence shipyard.

Given this Rs 3500 crore statement of intent from L&T; its state-of-the-art facility at Hazira, which builds hull sections for India’s nuclear submarines; and the company’s experience as the prime integrator of INS Arihant, India’s first nuclear-powered, ballistic missile submarine, there is outrage within L&T at being sidelined by the MoD in Project 75I, which involves the construction of six conventional submarines for the Indian Navy.

In this ongoing series on submarine production, Business Standard has reported the MoD’s decision to build two Project 75I submarines abroad, in the shipyard of a foreign technology partner, and the remaining four in MoD-owned shipyards, Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai (MDL), and Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Vishakhapatnam (HSL).

L&T’s Chairman and Managing Director, AM Naik, told Business Standard, “We are extremely concerned that our engineering expertise, our facilities already set up at Hazira in line with our commitment to serve the national interest, and our experience in building submarines will be grossly under-utilised if such a decision were to be implemented.”

L&T sources stress that the company’s experience of building the INS Arihant — at 5000 tonnes, thrice as large as the average conventional submarine and significantly more complex — has given the company the expertise, the facilities and the confidence to build conventional submarines faster and more cheaply than any MoD yard. The MoD, allege these sources, is giving the Project 75I submarine contract to its own shipyards to keep them in business.

In 1999, the government had sanctioned a 30-Year Submarine Construction Plan, for building 24 conventional submarines in India. Two construction lines were approved: one based on western technology (Mazagon Dock’s ongoing Project 75 to build six Scorpenes); and a second construction line building six submarines with Russian collaboration. After that 12 indigenously designed submarines were to be built.

L&T sources assert that, over the preceding decade, the MoD and the Indian Navy had conveyed repeated assurances that the second submarine construction line would be set up by L&T at Hazira, in partnership with Russia.

According to Naik, “To implement this, a committee was constituted, headed by an MoD joint secretary, and comprising members from the Indian Navy and MoD. After assessing the capabilities of all shipyards, as per our understanding, the committee cleared L&T Hazira in 2001 as the second line for submarine construction.”

But if the MoD cleared L&T’s Hazira facilities in 2001, another MoD committee in 2008 found Hazira unsuitable for constructing submarines on the grounds that the water draft was too shallow. L&T counters that the nuclear submarine hull sections were built here; and that Hazira builds and ships out petrochemical reactors that are bigger and heavier than a conventional submarine.

The MoD committee also rejected Katupalli, which it visited when construction work on the shipyard had just begun in 2008. By next year, Katupalli will be ready, says L&T; while the MoD admits that Project 75I cannot be sanctioned before 2014-15. But Katupalli has been ruled out based on the situation in 2008.

The MoD’s Secretary for Defence Production, RK Singh, admits that L&T’s experience in submarine building needs to be tapped by the MoD. “We will find some role for L&T… it has capabilities that are very important for us,” RK Singh told Business Standard. “But this will have to be done in a transparent manner, allowing other private sector shipyards to compete as well.

MMRCA BUZZ: What Makes The IAF Nervous About The Americans

An IAF officer I spoke to six months ago to get a sense of how the Indian Air Force perceives partnerships with the United States as a potential outcome of the MMRCA competition, used a simple but strange metaphor to illustrate his opinion. Imagine India on the one side of a deep and wide ravine. Across this wide ravine is a gleaming suspension bridge. It looks great and appears superbly stable — but in rough weather, there’s every chance it will shake. In the past, when India has tried to cross this bridge, it has been forced to quickly retrace its steps midway when the bridge was buffeted by unkind winds that threatened to cast India into the ravine. So now, here’s the question. Does the weather ever really change that much?

Two overwhelming notions, especially within the Indian media, over the last four years concerning the MMRCA competition, are, one, the government will choose an aircraft type based on political considerations. And two, since it does so, the Americans will win, since they offer more, on the face it, politically than any other nation. But these fall, indubitably, in the realm of government, and not the Indian Air Force. But while the IAF says it works only with determinables and not the intangibles, it obviously has concerns, many of which dwell in the realm of the political. Some of these concerns come up frequently and are well known. Others are less known and more specific. The idea of this post is to simply provide a consolidated view of perceptions of operating American aircraft.

Let’s first get one thing out of the way. There are probably very few in the IAF who believe that the Americans can be beaten on potential technology. Notwithstanding arguments that the two American platforms on offer to India are essentially modernised legacy fighters with little or no modernisation latitude, there is a keen sense that the Americans control what is undeniably among the best aerospace technology in the world. The quality and temperament of sharing is a different matter, and I’ll touch upon that later.

The chief cause of nervousness in the IAF regarding any potential hardware from the US is, quite clearly, the potential attendant erosion of autonomy. Nothing in the last six years has changed that perception. The Indian government is rightly skeptical about the CISMOA and BECA agreements, but the end-user verification pact (EUVA) that the two countries finally entered into (even with India’s counterdraft accepted) is not something that went down well with the IAF. Crucially, there is a general sense that autonomy will potentially be affected not just as far as operations are concerned, but in other areas as well — logistics, planning, profiling etc. Here’s something even more interesting: One officer suggests that the use of the MMRCA aircraft as strategic deterrent platforms (i.e. nuclear delivery aircraft) is a grey area that could prove almost certainly problematic when dealing with the Americans, or at least more problematic with the Americans than the others. It so happens that the only country that has never questioned India’s strategic positioning of its aircraft, are the French (though they have different, equally serious problems). “India may not be Turkey, Egypt of Pakistan, but if you look at any country that operates American aircraft, there has been a period — sometimes prolonged — of trouble,” says the officer quoted above, adding, “This is something a country like Pakistan can afford, since it has already pledged its strategic future to one nation. But can we?” The fear that the autonomy overhang could affect operational planning is a very real one. A section of the IAF believes South Block is way too hardnosed to buckle to a bad deal — there’s another that believes reluctance to sign the EUVA was merely diplomatic grandstanding that conveniently harnessed the IAF’s apprehensions — and, therefore, that there is every chance the IAF will be saddled with jets it cannot fully use.

A related aspect is operational flexibility. During Kargil, the IAF reportedly did things to some of its Mirage-2000s that would have amounted to serious violations of the Indian government’s contract with Dassault. It is understood, but not confirmed, that the French government was quietly engaged after the war and the two sides were able to agree that it was not a problem, and that no penalties would be slapped on the Indian government for what were, in reality, war exegencies, even though it was clear that there had been serious breaches of the technology agreement. The use of US aircraft would be far more potentially restricted and regulated by complex rules, legalese and guidelines. It’s not that the IAF isn’t used to this sort of thing. It’s just that there’s likely to be exponentially more to pore over before scrambling an American jet from an Indian base. Here’s another point: Buying and operating US aircraft, some in the IAF believe, would “completely subvert” one of the most deeply entrenched “ways” of doing things in India — using a generous dose of improvisation. “Will the American be fanatically remote controlling with India as well? It is hard to say,” says the officer quoted above.

Next, of course, trust. Reliability and trust are major issues, and this has little do with any sort of hangover of the 1998 post-Shakti sanctions. An influential quarter in the IAF feels the US has not qualitatively demonstrated that it is a sincere partner, especially when it comes to India’s indigenous programmes. In 1998, US sanctions dealt a death blow, or nearly so, to several Indian weapon and weapon platform programmes, including the country’s missile programme, light combat aircraft, NCW technologies and other critical programmes. But little has actually changed. While the US is happy to sell India billions of dollars worth of hardware, it is suspiciously and conspicuously unreliable even now when it comes to indigenous programmes. For instance, the IAF is still wondering why the US government didn’t allow Boeing to provide a technological and flight test consultancy to the Tejas programme. Recently, it was revealed that Lockheed-Martin was unable to obtain approvals from the US government to consult for the Naval Tejas programme (both contracts went by default to EADS). The point is, the consultancies were “small-fry contracts that held nothing of advantage to either of the American companies or the government,” says a Group Captain. He adds, “Such denials are taken very seriously. What could the possible reason be for the US government to deny two small consultancies? It has not been reported much, so it is forgotten. For the service, it was a jolt. The implications are plain for anyone to deduce.” He’s right. For all the big-sounding partnership rhetoric that India has gotten used to being bombarded with from Washington, it’s the little things that offer a different, decidedly worrying picture for the IAF. Simply put, the perception appears to be this in some quarters — the Pentagon wants to sell you a lot of souped up Cold War era fighter planes, but doesn’t want to tell you how to fine-tune carrier-safe landing gear assemblies. It doesn’t want to tell you how to speed up flight trials. It refuses to tell you how to expand the operational envelope of your own in-development fighter platform. The two Tejas consultancy programmes are, incidentally, only two among at least a dozen similar contracts that the US has “won”, but failed to act upon as a result of seeming Pentagon/State Department sensitivities. Result: perceptions that the US wants to sell India weapons, and has little interest in any real partnerships that could potentially edge out the need to buy those or similar weapons at a later stage as well.

A dramatic and interesting perception in a certain section of the IAF is that the F-16 Block 60 and F/A-18E/F are excellent fighter platforms, but that it is unlikely that the US will be either a willing or reliable partner as far as ensuring that these aircraft are on the cutting edge throughout their life of 40 years or more. The US government has, on behalf of the plane makers, assured the Indian government — and will drive it home many more times — that the future of these two platforms is completely safe. Still, the sense that you won’t get the best they have is nowhere more overpowering than it is with the Americans.

Some of these concerns have a greater emphasis than others in ongoing dialogue between the IAF and the MoD, but all figure at various levels without exception. It must be said that there is, at the same time, a powerful section within the IAF — with compelling arguments of its own on all the concerns listed above — that the only way the IAF can make its next aerospace leap, is with technology from the United States, and that any other, would be a compromise on such a valuable opportunity to shift away from rusty strategic predilections of the past.

Livefist

Second submarine line for Mazagon Dock

With public sector shipyard Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL), Mumbai, years behind schedule in building six conventional Scorpene submarines for the Indian Navy, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is handing Mazagon Dock another lucrative order to build three more submarines. Although private sector shipbuilders — especially L&T and Pipavav Shipyard Ltd (PSL) — argue that Mazagon Dock already has more than it can handle, MoD insists the public sector shipyard can execute this order.

The MoD’s Secretary of Defence Production, R K Singh, talking exclusively to Business Standard, has detailed Mazagon Dock’s road map for simultaneously executing the Scorpene order (Project 75, as it is termed) and the three additional submarines that are a part of the six-submarine Project 75I order

Business Standard had reported yesterday that the MoD’s apex Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) had ruled out India’s private sector from Project 75I. The first two submarines of Project 75I will be built abroad in the foreign collaborator’s shipyard. The other four submarines will be built in MoD-owned shipyards: recently acquired Hindustan Shipyard Ltd will build one, while MDL builds three.

R K Singh explains, “First, the Scorpene delay will be trimmed down to less than 18 months. The original plan was for the first Scorpene to be delivered in December 2012; and the other five submarines at one-year intervals till December 2017. While the first Scorpene will only be ready in August 2015, Mazagon Dock will deliver the others faster, at nine-month intervals, and finish the last Scorpene by May 2019.”

MoD sources say Mazagon Dock is being pushed towards an even more ambitious delivery schedule: Of one Scorpene every seven months. On August 11, Defence Minister A K Antony told Parliament that Project 75 would complete work by the second half of 2018.

But Project 75I, argues R K Singh, does not have to wait till then; it can begin as early as 2012. By that year, with all six Scorpene hulls fully built, the specialised hull workers and welders of Mazagon Dock could begin fabricating hulls for Project 75I.

Singh explains, “Two Scorpene hulls are already built and MDL is close to completing the third. By early 2012, all six Scorpene hulls will be ready. MDL’s hull fabrication shop — which cuts steel for the hull, rolls it, fabricates hull segments and then welds them together into a complete hull — will be sitting idle from 2012, and ready to be diverted to Project 75I.”

The Department of Defence Production also points out that Project 75I cannot begin for another five years. At least 12-24 months are needed for a Cabinet sanction for building the first two Project 75I submarines abroad. Selecting a foreign shipyard as collaborator for Project 75I will take another 24-36 months and then one year for price negotiations.

The six Project 75I submarines will be built on a new production line, on which work has already begun. During a visit to MDL in 2009, Business Standard was shown a 16-acre plot, adjoining MDL’s facilities in Mazagon, Mumbai, which the shipyard had acquired in the 1980s from Gujarat state PSU, Alcock Ashdown.

R K Singh confirmed, “We are going to execute Project 75I in a new yard, the Alcock Yard, on which MDL is building a second submarine production line.”

Private sector shipbuilder Larsen & Toubro finds the MoD’s decision to patronise Mazagon Dock inexplicable. L&T sources say the company was given to understand that they would participate in Project 75I as the second submarine line. Now, L&T’s experience and infrastructure would lie idle.

Broadsword

Navy torpedoes Indian private shipyards’ role in new Project

A far-reaching decision by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will jolt private Indian shipbuilders that are eager to participate in India’s submarine building programme. Top sources in the ministry have told Business Standard that its apex Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has decided to exclude Indian private shipyards from the construction of six submarines for the Indian Navy under Project 75I. Instead, the first two submarines will be built at a foreign shipyard.

Project 75I initially envisaged that all six submarines would be built in India. MDL was to build three; Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) — recently acquired by the MoD from the Ministry of Shipping — would build one; while Indian private sector shipyards — L&T and Pipavav — would compete to build two submarines. But the Indian Navy’s insistence on building two submarines abroad has torpedoed the private sector shipbuilders out of the picture.

The navy’s demand, explains a senior admiral on condition of anonymity, stems from the delays that have been endemic to indigenous submarine construction. India bought four HDW submarines in the 1980s. HDW’s shipyard in Germany built two of them in just 56 months each. In contrast, MDL took 98 months and 116 months respectively to build the other two. Mazagon Dock is also running 30 months late in delivering the first of six Scorpene submarines that it was contracted to build under Project 75.

“At least two submarines will come in quickly by building them abroad”, declares the admiral. “We are desperately short of submarines.” A performance audit of the Indian Navy by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has documented that just seven or eight of India’s 15 submarines are operational at any given time against a projected requirement of at least 24.

Yet, curiously, despite the dismal track record of Mazagon Dock, the defence acquisition council has decided to hand it a prime role in Project 75I as well. While the cost of Project 75I is still not known, it will substantially exceed the Rs 23,562 crores that India paid French companies Armaris and DCNS for Project 75, since building two submarines abroad will inflate the cost.

Furthermore, that decision will require fresh sanction from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) — typically involving a 12-24 month delay — since the current sanction mandates that all the submarines must be built in India.

Only after that will a tender be issued to identify a foreign technology partner. Amongst the possible bidders for the contract are Amur Shipbuilding Plant, Russia; German shipyard, HDW; Spain’s Navantia; Italy’s Fincantieri; and France’s, DCNS.

In 1999, the top-level Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approved a 30-Year Submarine Construction Plan, for 24 conventional submarines to be constructed in India. This sanctioned two simultaneous construction lines: six submarines built from western technology; and six based on Russian know-how. After that 12 indigenously designed submarines were to be built.

The navy believes that Russian submarines have greater endurance, firepower and strategic utility; while western submarines are stealthier and, therefore, harder to detect. It was reasoned that Indian designers would adopt the best of both traditions when designing the 12 indigenous submarines.

Private companies, especially L&T and Pipavav have invested thousands of crores of rupees to build world-class shipyards, and have lobbied intensely for a share of the submarine programme. Over the last decade, L&T has played the central role in building and outfitting the nuclear-powered, nuclear missile submarine, INS Arihant, and will do so for its two successor vessels as well.

Senior L&T officials have argued that Mazagon Dock would have its hands full with Scorpene production until at least 2019 and has no capacity to take on another three submarines. But the MoD has presented a detailed plan for the shipyard to set up a second submarine line.

Broadsword

Indian Navy to operate UAVs for a brief period from Porbandar

GANDHINAGAR: The United States Air Force Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047 is a long-term vision of that country to integrate it into its joint force operations to achieve political goals.

It says an unmanned aircraft is not limited by human performance or physiological characteristics and can be carried in a backpack with commensurate capabilities. An UAS hypersonic flight will reshape the battlefield of tomorrow as it will be able to act independently in a given situation with little human input and a greatly shortened decision time. In this backdrop, it becomes crucial for us also to strengthen our unmanned aircraft system and make it a part of the mainstream operations. Strategically, we are most vulnerable from our western side and therefore capabilities in intelligence gathering in this sector should have been a top priority with a crucial role earmarked for the unmanned aerial vehicles.

However, if one sees the time the Indian Navy’s squadron in Porbandar is taking to become operational, one would know that again our resolve seems to have become captive to the all pervasive lackadaisical attitude from which there seems to be no escape. This does not mean that nothing has happened but the grouse is against the slow pace. Yet with the skeletal equipment, there has been a marginal improvement in aerial reconnaissance compared to the days gone by in this sector.

This is best illustrated by the recent incident of a 105 metre long loose barge docking at the mouth of Sir Creek off Gujarat’s Kutch district. An unmanned aerial vehicle of the Indian Air Force had already captured its image while it was being pushed towards India by the north-easterly winds from somewhere south-south west near Oman.

Amid this the Indian Coast Guard aircraft came out with a daring act, which would not have been possible with the support of other wings of the Indian armed forces, including para-military, to take the barge’s picture from all angles. It would not be appropriate to reveal the complete details of the operation here but it had everything from coordination, leadership, dedication and the readiness of the uniformed men to give their life for the nation’s cause.

Returning to Indian Navy’s plan to set up a squadron in Porbandar, it seems that by the year end something should happen in this regard. The Indian Navy plans to temporarily operate UAVs from Porbandar, where it has built a hangar for them at the civilian airport. They will be brought from its UAV Squadron at Kochi which has Searcher MK II and Heron in the inventory. A decision on the positioning of UAVs in Porbandar will be taken by the Indian Navy later in the year. The Indian Coast Guard already has a full-fledged air enclave at Porbandar from where it operates its manned flights for maritime reconnaissance and search and rescue operations.

The Times of India

MMRCA contenders yet to be shortlisted

India is yet to shortlist contenders for supplying 126 fighter jets under the $11-billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal. ‘‘At the moment, the Offsets Technical Committee—headed by the special secretary of defence production and including members from the defence research and development organisation (DRDO), Indian Air Force (IAF) and the ministry of defence (MoD)—is evaluating technical offsets proposals and sending their observations to all the six contenders,” officials privy to the process told FE.

The MoD can decide on shortlisting the contenders only when the technical offsets evaluation committee report and the field trial report are complete,” they said.

Based on the observations, vendors would submit fresh and revised offsets proposals, which will take a minimum of two months. After that, the contenders will be evaluated again and the recommendations will be sent for approval to the MoD, sources said, adding, “after it goes to the Cabinet Committee on Security for a final decision, government-to-government negotiations will be held in order to get additional benefits for the country.”

Lockheed Martin F-16IN, Boeing F/A-18, Dassault Rafale, EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen and Russian MiG-35 are contending for the 126-aircraft programme. The Indian Air Force will invite different contenders to discuss flight evaluation reports once the field trials are complete.

The contenders, along with their partners, have also been invited by the MoD to present their offsets proposals. So far, the IAF has had a meeting with Lockheed Martin and Dassault of Rafale.

According to sources, “Vendors complying with the rules, the defence procurement policy and technical offsets will ultimately be considered. Also, the lowest bidder and the designated L1 will be selected as the MMRCA.” For the first time, IAF will consider the ‘life-cycle costs’, rather than just the lowest bid.

The Financial Express