June, Friday 14th., 2019
India No Longer Needs to Look to West for Heavy Torpedoes for Its Submarines
Currently,
the Indian Navy's Scorpene-class submarine does not carry modern heavy
torpedoes since India scrapped a $200 million deal with Whitehead Alenia
Systemi Subacquei (WASS), a subsidiary of Italian arms manufacturer
Finmeccanica, over corruption allegations involving another Finmeccanica
subsidiary, Agusta Westland, in 2017.
New
Delhi (Sputnik): India has joined the elite bloc of nations
like Russia, Germany, Italy, and France with indigenously built
heavyweight torpedoes for its submarines and warships.
The development comes with India signing
a $170 million contract for the supply of over 70 torpedoes for arming
both warships and submarines. The supply of torpedoes named "Varunastra"
has to be executed in the next 42 months.
The ship-launched electrically propelled
underwater weapon is equipped with the most advanced automatic and
remote controlled guidance systems, according to Bharat Dynamics Ltd
(BDL) - the manufacturer of the weapon system.
The development holds high importance as India scrapped
a deal to purchase heavy torpedoes from Whitehead Alenia Systemi
Subacquei (WASS) over corruption allegations involving another
Finmeccanica subsidiary, Agusta Westland, in 2017.
The Indian Navy has made another attempt
to purchase similar torpedoes from foreign vendors, including German
and French firms, but it could not make much progress in the last two
years.
The Indian Navy had evaluated German
SeaHake and French F21 Artemis heavyweight torpedoes, but the current
status of the tender is yet unknown.
In the absence of heavy torpedoes, the Indian Navy has been operating its first Scorpene-class submarine without its primary weapon system.
The second submarine of this class, also
without the modern heavyweight torpedoes, is likely to be inducted in
the next few months. "We cannot reveal due to sensitivity of the
matter", a BDL spokesperson replied when asked whether Varunastra could
be fitted into the Scorpene-class submarines immediately.
Varunastra, with 95%
indigenous content, is developed by the Naval Science and Technological
Laboratory (NSTL), a premier Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) laboratory based at Visakhapatnam. Bharat Dynamics
Ltd. has been associated as a production partner in concurrent
engineering mode.
The versatile naval weapon, Varunastra,
which can be fired from Rajput-class destroyers, the Delhi-class and all
future Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) ships, is capable of firing heavy
torpedoes. It is also capable of targeting quiet and stealthy submarines
both in deep and littoral waters even in an intense countermeasure
atmosphere.
The Indian shipyard MDL has been building
Scorpene-class submarines with the help of French firm DCNS. It
originally envisaged equipping the submarines with Black Shark torpedoes
as their primary weapons.