Indian Navy Floats Tender For Six New Conventional Attack Submarines

The Indian Navy has floated a tender to acquire six new conventional attack submarines as part of Project 75(I), the submarine line that will run parallel to the Scorpene line in Mumbai. The RFI (see below) has been sent to shipbuilders that are believed to include Russia’s Rubin for the Amur 1650, Fincantieri for the S1000, Navantia for the S-80 and HDW for the Class-214.

23 thoughts on “Indian Navy Floats Tender For Six New Conventional Attack Submarines”

  1. Hope all goes well this time and all the 6 subs of this fresh project 75(I) will be inducted in I.N within 2020 along with 6 scorpenes and 5 ATVs to maintain a minimum force level of 20 subs or so for the I.N.

  2. Hope all goes well this time and all the 6 subs of this fresh project 75(I) will be inducted in I.N within 2020 along with 6 scorpenes and 5 ATVs to maintain a minimum force level of 20 subs or so for the I.N.

  3. I expect it to be an excellent example of the unified cooperation between the foreign, govt/public and the private sectors for the sake of national defense.

  4. Somebody tell them how inappropriate it is to use ALL-CAPS. Do they not have an editor?

    Really- shows the utter nonchalant character of entire department, from the person who typed it up, to the individual who oversaw this to ultimately the staff who probably saw it and no alarm bells rang.

    I assure you, offices where this is received are having a laugh and is being forwarded to garner more.

    I would too.

  5. L&T better build the India's SSN's. Eight of them rather go for the small fishes and also if possible start building India's totally indigenous subs of which a requirement of 12 are there.

  6. It may be Amur 1650 could be front runner , due to brahmos advantage /pakis 99% already in process to getting U214 from germany/MoD said india will access both western and russian tech to make new one in future . (scropene (france-western – already in (late) process , may have chance for 1650 amur ), but its too early to predict at this level .

  7. As per the 1999 30-yr, 24-sub plan; the 1st batch of 6 subs (project 75) was supposed to be of contemporary Western design and that is the Scorpene. The next 6 were supposed to be of Russian origin and the remainder 12 were supposed to be wholly indigenous design and build with best practices and learnings incorporated from the above 2 experiences.

    With this RFI having gone to all but 1 single Russian firm, the signals are a bit confusing. Per the original plan this batch of 6 should have been a govt-to-govt contract with the Russians.

    So, have there been changes of plan? If so, there has been no public pronouncement to that effect. Could anybody please enlighten as to what's up!

  8. Pakistan buying 3 U-214 for $1.5 billion while we are buying same type for $11 billion!!! that is nearly three times!!!

    Latest British Astute class SSN costs that much, Russian Borie SSBN costs half!!!

  9. S1000 and S80 in the same competition? Those subs are in slightly different classes I would say.

    S1000: 1100 tons submerged
    S80: 2400 tons submerged

    This reminds me of the MMRCA…!

  10. anon@4:12, where did you find that $11B number?

    "Both Fincantieri and Rubin gave a joint presentation to the Indian Navy, sometime in 2005 or 2006, to build six S1000 boats at an estimated value of USD $3.5 billion."

    (source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1000_submarine_class#cite_note-2)

    – nanovacuum (US)

  11. Heberian@8:35AM

    "HDW and Kockums are both owned by ThyssenKrupp…"

    The Germans are surely going to screw us with this one! Unless we explicitly demand that they propose the A26 to us. Otherwise they are going to propose the Class-214.

  12. To Anon @ 2331

    Well, the fact that a German company owns bot the Swedish shipbuilder and the German one does not mean that ThyssenKrupp decides the sales strategy or technology roadmap of either. It just makes sure that the ThyssenKrupp shareholders dont lose money..

    For a stretched analogy… does our Tata Sons decide the exact strategy of the Tata Safari in the same context as Land Rover Discovery just because both are under the Tata umbrella…

    I am sure only we can screw ourselves, not anyone else. It does not matter if the US gives us the blueprints to the Seawolf class or if the Russians give us the blueprints to the Yasen class… if our slow pace ensures construction in a "aram se" timeframe of 25 years… you know..kind of like the postponement by Mazgon Docks in the delivery date of the in-house Scorpenes…

    If you fancy Kockums products, check out their work for the Australians…

  13. And all the requisite processing shall be done in nifty and swift manner before the western suppliers start behaving like a conglomerate and start putting demands like the trade unions. …Lol

  14. To Anon@ 1:03 pm

    Thank you for links. They are interesting, though old.

    My area of "studies" is mainly military aviation, special forces and China.. with some attention to Pakistan's socio-cultural timebombs. So, excuse my relative lack of appreciation about which sub is top of the line.

    All I wanted to point out were 3 things:

    1) That both the German and Swedish shipyards were owned by the same German company

    2) At the end of the day, its not just buying the boats/any weapon systems (or taking forever to licence manufacture them) that will serve our country well… but absorbing the technology and involving the private sector in manufacturing weapon systems that will make us a stronger nation.

    3) The Collins class by Kockums hs recieved some negetive press, which may have been undeserved… but I dont know except what I read.

    That said, we dont know that the real reason for the USN to lease the Swedish sub was because they were the best. Maybe the Swedes just offered the best/simplest terms (access??) compared to say, the Germans or the Spaniards.. The French are not renowned for giving the Americans free peeks at their technology in any case. Having leased the Swedish subs, the publicity spin will naturally claim that the reason was becuase it was the best SSP's in the world.

  15. @ K-LT:
    We don't know the real reason why the americans leased the swedish subs. What we do know however is that the americans had a really hard time finding it. In exercises it have sunk both american and french nuclear subs.

    The story with the australian Collins subs is a more complicated story, in which the Australians are as much to blame as the swedes.

  16. To Anon @ 3:45 am

    Firstly, apologies for any confusion, I am Heberian & K-LT ( autocomplete picked up K-LT first).

    1) I am not blaming the Swedes or the Kockums technology 🙂
    2) I am pretty sure that any of the other SSP's from Europe or Russia, excluding the older Augusta's/ 209's generation would do the same.
    3) I checked with a couple of career submariners and am told that technology is obviously paramount, but crew training, discipline and experience plays a HUGE factor in the effectiveness of subs.. especially when hunting.

    Truth be said, I am a big admirer of Swedesh weapon systems, and more so, the independant thinking that went into the decisions that made the Swedes come up with world class weapon systems.

    I did not like the fact that Kockums needed a foreign owner and my heart almost broke when I heard that SAAB was purchased by Spyker ( because of the Chinese money which I am told was also involved)

    So.. WHITE FLAG!! 🙂 Swedish SSPs are among the very best SSPs out there, I just dont believe that one can authoritatively say a particular sub is really the very best…

    In the realm of fiction, you may consider reading Patrick Robinsons "Nimitz Class" for the line of thinking which culminated in the USN's need to train against SSPs..

    Think North Korea and China, when thinking of reverse engineered Kilos..

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