Prasan K. Sengupta at TRISHUL has written the following excellent article of
January 1, 2022, titled
"Striving For Credible Minimum Strategic Deterrence”.
“Striving For Credible Minimum Strategic Deterrence
As part of her planned transition from being a declared
nuclear weapons state with ‘minimum credible deterrence’ to acquiring ‘credible
minimum deterrence’ status, India is presently undertaking the construction of
a mammoth multi-phase shore-based naval base that will be the permanent home
for the Indian Navy’s planned fleets of four nuclear-powered ballistic
missile-carrying submarines (SSBN), two SSGNs and six nuclear-powered attack
submarines (SSN)—dubbed as the most survivable of India’s nuclear triad.
The S-2/ARIHANT S-73 SSGN’s keel-laying ceremony took place
on June 21, 1998 carrying the hull codename P-4102. The SSGN was floated on the
wet-basin on July 26, 2009 at the Indian Navy-owned Shipbuilding Centre (SBC)
at Visakhapatnam. Attainment of reactor criticality criticality was attained on
August 10, 2013. Commencement of sea-trials took place on December 15, 2014 and
on August 15, 2016 Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned INS Arihant into
the Indian Navy (IN). The 6,000-tonne SSGN, which was constructed over a
11-year period, has a load water-line measurement of 111.6 metres.
The S-3/Arighat was constructed over a period of eight years.
Its keel-laying ceremony took place on October 2009 and the completed SSGN was
floated at the SBC’s wet-basin on November 19, 2017. The S-4 SSBN took six
years to build. Its keel-laying ceremony was held in mid-2015 and the boat was
launched on November 23, 2021. It has a load water-line measurement of 125.4
metres as it houses eight vertical launch-tubes for SLBMs one behind the other.
The Arihant and Arighat, on the other hand, house only four vertical
launch-tubes.
These three boats [or 4 with S4* aka S-4* being built. Its launch expected in 2023.] will be followed by the bigger S-5, S-6 and
S-7 SSBNs, each of which will be powered by a
OK-650V pressurised water reactor
(PWR) rated at 190mWt, and will house 12 vertical launch-tubes in two rows of
six.
Project VARSHA
Under a contract inked in January 2008, Russia has been
providing technical expertise to the IN for building this naval base at a cost
of almost US$2 billion to build, which will include twin underwater submarine
tunnel entrances leading to separate berths for accommodating both SSBNs and
SSNs, a hardened underground tunnel for storing nuclear warheads and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), plus a command-and-control centre
and a related communications station. Civil engineering work on Phase-1 of the
Naval Alternate Operational Base (NAOB), being built under the IN’s ‘ Project
Varsha’, commenced in 2016 near Atchutapuram, 50km south of Visakhapatnam in
Andhra Pradesh.
After soil testing, heavy blasting was undertaken to construct
various structures by deploying heavy earth-moving equipment. Boundary wall
construction was completed by 2018. Land acquisition process for the NAOB was
launched in 2005. In the first phase, nearly 4,500 acres, both private and
government land, was acquired in Rambilli, Rajala Agraharam, Marripalem and
Vakapadu. Four villages—Velpugondupulam, Revuvathada, Devallapalem and
Pisinigottupalem—were totally displaced, following which houses were shifted to
a temporary rehabilitation colony. Phase-1, costing Rs.30,000 crore, will be
completed by 2022.
Underwater Communications
Earlier, in March 2012 the construction began for an
extremely low-frequency (ELF) communications station near the village of Vijaya
Narayanam, about 23km north of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in
Tamil Nadu. It is co-located with the IN's existing Very Low-Frequency (VLF)
communications station (INS Kattabomman), which transmits at 18.2kHz and was
supplied by the US-based Continental Electronics Corp (CEC). It may be recalled
that CEC was selected as the prime foreign industrial subcontractor by Larsen
& Toubro (L & T) to provide its experience and expertise for the design
and manufacture of the VLF communications station to support the India Navy
Ships (INS) project. The station was commissioned in 2014 after CEC had
supplied to VLF transmission equipment for underwater communications, including
the Type 124 VLF solid-state transmitter capable of delivering 6MVA (30 SSPAs).
This is today the highest power solid-state transmitter operating in the world.
Also supplied were a control system, ATUs, transmission line, loads and
switches, as well as the RF design of the antenna, which comprises two
470-metre tall slant-feed top-loaded monopole antennae with ground mast. CEC’s
expertise lead to satisfy the project’s requirement of increased data capacity
of up to 400 baud. The ELF station, which is also being built by Indian firm
Larsen & Toubro, will have nuclear-hardened underground bunkers and was
commissioned in 2016. Russia was closely associated with the research and
development for this station, which is expected to be similar to Russia's own
ELF transmitter at the ZEVS facility near Murmansk. ELF transmission is used to
communicate very brief commands to submerged submarines. Such transmissions can
travel thousands of miles and through extended depths of seawater. ELF
transmissions are generally initiated during circumstances in which
conventional communications channels have been disrupted or destroyed.
Reactor Fuel Production
It was in 1984 that construction began of the Rattehalli Rare
Materials Plant (RMP), located near Mysore in Karnataka State, which is a
pilot-scale gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant with several hundred gas
centrifuges, and is capable of producing several kilograms of highly enriched
uranium (HEU) each year. Construction of the pilot-scale gas centrifuge
enrichment facility at began in 1987, took four years to complete, and began
operating in 1991. The plant is operated by Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL),
which is a subsidiary of India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The DAE
first confirmed the existence of the plant in 1992. Items that the IREL
initially imported to outfit the RMP, such as vacuum pumps, vacuum furnaces,
machine tools, vacuum bellows-sealed valves, and canned motors for centrifugal
pumps, were subsequently indigenised. Thereafter, work began on producing low
enriched uranium (LEU) for submarine-based PWRs at a large uranium enrichment
centrifuge complex, the Special Material Enrichment Facility (SMEF), in
Challakere Taluk, Chitradurga District of Karnataka. Between 2009 and 2010, an
area of approximately 10,000 acres in the Chirtradurga District of Karnataka
was diverted for various military-technical and military-industrial purposes.
Within this area, 1,410 acres in Ullarthi Kaval and 400 acres in Khudapura were
allocated to the DAE’s Bhabha Atomic Research centre (BARC) for the purpose of
developing the SMEF. In 2011, India announced publicly her intention to build this
industrial-scale centrifuge complex in Challakere Taluk, Chitradurga District
(Karnataka). This site has since been dedicated to the production of both
highly enriched uranium (HEU) and LEU for military and civilian purposes,
although industrial-scale production has yet to commence. BARC has been
allotted many more acres in Ullarthi Kaval compared to Khudapura (1,410 versus
400 acres respectively).
Despite such investments, the fuel for powering the INS
Arihant’s and INS Arighat’s PWRs had to be obtained from Russia. Their PWRs are
the third-generation OK-700A/VM-4SG model, generating 89.2mW thermal (29.73mW
electric) and producing 18,000hp when using 44% enriched uranium. The PWR was
developed by the OJSC N A Dollezhal Scientific Research & Design Institute
of Energy Technologies (also known as NIKIET) and which is now part of JSC
Atomenergoprom. Such PWRs were series-produced in Izhorsky Zavod, at Kolpino,
near St Petersburg, and at the Nizhny Novgorod Machine-Building Plant
(Afrikantov OKBM). In India, JSC Atomenergoprom authorised the DAE to
licence-produce such PWRs. Such PWRs have a total technical service life of 35
years and require refueling after 17 years. The reactor core of such PWRs
comprises between 248 and 252 fuel assemblies. Each fuel assembly contains tens
of fuel rods, and these vary from the traditional round rods to more advanced
flat fuel-rods. The point of the flat fuel-rod is to enlarge the surface of
each fuel-rod so as to improve the thermal efficiency. Most of the uranium fuel
assemblies are clad in zirconium. The fuel assemblies in the middle of the
reactor core (weighing about 115kg) are enriched to 22% U-235, while the outermost
fuel assemblies are enriched as much as 45%.
Shore-Based Support Facilities
According to the IN, a typical SSBN must have a 95-day cycle
in which it puts out to sea, steams to within range of its targets, carries out
its operational patrol, returns to port where it is refurbished, refitted, and
made ready for going again to sea. About 70 of the 95 days are spent at sea. To
generate as little noise as possible and to allow the in-house thin-line
towed-array sonar array to operate at high efficiency, the SSBN is typically
required to cruise at speeds in the range of 5 Knots. The IN defines
‘on-station time’ as the number of days at sea during which an SSBN is within
range of its target set. This time depends on the range of the SLBM being
carried, the distance an SSBN must travel from port to the point where it is
within range, and the speed with which it can travel without being detected. In
general, an SSBN's ‘target package’ is adjusted so that in the early stages of
the patrol, it is given a more geographically accessible target set. Later on,
when far from port, it can accept target packages that are located in more
remote regions of the adversary’s hinterland, further from the oceans. To
support such operational requirements, a mammoth shore-based industrial
infrastructure is required, especially in the domains of PWR engineering and
refuelling, fuel storage and the final assembly of recessed SLBMs and their
warheads, plus their loading/unloading gears.
Past experience indicates that the most high-risk work is in
refuelling the PWR, for the following reasons: The work is done by many
different people with varying levels of qualification for the work at hand; and
approximately 50 different technical operations are carried out during the
process, 25% of which may potentially expose the operators to radiation. The
most dangerous situations during the removal of spent nuclear fuel include:
Disassembly and mounting of mechanisms for control and safety systems;
disassembly and mounting of the reactor lid; removal and replacement of fuel
assemblies; refilling of primary circuits in the thermal system and testing of
hydraulics; connecting, adjusting and checking of safety devices; manual
checking for movement of the compensation register; PWR start-up, measurement
of neutrons and thermal measurements and checking. It is for this reason that
the NAOB will host hull refit and PWR refuelling facilities located within a
dry-dock. Typically, a SSBN or SSN will be brought into a flooded dry-dock, a
caisson will next positioned to seal the dock’s entrance, and the dock will be
dewatered, lowering the submarine on to supports on the dock floor. Following
docking, electrical and cooling water services will be connected to support the
on-board electrical systems and the PWR, then the refit activities will
commence. Before any refuelling operations take place, the primary circuit will
have to be chemically decontaminated to reduce the background radiation in the
reactor environment. During refuelling, access holes will have to be cut in the
submarine’s hull and a reactor access house (RAH) will be installed over the
submarine. The top of the PWR will be removed and a shielded water tank will be
installed. Reactor components and single fuel elements will then taken out of the
PWR through the water tank into shielded containers. Used fuel will be
transferred from the dry-dock to a nearby underground on-site interim storage
facility. When all the fuel has been removed, the reactor components will be
inspected and serviced, and single new fuel elements will then be installed in
the reverse sequence.
The facilities for undertaking final assembly of recessed
SLBMs and their warheads, plus their over-ground loading/unloading gears, are
being built with the technical support of Russia’s Ekatarinburg-based JSC MIC
Mashinostroyenia and the St Petersburg-based Rubin Central Design Bureau for
Marine Engineering. Collectively coming under the umbrella of ‘weaponisation
logistics’, this involves the warhead’s fissile cores coming under the custody
of the DAR, warhead integration sub-assemblies coming under the custody of the
Defence R & D Organisation (DRDO), and warhead/SLBM transport and
loading/unloading coming under the IN’s jurisdiction. Custody of the fully
assembled warheads will be transferred to the IN at the NAOB’s designated
warhead receiving area, with all subsequent handling, processing, and transport
being undertaken within a highly restricted area of operations called the
‘limited area’. After arrival, each warhead will be stored in a magazine,
remaining within its shipping container. The SLBMs on the other hand will be
assembled from component stages within a single above-ground facility called
the Vertical Missile Packaging Building (VMPB). The mating of the first two stages
of the SLBM will be carried out in the horizontal position. The missile will
then raised to vertical and lowered into a liner situated in a ‘loading pit’
until it is about flush with the ground. The liner acts as an environmental
cover, shielding the SLBM from view during outside loading operations and
providing some protection against small-arms fire.) The SLBM’s third stage will
then be mated in this configuration. Only after this will the warheads be
transferred from storage to-the VMPB, mated to the SLBM’s third-stage, and the
nose-fairing will then attached.
The mated SLBM in its liner will next be hoisted from the
pit, lowered on to a transporter, and returned to horizontal. The unit will
then be either stored or transported to the explosives handling wharf adjacent
to the SSBN parked alongside. At the wharf, the SLBM in its liner will be
erected to the vertical position, hoisted by crane over the submarine, and
lowered (without the liner) into the launch tube. Once the SLBM is inserted,
the liner will be taken away and the launch tube hatch will be secured.
Warheads for the SLBMs will be able to be demated, mated, or serviced in place
without removing the missile from the SSBN. For this, the service unit will
have to be placed over the launch tube, the hatch opened, the nose fairing
removed, and appropriate warhead-servicing operations performed. The service
unit shields warhead-servicing operations from outside view. Both SLBMs and
their warheads can be removed during routine maintenance or submarine overhaul.
Every few years, warheads will have to be removed and serviced, typically for
the replenishment of Tritium. It is estimated that the great majority of the
time during which the fully-assembled warheads will be in the custody of the
IN, it will be either in storage in its shipping container or deployed on board
the SSBN fleet. Only a small fraction of a SLBM’s lifetime (less than a few
tenths of 1%) will be spent in processing, maintenance, handling, or transport
within the limited area. Retired warheads will be returned to the DAE for
storage or disassembly.
Prasun K. Sengupta"
SEE ALL OF PRASUN K. SENGUPTA'S PHOTOS AND ARTWORK ACCOMPANYING THE ARTICLE HERE
3 comments:
Hi Pete
According to information published by Business World on December 15, 2021, France is set to putting an offer for the Barracuda nuclear attack submarine on the table during the visit of French Defence Minister Florence Parly to India.
https://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2021/december/11123-france-may-offer-barracuda-class-submarines-to-india.html
Regards
Hi Anonymous
France supplying whole Barracudas/Suffren SSNs to India or some uclear sub tech has been broached on Submarine Matters for years.
See this 2017 article https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2017/11/indian-admiral-lanba-visits-french.html about India's Chief of Naval Staff, being given a briefing by Naval Group concerning France's SSNs under construction.
In that article I broach the subject of France packaging a sale of AIP Scorpenes (under India's Project-75I) with Frrance supplying pumpjet and K15 reactor technology for India's SSN project as sweeteners.
My long term attitude to French SSN technology for India is that France is aware India has close neclear sub relations with Russia. So France would be reluctant to part with its top of the line SSN technology if there is a risk India would pass it on to France's strategic opponent, Russia.
Pete
PS Anonymous
I've since located the article to which you refer ie. India's Business World article of December 15, 2021 at http://www.businessworld.in/article/France-Set-To-Offer-Barracuda-Nuclear-Submarines-To-India/15-12-2021-414965/
Which also ties up Project-75I, Russia's SSN leases to India, France's loss of the Attack-class deal and the SSN trade being implicitly permissable with the US and UK offering SSN tech to Australia under AUKUS.
Pete
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