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Submarine scramble in the subcontinent
The Indian programme to acquire six Project 75I conventional submarines is a major milestone for the Indian Navy, the Indian shipbuilding industry, as also the global market for submarines. Predictably, the entire global submarine industry is eagerly awaiting release of the formal Request for Proposal (RFP) by the Indian Defence Ministry under the P-75I programme. The Indian government's decision to have all six of these boats built at India's own shipyards has made the issue of technology transfer critical for the success of that programme. This has certainly forced analysts to rethink possible proposals by international suppliers, including Russian ones.
The Russian involvement
Russia's eagerness to secure involvement in the Project 75I programme is absolutely understandable. Moscow played a major role in the creation of India's submarine fleet; in the 1960s and 1970s it supplied the first eight Indian submarines (Project I641K, Foxtrot-class). Later on, in the 1980s and 1990s, India bought 10 Project 877EKM (Kilo-class) boats from the Soviet Union and Russia. These boats form the core of the Indian submarine fleet to this day.
In the 2000s India launched a major programme of upgrading its Project 877EKM submarines at Russian and Indian shipyards. As part of that programme, the Indian boats were first in the world to be armed with the unique Russian Klub-S missile system, which consists of two-stage supersonic anti-ship missiles and subsonic cruise missiles for destroying surface targets.
The depth of Russian-Indian partnership in submarine building is demonstrated by the two countries' unprecedented cooperation in the segment of nuclear submarines. Moscow has supplied two nuclear subs to India under long-term lease arrangements, including one Project 670 (CharlieI-class) boat, which was delivered in 1987 and returned in 1991, and one Project 971I boat (Improved AkulaI-class), which was delivered in 2012 under a deal signed in 2004. India's lease of Russian nuclear submarines is unprecedented; there are no other examples of such close international defence cooperation. It demonstrates Russia's willingness to share its most critical, strategically important, and extremely sensitive defence technologies with India.
The French offer
France's DCNS shipbuilding concern will participate in the Indian P-75I tender with yet another iteration of its Scorpene-class submarine. Six such boats are already being built under a...