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Today In Undersea Warfare History:

1944 | USS Parche (SS-384) sighted a convoy, and cooperating with Steelhead, closed in, sinking the 4,471 ton cargo ship Manko Maru and the 10,238-ton tanker Koie Maru. During this daring night surface action, Parche barely avoided being rammed by one ship. Parche collaborated with Steelhead, sinking a 8,990 ton transport. Steelhead sank two other ships, a transport and a cargo vessel. Another tanker and a cargo ship were damaged. For this action Parche received the Presidential Unit Citation.

1945 | USS Kraken (SS-370) sailed on her 4th and last war patrol. While seeking the enemy in the Java Sea, her patrol was cut short when she received news of Japan’s capitulation.

U.S. Undersea Warfare News

Navy to Commission Submarine John Warner

Hugh Lessig, Daily Press, July 28

Pending Layoffs at Newport News Not Expected to Impact Work at EB in Groton

Julia Bergman, The Day, July 28

Retired Admiral Calls For U.S. To Beef Up Navy

Wyatt Olson, Stars and Stripes, July 29

USS Annapolis Crew Treated To Meal In Kittery

Jesse Scardina, Portsmouth Herald, July 28

Laser Weapons: Technology Evolves But Politically A Tough Sell

Sandra I. Erwin, National Defense, July 28

Where Is The U.S. Navy Going To Put Them All?

Jan Musil, Center for International Maritime Security, July 29

International Undersea Warfare News

Submarine Killers Showcase India’s $61 Billion Warning To China

David Tweed and N.C. Bipindra, Bloomberg News, July 29

Sweden Says Sub Wreck a Czarist Russian Vessel

Staff, Agence France-Presse, July 28

India’s Reluctance On Multilateral Naval Exercises

Pushan Das and Sylvia Mishra, The Diplomat, July 28

Opinion: Sub Discovery Media Storm Highlights Tensions Between Russia and the West

Magnus Nordenman, USNI News, July 28

Can Japan Win Australia's Submarine Contract?

Mina Pollmann, The Diplomat, July 28

U.S. Undersea Warfare News

Navy to Commission Submarine John Warner

Hugh Lessig, Daily Press, July 28

The Navy on Saturday will commission the Virginia-class submarine John Warner in a ceremony at Naval Station Norfolk.

The boat is named for the longtime Virginia senator and former Navy secretary who today resides in Northern Virginia.

The Warner will be the 12th Virginia-class submarine to join the fleet and the first of its class to be home-ported in Norfolk.

About 3,000 guests are expected pier-side to witness the ceremony, said Maryellen Baldwin, executive director of the Navy League of the United States – Hampton Roads. The event is not open to the public, although the league is sponsoring several invitation-only events on Friday and Saturday related to the commissioning and has set up a website with more information, at .

Like other Virginia-class boats, the John Warner was built in a teaming arrangement between Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, and General Dynamics Electric Boat of Groton, Conn.

The two yards alternate in final assembly and delivery to the Navy. Newport News delivered Warner to the Navy on June 25, more than two months ahead of schedule.

While in the Senate, Warner helped create the teaming arrangement between Newport News and Electric Boat, turning one-time rivals into partners. Those two yards are the only builders of nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy.

The Navy has now accorded Warner a rare honor. It is not common for the service to name a warship after a living person.

The senator and his wife, Jeanne, have kept tabs on the submarine's progress throughout its construction. Both were featured during the ship's christening ceremony at the Newport News shipyard last September, where fireworks soared into the summer evening.

Jeanne is the ship's sponsor. Besides being given the honor of breaking a bottle across the ship's bow during christening, the sponsor stays in contact with the ship's crew and is involved in special events throughout the life of the ship. In recent history, all U.S. Navy sponsors have been women.

In mid-June, John Warner was on the phone with reporters as the submarine cruised into the shipyard at the successful end of sea trials.

"I would give anything to be on the submarine right now," he said at the time.

Warner and his wife, Jeanne, are planning to attend Saturday, along with top Navy leaders and Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

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Pending Layoffs at Newport News Not Expected to Impact Work at EB in Groton

Julia Bergman, The Day, July 28

Matt Mulherin, president of Newport News Shipbuilding, announced last week in a letter to shipbuilders that more than 500 employees will be laid off in 2015, and likely more than 1,000 employees will be laid off in 2016.

EB and Newport News are partners in building the Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines.

The layoffs in the shipyard in Virginia are part of cost cuts the company is making because of a reduced workload building carrier ships over the next 18 months, Christie Miller, media relations manager for Newport News, said in an email, but the "cost reductions should have no impact on our partnership with (Electric Boat) or our workload on submarines.

"We fully expect to maintain our strong partnership and performance with EB and maintain our VCS workload during this period," Miller said.

According to EB's website, "under the terms of a $4.2 billion contract awarded by the Navy in 1998, an $8.4 billion multi-year contract awarded in January 2004 and a $14 billion multi-year contract awarded in December 2008, Electric Boat is sharing construction of the first 18 ships of the class with its teammate, Huntington Ingalls-Newport News Shipbuilding."

In April 2014, a $17.6 billion contract, the largest single shipbuilding contract in the Navy's history, was awarded to EB for construction of 10 Virginia-class attack submarines. Under that contract, EB and Newport News will build two submarines per year from 2014 through 2018.

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Retired Admiral Calls For U.S. To Beef Up Navy

Wyatt Olson, Stars and Stripes, July 29

To meet global security demands, the U.S. Navy likely needs 325-350 more ships, or 50-75 more than current levels, said the former head of U.S. Pacific Command.

“As our Navy gets a little bit smaller, we’re facing increasing challenges for funding to get a smaller number of ships to a larger number of ports to demonstrate our readiness and partnership and our presence to all those countries in the Indo-Pacific region,” retired Adm. Timothy J. Keating told reporters Tuesday during a conference call hosted by Powell Tate, a public relations agency that represents U.S. shipbuilders.

The Navy has 273 deployable battle force ships, according to its website.

Keating headed PACOM from 2007-09 and is now on the board of advisers for defense contractor Camber Corporation.

Keating and Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst with American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, made the case that underfunding and overextending the Navy will have a direct impact on U.S. consumers, aside from national and international security.

The Navy is the de facto high-seas police force protecting vast shipments of food, clothing and electronics equipment made overseas and delivered by container ship to the U.S.

“If there isn’t a cop there on the street to patrol the beat, then people start to get into trouble,” Eaglen said. “It’s no different on the high sea; the Navy and Marines and Coast Guard being there to help prevent the threat of piracy.”

Stable and relatively low prices at the gas pumps are enabled by the U.S. military, she said. Having the Navy stationed at critical shipping choke points around the world – primarily Turkish Straits, Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz and Strait of Malacca – wards off disruptions that could cause spikes in oil prices, she said.

The Navy also provides security for what’s beneath the water, such as fiber optic cables essential to the cyber realm, Eaglen said. Ninety-five percent of the world’s transcontinental voice and data traffic travels through those undersea cables, according to data provided by Powell Tate.

The Navy should be beefed up to continue providing adequate security, Keating and Eaglen contend.

“If you just look at a simple supply-demand matrix, we know the current Navy is simply too small,” Eaglen said.

That starts with more aircraft carriers, they said.

“I’ve heard senior Navy officials say they have an 11-carrier Navy for a 15-carrier world,” Eaglen said. “And actually we’re a single-digit carrier nation because one’s always in layup and Congress has waived the 11-carrier requirement, so we really have nine carriers.”

The Navy’s deployment tour length has expanded over time, which indicates it is “simply too small and that the demand is not following the requirements,” she said.

The Navy also needs another six submarines, Keating said, noting that it should begin replacing the Ohio-class Trident nuclear submarine fleet, slated to begin in 2029.

“That’ll be an important and expensive program for us nationally and a strategic matter,” he said.

Because so much of the world’s goods are produced in China and shipped through the South China Sea, that relatively small body of water is garnering more and more of the Navy’s attention – particularly as China continues to assert sovereignty claims over many of the sea’s uninhabited islands.

“Unfettered access to maritime domains depends upon frequent presence of United States Navy ships and the Marines on some of those ships,” Keating said. “I am convinced that it’s of vital national and international importance to all of us to maintain that presence throughout the Asia Pacific region – which calls for a stronger Navy over the many years ahead.”

Keating was asked whether China’s sovereignty claims over the Spratly Islands, near the Philippines, where it has expanded tiny atolls by hundreds of acres with dredged sand, creates navigational issues for the Navy.

“I wouldn’t hesitate to fly over them or steam very close to them,” he said.

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USS Annapolis Crew Treated To Meal In Kittery

Jesse Scardina, Portsmouth Herald, July 28

KITTERY, Maine – The line of military submarine plaques on the wall at Rudders Public House got a little longer Tuesday afternoon.

The staff and crew of the USS Annapolis was welcomed into the Kittery eatery for the growing tradition of offering the members of the submarine a free meal.

“I’ve been a lot of places, and Kittery and Portsmouth have been unbelievable,” said Blaze Duffy Goodwin, a member of the Annapolis crew who also serves as the submarine’s recreation committee’s secretary. “Everyone is so great to us.”

The USS Annapolis has been docked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard since April and will be there for two years receiving an extensive overhaul, Duffy Goodwin said.

Shortly after arriving in Kittery with the submarine, Duffy Goodwin, who said he is renting a place in the Kittery Foreside, visited Rudders and noticed the plaques on the wall from previous submarines the USS California, Norfolk and Alexandria.

“I told (owner) Jackie Kielty about who we were and she was all about doing this,” Duffy Goodwin said. “So I put it out to the crew that these people are being generous and opening their doors to us. It shows us that they are grateful to our service.”

Laura Corlin-Haugh, who manages Rudders, said the restaurant is gaining a reputation among Navy members about the eatery’s camaraderie and military support.

“We want them to know they’re welcomed and they always have somewhere to go,” Corlin-Haugh said. “We’re so appreciative.”

The USS Annapolis arrived in Kittery on April 25, bringing with it 16 officers and 122 enlisted personnel. The submarine will receive planned maintenance and several system upgrades.

Commissioned in April 1992, the Annapolis is the fourth ship to be named for the site of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. and is the 10th Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered submarine. The ship’s commanding officer is Cmdr. Kurt Balagna, who assumed command on April 2.

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Laser Weapons: Technology Evolves But Politically A Tough Sell

Sandra I. Erwin, National Defense, July 28

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus promised to unveil a new “roadmap” this fall for how the military will acquire and employ electric lasers, microwave and other directed energy weapons.

Touting the recent deployment of a laser weapon aboard a ship at sea and successful tests of an electromagnetic railgun, Mabus said the Navy is poised to “support rapid and efficient acquisition of directed energy weapons.”

That was welcome news to the standing-room-only crowd that filled a huge ballroom in Tysons Corner, Virginia, to hear Mabus and other officials talk about the future of a technology that the military has toyed with for decades and has perennially been “on the cusp” of a major breakthrough.

Champions of directed energy weapons have been galvanized by a string of technical successes in recent years, but recognize they suffer from a credibility deficit. The Navy will keep pushing to get programs funded and to turn lab projects into military-useful systems, Mabus said at the July 28 “Directed Energy Summit” organized by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

In order to graduate from science experiments to Pentagon “programs of record,” directed energy weapons will need military sponsors and greater support from Congress, Mabus said. Electric lasers and high power microwaves eventually will be used to defend ships, aircraft and ground vehicles from enemy aircraft and missiles, he said. Most significantly, these weapons could be bought at a fraction of the cost of conventional missiles and artillery rounds. An electromagnetic railgun, for instance, costs $25,000 and a laser shot consumes less than a dollar worth of fuel. By comparison, satellite and laser guided missiles cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Mabus said he is confident the military can produce a lethal 150 kilowatt laser and test it by 2018. That is a tall order as the laser weapon the Navy deployed in 2014 is a 30 kilowatt system.

While laser technology has advanced at a rapid pace, the military will continue to have difficulties packaging the electronics and installing them safely in military vehicles. The limitations of size, weight, power and cooling will be real impediments for years to come, experts said.

There are also considerable political obstacles that could keep laser weapons from transitioning from prototypes to weapons of war.

Support on Capitol Hill is “mixed,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who is co-chair of the Directed Energy Caucus, a group of lawmakers that is seeking to increase awareness and support for the technology.

“It’s not the easiest thing in the world to explain what the systems are and how they create effects,” said Langevin. Most members and staffs are not ready to embrace this and are not yet sold on the benefits. “It takes time and effort to wrap their heads around the basics of the technology, let alone what the capabilities would mean for future war fighting,” he said. “That’s before you factor in the decades of directed energy being oversold and under-realized ... That’s our biggest enemy.”

Many policy makers like Langevin were once inspired by Ronald Reagan’s 1983 “Star Wars” speech when he laid out a plan to deploy lasers in space to defeat Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. Directed energy weapons had enormous promise that has yet to be fulfilled, he said. “Many people were discouraged because billions were spent and we never realized that vision.”

Today, “we’re further along. Technology is showing maturity,” he said. One day, “the capabilities will speak for themselves.” Langevin encouraged contractors to invest in directed energy research, but understands why some may be losing patience. “There has to be a programmatic light at the end of the tunnel.”

The other co-chair of the Directed Energy Caucus is Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo. He lamented that the Pentagon has spent $6 billion on these technologies and has “too little to show for it.”

The good news, he said, is that “We are at an exciting transition point. We have to push harder to get these technologies past the tipping point.” The hundreds of contractors and military officials at the conference were a friendly audience that did not need convincing, but the Pentagon has to do better at persuading skeptics to fund directed energy programs during these times of tightening military budgets.

The potential cost savings of using lasers instead of kinetic weapons could be a powerful selling point, said Lamborn. “Congress pays a lot of attention to anything that saves money.” If the military can produce a beam of directed energy of sufficient intensity to destroy or degrade a missile or shell for 50 cents worth of fuel, that could help drum up support. Naysayers in Congress are not against directed energy per se, he said. “Some members don’t see it as priority.”

Maj. Gen Tom Masiello, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, suggested that past efforts in directed energy systems failed because they were not “operationally relevant.” A chemical laser that the Air Force built in the 1990s to shoot down ballistic missiles is a case in point. Now the military is worried about defending aircraft from small drone attacks and cruise missiles, which could bolster the case to deploy electric lasers aboard fighters and cargo airplanes. AFRL is integrating a solid-state laser into a pod to be fitted in a fighter-size aircraft. The challenges are significant, however, he noted. “The technology has to be operationally relevant, it has to be affordable, there are a lot of policy issues ... We understand the effectiveness of kinetic weapons. We need analytical tools for directed energy.”

Maj. Gen. J.D. Harris Jr., vice commander of Air Force Air Combat Command, said C-130 gunships will be used as flying test platforms for laser guns. “Once we get the size weight and power they could be used for nonlethal and lethal force.”

The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer has been involved with directed energy weapons for nearly 40 years. Since the 1970s, he has heard about the “great promise of instantaneous kill and an unlimited magazine," said Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. The reality is that “there’s no magic that will allow us to go faster."

The Pentagon spends about $300 million a year on directed energy technology, said Kendall. “I can’t promise the budget is going to get bigger. But I don’t think it’s going to get smaller.” Key experiments scheduled for the next several years will be decisive, he said. “That’s about the right pace.”

Many policy issues haven't been hashed out yet, he added. “We have a series of demonstrations that will culminate in the next five to six years that will position us to move toward operational weapons,” he said. “We made a lot progress. But we’re not there yet.”

Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, recalled a conversation he had more than four decades ago with James Schlesinger, secretary of defense during the Nixon and Ford administrations, about directed energy weapons. The secretary called them “interesting toys,” Krepinevich said. The question is whether one day they will break into the mainstream, he asked. “Submarines and torpedoes were once interesting toys until they became deadly weapons during World War I.” The packed ballroom at the directed energy summit, he noted, is one sign that “people believe the time has come.”

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Where Is The U.S. Navy Going To Put Them All?

Jan Musil, Center for International Maritime Security, July 29

Part 2: UUVs, Fire Scouts and buoys and why the Navy needs lots of them.

This article, the second of the series, lays out a suggested doctrine of use for the UUVs and Fire Scouts that have already been developed. It is an incremental strategy, primarily calling for using what the Navy already has in hand, adding use of buoys in quantity combined with appropriate doctrinal changes and vigorously applying the result to the ASW mission.

In getting this program underway the U.S. Navy can utilize existing sensors, whether for prosecuting ASW, developing sonar projections of the water below, including occasional deep diving missions and whatever else we find a need for the UUV to do. In practice though, generating useful results is far easier to accomplish if the UUV is routinely, though not exclusively, used with a tether so the data generated can easily be transmitted back aboard for analysis and use.

Utilizing tethered UUVs with a suite of frequencies to listen and broadcast on opens up some interesting opportunities for the ASW mission. By significantly expanding outward the range of ocean area being searched the U.S. Navy can realistically anticipate creating the possibility of being able to establish a rough range number to a detected target. Spread the sonar emitters out far enough and the use of parallax kicks in and if there is just a little difference in vector to the target from two widely separated hunters they now have a working range number. This range estimate will almost certainly be nothing close to accurate enough to fire on, but it will certainly indicate a distinct patch of ocean to direct any orbiting P-8s or other airframes toward. Finding a needle in haystacks is a lot easier if you have a solid clue as to which haystack you should be searching.

Particularly if the Fire Scouts are simultaneously dynamically moving dipping sonar equipped buoys around the ocean in conjunction with the UUV equipped buoys. For discussion purposes let’s say a Fire Scout starts its day by moving one UUV equipped and four dipping sonar equipped buoys, all transmitting locally to an ISR drone or ScanEagle just overhead, in relays, across the ocean. As the hours pass an enormous amount of ocean can be searched, further and further out from the task force, yet the buoys will be able to keep up with the task force as it travels, even in dash mode. With only one buoy in the air at a time, each one only being moved hundreds or a few thousands of yards at a time, there will be a constant stream of much better data generated for the ASW team than the existing use of sonobuoys can provide. And the deployed equipment will be able to reliably function on station for many more hours than a manned helicopter team can provide.

Perhaps not at a 24/7 rate nor for days and days on end, but a task force with 15 Fire Scouts and 60 buoys deployed, potentially separated by many miles, has added multiple alternatives to the ASW teams quiver.

It is suggested above that 15 Fire Scouts dynamically rotate 60 UUV or dipping sonar equipped buoys across the ocean. 15 and 60 are merely suggestions though. The real point is that to derive the greatest value out of the newly developed UUVs and Fire Scouts the Navy needs to be thinking in terms of a dozen plus helicopters and scores of buoys at a time, regardless of the particular mix of equipment and sensors dangling beneath them. Again, think and operate in quantity.

Buoys

At this point a brief description of the buoy noted above, to be deployed in scores at any given time, is in order. A set of eight hollow, segmented and honey combed for strength where necessary tubes, say one foot in diameter, made of a 21st century version of fiberglass can be configured in a square. Stacking the ends of the tubes on each other log cabin style, but deliberately leaving the space between each pair of tubes empty creates as much buoyancy as possible, but very deliberately reduces freeboard. Whether the resulting buoy is equipped with a dipping sonar or UUV, both the sensors and the equipment needed to operate the tether, reel for the line and so forth is going to get soaked anyway. Simultaneously, we want a minimum of tossing and reeling about in various sea states as the sonar or UUV does its job or as a helicopter drops down to utilize a hook to grab the buoy and gently lift it clear of the water. So if the waves and swell are moving between the pairs of tubes, this will substantially reduce the buoys unavoidable acrobatics in the water, vastly easing the helicopters task in relifting it for redeployment.

So long as the pyramid resting on top of the buoy containing the motor driving the reel and its power source has a double sealed compartment and the necessary electronics, radar lure and antenna are in a triple sealed compartment above it; both routinely riding above the waves, limited freeboard is actually an advantage. At this point all that is needed is to add an appropriately sized circle of steel for the helicopter to snag each time it moves the buoy and we have an extremely practical piece of equipment to deploy, in large numbers and at a rather low price, across the fleet.

In years to come the Navy can incrementally add the ability to transmit and receive on different frequencies to measure the difference in time back to the emitting sensors thereby creating additional ways to monitor the underwater environment, detect targets and potentially be less intrusive when operating amongst our cetacean neighbors. By doing so we can build a much more sophisticated picture of surrounding water conditions as well. Knowledge that good computerized analysis of the data and developing a doctrine of best practice to utilize this knowledge of water conditions will leave the mission commander’s CIC in a position to make much better informed decisions on where to deploy their search assets next.

Sounds great doesn’t it? But as always there is a problem or three lurking about that need to be dealt with. For now we have reached the point where we need to consider the question used as the title for the article. Where is the U.S. Navy going to put them all?

In the next article we examine two new ship classes that can be used by the fleet to go to sea with the various types of drones, UUVs, Fire Scouts and buoys suggested, in quantity, as well as the needed sailors aboard.

Jan Musil is a Vietnam era Navy veteran, disenchanted ex-corporate middle manager and long-time entrepreneur.

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International Undersea Warfare News

Submarine Killers Showcase India’s $61 Billion Warning To China

David Tweed and N.C. Bipindra, Bloomberg News, July 29

HONG KONG/NEW DELHI – In a dock opening onto the Hooghly River near central Kolkata, one of India’s most lethal new weapons is going through a final outfit.

The Kadmatt is a submarine killer, bristling with technology to sniff out and destroy underwater predators. It’s the second of four warships in India’s first dedicated anti-submarine force – a key part of plans to spend at least $61 billion on expanding the navy’s size by about half in 12 years.

The build-up is mostly aimed at deterring China from establishing a foothold in the Indian Ocean. It also serves another goal: Transforming India’s warship-building industry into an exporting force that can supply the region, including U.S. partners in Asia wary of China’s increased assertiveness.

“India’s naval build-up is certainly occurring in the context of India moving towards a greater alignment with U.S. and its allies to balance China,” said David Brewster, a specialist in Indo-Pacific security at the Australian National University in Canberra. “India wants to be able to demonstrate that Beijing’s activities in South Asia do not come without a cost, and Delhi is also able to play in China’s neighborhood.”

China showed its growing naval prowess when it deployed a nuclear-powered submarine to patrol the Indian Ocean for the first time last year, while a diesel-powered one docked twice in Sri Lanka. India says another Chinese submarine docked in May and July in Pakistan, which is reportedly looking to buy eight submarines in what would be China’s biggest arms export deal.

Obama Help

The U.S.’s Seventh Fleet has patrolled Asia’s waters since World War II and is backing India’s naval expansion. On a January visit to New Delhi, President Barack Obama pledged to explore ways of sharing aircraft carrier technology. The two countries also flagged the need to safeguard maritime security in the South China Sea, where neither has territorial claims.

India’s present fleet of 137 ships falls far short of the more than 300 vessels in China, which has Asia’s biggest navy. China boasts at least 62 submarines, including four capable of firing nuclear ballistic missiles, according to the Pentagon.

“We would like to have the Moon,” Navy Vice Chief P. Murugesan told reporters on July 14, acknowledging that its goal of a 200-ship navy by 2027 was ambitious.

The vessels on India’s wish list show Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intent on expanding the navy’s influence from Africa to the Western Pacific. Most of them will be made in India, a sign that moves to upgrade the country’s shipyards are starting to pay off for the world’s biggest importer of weapons.

100 Warships

India plans to add at least 100 new warships, including two aircraft carriers, as well as three nuclear powered submarines capable of firing nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. It will also tender for submarine-rescue vessels, a first for a navy that’s operated submarines for four decades.

“What we are seeing here is a significant ramping up of blue-water capacity,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. The expansion would help maintain India’s regional naval supremacy and project power, he said.

Part of that strategy involves overseas sales. India recently made its first ever warship export to the island nation of Mauritius. The patrol vessel was built by Kolkata-based Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd., one of four government-run shipyards.

The same company is bidding to win a Philippine tender for warships, and last year India agreed to sell Vietnam four offshore patrol boats. Both nations compete with China for territory in disputed waters.

Billionaire Invests

India wants to produce all of the components on its naval vessels domestically by 2030, Navy Chief Admiral RK Dhowan said this month. Now it only makes about a third of weapons and sensors, and about 60 percent of propulsion systems.

To make that happen, Dhowan wants private firms involved. Billionaire Anil Ambani said this month his Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Ltd. would make a 50 billion rupee ($780 million) investment in a shipyard on India’s western coastline.

While India is capable of building warships, it relies on the U.S., Russia and Europe for technology and lags the world’s bigger players, according to Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“India does not have a very glorious record in defense manufacturing, and certainly not for exports,” he said. “Things may change for the better with the private sector.”

India is also reaching out to the region. It’s boosting ties with Mauritius and Seychelles, and has offered to help Myanmar modernize its navy. India is also hosting naval exercises with the U.S. and Japan later this year, and holding its first-ever drills with Australia in September.

Chinese experts led by Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Yang Yujun told Indian media this month that clashes are possible if India views the adjacent ocean as its “backyard.”

“India wants to take a leadership role in the Indian Ocean and ultimately become the predominant naval power,” ANU’s Brewster said. “Its moves reflect an instinctive view among many in Delhi that if the Indian Ocean is not actually India’s Ocean, then in an ideal world it ought to be.”

With assistance from Kamran Haider in Islamabad, Bibhudatta Pradhan and Natalie Obiko Pearson in New Delhi and Ting Shi in Hong Kong

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Sweden Says Sub Wreck a Czarist Russian Vessel

Staff, Agence France-Presse, July 28

Sweden said on Tuesday the wreck of a submarine found off its coast appeared to be a Czarist-era Russian vessel that collided with a Swedish ship about a century ago.

"We are most likely talking about the Russian submarine the Som (Catfish) which sank after a collision with a Swedish vessel in 1916 during World War I and before the Russian revolution," the Swedish Armed Forces said.

Speculation had been swirling about the origins of the vessel after Swedish divers announced Monday that a submarine had been found about 1.5 nautical miles off the coast of central Sweden.

The announcement came nine months after a high-profile hunt for a mystery submarine in Swedish waters, suspected to be Russian, and some speculated that the divers had chanced upon a modern Russian vessel.

The Swedish military however quashed rumors and said the vessel was old, referring to the design of the submarine and the lettering on the outer shell seen in the pictures of the wreck taken by the divers.

The military added it did not think a full technical analysis was necessary.

Experts identified it as an Imperial Russian Navy sub that sank with an 18-member crew in May 1916 after a collision with a Swedish vessel.

'Immortalise the Memory'

Russian experts have identified the vessel as a Som class submarine, built for the Imperial Russian Navy in 1904 and integrated into the Baltic fleet.

"This is clearly the Som, judging by its location and design," submarine expert Andrei Nikolayev told AFP.

He said the find was very important for Russia.

"As they say, the war is not over until the last soldier has been buried," said Nikolayev, who himself served on submarines.

He said there were several theories as to why the submarine had sunk, adding that its commander was inexperienced.

"A lieutenant was in charge of our submarine," he said.

Konstantin Bogdanov, head of a state-backed team of wreck divers in Russia, also said that the discovery appeared to be the Som, offering his team's help to study the find together with the Swedish divers.

"We are ready to conduct a joint expedition," he said, stressing that it would be important to "immortalize the memory" of those who perished.

Finding the remains of a submarine is more difficult than locating a sunken ship, Bogdanov said, stressing that the latest discovery was a rare occurrence.

Last year Bogdanov's team helped Estonian divers identify a wreck in the Baltic Sea as the Czarist-era Russian submarine known as The Shark (Akula).

'Completely Intact'

Stefan Hogeborn, a diver with the Ocean X Team that made the discovery, said the mini-sub was "completely intact" with "no visible damage to the hull" and the hatches were closed.

"It is unclear how old the submarine is and how long it has been laying at the sea floor, but the Cyrillic letters on the hull indicate that it is Russian," he said in a statement on Monday.

Ocean X Team said the vessel was around 20 meters (66 feet) long and 3.5 meters wide (11.5 feet), adding it was planning a new expedition to study the wreck more closely.

In October, Sweden's navy launched a massive hunt for a foreign submarine, suspected to be Russian, in the Stockholm archipelago.

The military subsequently confirmed that "a mini-submarine" had violated its territorial waters, but was never able to establish the vessel's nationality.

Last year's hunt for the mystery vessel came at a time of particularly high tensions between Russia and the West over the conflict in Ukraine.

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India’s Reluctance On Multilateral Naval Exercises

Pushan Das and Sylvia Mishra, The Diplomat, July 28

India needs to shed its concerns about Chinese sensitivities and embrace its Indian Ocean partners.

The scope of the upcoming Indo-U.S. Malabar naval exercise has expanded to a trilateral that includes Japan. This will be the first multilateral Malabar exercise to be held in waters near India since 2007.

However, the exclusion of Australia from the Malabar exercise reflects New Delhi’s penchant for hedging against the prospect of Chinese opposition. New Delhi’s cautious approach to the exercise also reflects an institutional aversion to multilateral exercises geographically close to India. Given the rapidly expanding presence of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), can New Delhi afford to hold on to these hesitancies while simultaneously pursuing its quest to be the dominant security player in the region?

China’s growing naval profile in the Indian Ocean creates a new geopolitical reality that India needs to manage. To adjust its policies to the rapidly changing complexion of the Indian Ocean, New Delhi needs to proactively engage its maritime partners by holding trilateral and quadrilateral naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. Yet while India has not shied away from conducting bilateral exercises, it has a maintained a strong reluctance to hold multilateral exercises in the Indian Ocean owing to Chinese sensitivities. Given that China shows little apparent concern about India’s vulnerabilities in the Indian Ocean in light of the growing China-Pakistan nexus, India should shed its inhibitions and engage in institutionalized multilateral military exercises and engagements in the region.

In May 2007, a proposal put forth by Shinzo Abe, then in his first tenure as prime minister of Japan, of an arc of freedom and democracy comprising the U.S., Japan, India and Australia, the informal quadrilateral was formed. Building on that idea, senior officials met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Manila in May 2007 to discuss the possibility of expanding naval exercises. These discussions led to the decision to expand Indo-U.S. naval cooperation, which had begun in 1992, to include the naval fleets of Australia, Singapore and Japan. The Malabar exercise is an important symbol of India-U.S. naval cooperation in the Indian Ocean, and the decision to include likeminded countries in the exercise was the first of its kind, with strategic undertones for the region.

The week-long series of training and development exercises in the Bay of Bengal involved more than 20,000 personnel. It was significant for two reasons: First, it symbolized a transformational shift away from the traditional India-U.S. security policies during the Cold War period, such as the 1971 dispatch of Task Force 74 to the Bay of Bengal. Second, Malabar 2007 involved unprecedented air defense exercises, anti-submarine warfare training, and a host of professional exchanges between ships and aircraft. It was also the last multilateral version of Malabar to be held in the IOR.

Chinese Sensitivities

India’s military exercises with different countries over the years show one clear pattern, an aversion to certain types of multilateral exercises near its coast or on its territory. This policy is driven by a desire to avoid being drawn into military alliances. More recently, however, the tendency has been to avoid being drawn into alliances or networks that might threaten China.

Certainly, India has not been averse to multilateral and bilateral exercises in themselves. Indeed, over the years it has conducted and participated in many. IBSAMBAR (India, Brazil & South Africa), Varuna (India & France), Milan (16 countries from the Indian Ocean Region), Simbex (India & Singapore), KONKAN (India & U.K.) are just a few in a long list of naval exercises that have held in the three sea bodies surrounding India. These exercises have not drawn protests from China as most of the countries involved have not been claimants in the South China Sea.

In contrast, the 2007 Malabar exercise included Japan and Australia – two countries in military alliances with the United States. The fact that the area of operation was in the Bay of Bengal did little to assuage Chinese concerns and played straight into China’s Malacca Strait Dilemma.

Indian participation in exercises in the Pacific like RIMPAC or Air Force exercises on the U.S. mainland like Red Flag have drawn little criticism from China. However, a multilateral exercise like Malabar was seen as a putative maritime entente aimed at containing China. Unsurprisingly, in 2007 it drew a sharp reaction from China in spite of the then U.S. Navy’s Pacific Commander Timothy J. Keating observing that the maneuvers were not aimed at forming a quadrilateral front against China. He stated, “Let me emphasize, there is no effort on our part or any of these other countries (participating in the exercises) to isolate China or put Beijing in a closet.” In the wake of those exercises, the multinational component was shifted out of the Indian Ocean, and the Malabar exercises in the Indian Ocean became a bilateral India-U.S. affair. There is considerable sensitivity in New Delhi regarding the scope and symbolism of the Malabar exercises. New Delhi has on several previous occasions rebuffed U.S. attempts to include Japan as another participant in the exercises. And during the India-Japan-Australia dialogue last month, when Australia expressed interest in participating in the exercises along with Japan, India was reluctant.

Yet if India is set to have a clear and cogent Indian Ocean strategy, this deep-rooted hesitance to host multilaterals in the Indian Ocean region will need to change. By excluding Australia from this year’s Malabar exercise, even as it prepares to hold its first bilateral with that country, India is doing little to scale down Beijing’s reaction. Does a three country entente really look less threatening than a four or five country one? Irrespective of Australia’s inclusion, Beijing would be uncomfortable with the Malabars and India may as well just shed its inhibitions and stop pandering to Chinese concerns.

Multilateral Military Links

Recently a Chinese Yuan-class 335 submarine docked at Pakistan’s Karachi port. The Indian Navy played down the revelation. The Navy’s Vice Chief Admiral P. Murugesan insisted that the “docking of a submarine belonging to some other country in a third country itself is not a big concern.” However India’s inability to detect not only the sub before it docked at Karachi but also the support ship accompanying it is alarming, given the fact that the vessels circumnavigated India.

New Delhi has over the last few years begun setting up a chain of costal surveillance radar (CSR) stations in the IOR. Apart from Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Madagascar and Muscat, there are six Coastal Surveillance Radar Stations based in Sri Lanka. These stations assist India in monitoring ships sailing past these regions, helping the Navy observe the movements of all ships operating in the Indian Ocean. The IOR surveillance project is widely seen as India’s response to China’s aggressive new operations in the region and reports that Beijing is pushing for the establishment of 18 deepwater posts with the African and Asian littoral. While the costal surveillance network is a step in the right direction, it will not help India’s woefully lacking anti-submarine assets detect underwater threats. Indeed, the inability to detect the submarine supply ship that docked at Karachi highlights the critical gaps in India’s capabilities.

Creating partnerships to plug these critical gaps is vital for India. And military exercises and interoperability will be hold the key in creating military-to-military linkages that can be leveraged for joint surveillance. This could simply be sharing information or it could be logistical cooperation to achieve more comprehensive coverage. The U.S. and France both have a number of bases in the IOR region and are equally concerned by China’s increasing footprint.

However several agreements that would enable greater cooperation between the Indian and U.S. armed forces face political opposition in India. Some of these agreements, like the Logistics Support Agreement, would facilitate increased use of shared logistical services. Similarly, agreements like the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA) would provide logistical support and enable exchanges of communication and related equipment; Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) would require the supply of equipment to India that is compatible with American systems. Signing these “foundational agreements” is critical to enhancing interoperability in the Indian Ocean.

It is time for India to leverage existing and emerging multilateral platforms to engage deeply with partner countries and take on a greater leadership role in the IOR. Given the centrality of the Indian Ocean to its national security, New Delhi cannot afford to ignore any short or long term threats, and must begin to be proactive, rather than reactive.

Pushan Das and Sylvia Mishra are researchers at the Observer Research Foundation.

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Opinion: Sub Discovery Media Storm Highlights Tensions Between Russia and the West

Magnus Nordenman, USNI News, July 28

When the news broke on Monday that the Swedish marine salvage company Ocean X had discovered a sunken submarine close to Sweden’s coast it jarred a region otherwise deep in its summer lull.

News sites provided minute-by-minute updates on the revelation throughout the day, and the story led the evening news in not only Sweden, but also Denmark, Norway and Finland. Journalists, naval experts, and defense wonks quickly chimed in. Based on the size of the submarine — about 70 feet — many argued that it must be a Russian or Soviet mini-submarine, lost during an operation or exercise against Sweden.

Perhaps this was the submarine that eluded the Swedish navy last October in the Stockholm archipelago? Or was it from the late Cold War period, when Swedish warships hunted and even attacked suspected Soviet submarines? Regardless, the implications of the discovery were potentially huge, and could lead to “an immediate crisis between Sweden and Russia,” as Sweden’s largest newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, put it in an editorial.

By Tuesday it was increasingly clear that the submarine was of an older vintage, more than likely Som, an imperial Russian navy submarine that was lost with all hands after colliding with a Swedish merchantman in 1916. Interestingly, Som began its service life as the Fulton, an experimental U.S. boat built in 1901 that was sold to an increasingly desperate Russian empire during the Russo-Japanese war, where the Som briefly saw action. To be fair to Swedish submarine-watchers, the grainy footage released by Ocean X showed a submarine virtually intact and with little organic growth; hardly what one would expect from a submarine marking a century in the deep. But such are the environmental conditions in the Baltic Sea.

So while the recent revelation will not be the final proof of Russian incursions deep into Swedish territorial waters in recent history, the sturm und drang (loose translation: storm and stress) surrounding the event says something about how tense the Baltic Sea region has become over the past few years.

Russia has indeed stepped up its military activity in the region, in order to test the resolve of NATO and signal Russia’s return to the European stage. Swedish, Finnish, and Lithuanian research ships and cable layers have been harassed by Russian warships and buzzed by Russian navy helicopters.

Finland and Sweden have both launched anti-submarine warfare operations in pursuit of suspected Russian submarines in their territorial waters. Russian warships have strayed into the economic zones of the Baltic states, and keep up a more intense rate of exercises and patrols in the Baltic Sea. Meanwhile, in the air above the Baltic Sea, Russian attack jets have practiced attack runs against targets in both Sweden and Denmark.

Last year, a U.S. reconnaissance flight was chased into Swedish air space by aggressively maneuvering Russian fighters. Often flying without their transponders on, Russian military aircraft have also come dangerously close to commercial aviation.

This has not come without a response from NATO and the countries of the region. U.S. Naval Forces Europe’s BALTOPS is a long-standing naval exercise in the Baltic Sea, but this summer’s iteration was significantly larger than in the past, and included amphibious landings in Sweden and Poland as well as B-52s dropping sea mines to thwart an aggressor. Poland is eyeing a new class of submarines, while Sweden has rapidly funded the procurement of a new submarine class as well.

Ashore, the United States, along with its NATO allies, currently rotates forces through the Baltic states for exercises. Washington has also committed to pre-positioning heavy weapons and equipment in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, in order for U.S. forces to be able to quickly fall in on those countries for exercises or contingencies. In other words, NATO is settling in for the long haul of deterring an increasingly belligerent Russia in the Baltic Sea region.

Som is an echo from Europe’s past, and the timing of its discovery is especially poignant since the continent is currently marking the centennial of the Great War, a conflagration that fundamentally changed the European order and broke Europe’s great powers.

Today, the Baltic Sea is the stage for an emerging contest that could very well determine the future of the European security order.

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Can Japan Win Australia's Submarine Contract?

Mina Pollmann, The Diplomat, July 28

Australia’s “competitive evaluation process” is pitting Japanese, German, and French submarine builders against each other in a bid to secure a A$50 billion ($38.84 billion) contract to build six to 12 submarines for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). But the competitors – Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), and France’s state-controlled DCNS – are not competing solely on the basis of their design’s superiority, but also on the basis of how far they are willing to go to accommodate South Australian voters’ demands for jobs, and assuage the Liberal party’s concerns about their electoral viability.

Australia is looking for a long-range submarine, about 4,000-tonnes, bigger than the 3,300-tonne Collins that it currently fields. To compete against Japan’s 4,200-tonne Soryu class, TKMS is submitting a 4,000-tonne Type 216, and DCNS is offering a smaller, non-nuclear variant of its 5,300 tonne Barracuda-class submarines.

As part of the ten-month process, Australia is asking each of the competitors to submit three different plans – a plan for building all the submarines in Australia, a plan for building all the submarines abroad, and a hybrid plan that will allow for a mix of production sites.

Due to the secrecy surrounding Japanese interactions with the prime minister’s office, Tony Abbott has been accused of concluding a “secret deal” with Japan. Such charges are overblown, but Abbott’s preference for working with Japan – in part because of U.S. enthusiasm for a Australia-Japan venture – is well documented.

In contrast to TKMS and DCNS’s frank willingness to build in Australia – if that will win them the contract – Japan has been extremely reluctant to consider building in Australia. As recently as early June, Japanese defense officials questioned Australia’s ability to build a high-tech submarine, inviting backlash from Independent South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon. Masao Kobayashi, former commander of the Japanese submarine fleet, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “They don’t have enough skilled workers to fashion the high-tension steel [in Australia]; it’s even hard to do in Japan.” Toshihide Yamauchi, also a former Japanese submarine captain, raised a separate set of concerns about “leaks to China once our technology is in Australia.”

However, more recent signs indicate that Japan is willing to do what it takes to accommodate Abbott’s balancing act. Japan is now considering working with Saab, a Swedish shipbuilding company, to build some of the submarines in Australia. Saab already does submarine work with Japan and in Australia, and could help ease Japan’s transition into becoming a major weapons exporter. For example, Saab already has 350 specialist staff in Australia.

Another option for Japan is to work with British companies, as sources in Tokyo have told Reuters. Babcock International Group and BAE Systems have reportedly approached Mitsubishi and Kawasaki offering help, and other British defense contractors may be involved as well. Again, the main advantage to Japan of working with British contractors would be to smooth its entry into the global weapons market writ large, as well as Australian shipyards on the ground. Specifically, Babcock does maintenance work on Australia’s Collins class, and BAE Systems employs 4,500 people in Australia.

After dragging their feet for so long, what could have forced Japanese bureaucrats to come around to the inevitability of building at least some (or parts) of the submarines in Australia? Xenophon’s visit to Japan may have been a major factor. During the trip, he spoke bluntly of the political catastrophe that could befall the Liberal party if a purely foreign build is selected. Xenophon has declared to Japan that “if the Australian government makes a decision to build the submarines overseas[,] the winning country will find itself in the middle of a huge political backlash.”

Xenophon is the darling of those opposed to a foreign build. He has already threatened to run candidates against Abbott’s Liberal party in South Australia. Liberals know that the decision of where to build these submarines – a decision about Australian jobs and tax dollars – will play a large role in the next federal election, which is not too far in the future, as Australia must hold its next lower house election by January 2017. Faced by the stark realities of Australia’s politics, Japan is tentatively beginning to explore ways to compensate for its lack of experience.

Meanwhile, DCNS is bending over backwards to get Australian politicians to accept their bid. France has promised to share stealth technology, which it has never before shared with a foreign country. DCNS spokeswoman Jessica Thomas explained:

“These technologies are the ‘crown jewels’ of French submarine design knowhow and have never been offered to any other country. … By the very nature of these stealth technologies and the decision to release them to the Australian government, this is a significant demonstration of the strategic nature of this program for the French authorities.”

TKMS is also upping the ante by promising to transfer manufacturing know-how to local companies and take a stake in the Australian Shipbuilding Corporation if awarded the contract. TKMS has ambitions to transform Australia into a shipbuilding and maintenance hub of the Asia-Pacific.

While European partners are demonstrably more eager to build in Australia – and hence, better for Abbott’s political fortunes – as extra-regional actors, a submarine deal with either France or Germany will not create the same sort of regional grouping that a Japan-Australia deal could.

Ultimately, Abbott is seeking a deal with Japan, despite the high political risks, because he sees the deal with Japan as a way to put a down payment on supporting the U.S.’s “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific through burden-sharing. A successful Japanese bid not only increases Australia’s own defense capabilities through a submarine upgrade, but also helps boost Japan’s defense industry by allowing Japan to export a major weapons platform for the first time since the end of WWII.

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