200Wth not WeThe 200MWe reactor design for S5 and P77 (likely based on Russia's OK-650B) is also ready. 10 year refueling cycle.
India's new submarines to get 200-MWe nuclear reactor to boost power
The reactor will be installed on India's upcoming S5 Nuclear Class Submarine and the six-planned Nuclear Attack Submarine (Project 77).interestingengineering.com
With 04 S5 class subs being planned we might not see any SSGN conversion of Arihant class as previously expected.
Arihants are sort of moving deterrent against a CBG anyway, the original idea why such a small design iteration & weapon were conceived. We know our scientists make what they are told, in this case ATVP was started to have own capability of what he Rus ssbn offered. That is why there are 2 in each batch.
BREAKING. India’s fourth SSBN S-4* sails out for sea trials.
CHAKRA EXCLUSIVE: India’s fourth SSBN sails out for sea trials
India’s fourth ballistic missile submarine, the S4*, has commenced sea trials. The 7000-ton submarine sailed out for sea trials sometime last week.chakranewz.com
No other R&D agency would have attempted to do what DRDO has- converting an SSN into a SSBN given all the design constraints that would've entailed.
It is possibly due to us not being able to afford the needed huge tranches of such deterrent platforms like Rus/Soviet did, due to cost & manpower involved. Hence a jugaad sort of way, an ssbn that can act as ssn against a cbg, can act as ssbn against Pak+China due to compatible 2 types of missiles. In the land vector we have both A3 class and A4 class each playing different roles. Similar roles are created for the sea leg imo.
Western intel has always had to rely on guesswork, so it is not surprising. No one knew the true nature so various theories were put up.
my guess is it will be 2 concurrent hulls. Very hard to have all jigs tool set up for 3 separate lines, very costly too and have enough manpower available.
Imo, not practical due to SSBNs being strategic assets (by definition) under the control of SFC. As an NFU state, doing this could result in catastrophic miscalculations by our adversaries. Besides, Arihant would be underpowered for the SSN role.
For that you will have to assume 30 years back they had the foresight to build space for 12,000+ ton/140+ meter dry doc for a proper SSBN. I wouldn't count on that.
What compromises? Its a fantastic mechanism, core change that has gone thru is moving from maraging steel airframe era to composite airframe & equivalent compatible propellant class, better avionics, electronic packaging, way better on board software nav-control system, much improved multi channel link, from single controller based electrohydraulic actuation to quad/multi ema. Todays system is absolutely as state of the art as it goes, possibly dwarfs some western stuff.
Its not that impractical either. There are only a handful of countries that operate large carriers, and only 1 that regularly threatens countries with it and all/most of its carriers are nuclear powered. This means by our stated doctrine we are threatened with use of nuclear force, it can be interpreted in exact that way. No two other option , either stay away or try to engage with us with a nuke powered/strategic asset, zero sum game. In this circumstances I reserve the right to sink this asset that is threatening me by using my own strategic asset, that is INS Arihant.
No doubt it is a compact system with a massive 2t payload and respectable range. The compromises are more to do with the Arihant class than K4 itself. For example, the boat's VLS dimensions would have restricted the K4 dia to 1.4m. Secondly, as South Block pointed out the Arihant's gas ejection system must have been designed with K15 in mind with K-4 being an afterthought. This would've necessitated the nose tractor ejection system, adding weight and complexity.
We are developing a comprehensive A2/AD network extending ~2000km around our coastline to deter this kind of scenario.
Sir they are producing 2 S5 class at the same time?
These are perhaps one of the only few weapons and capabilities we have that causes sleepless nights to those in Beijing.
With all due respect, I would. Remember the snippets of the book "Weapons of Peace" by Raj Chengappa I shared some time back? Our SSBN programs had the highest support and funding from the highest political levels of the country from the very beginning, its not too unrealistic to assume they would have envisaged building such a capability a while ago. Even Chidambaram under UPA correctly understood that a SSBN carrying omly 4 long range SLBMs cannot justify the cost and ordered the addition of 4 more cubes which birthed the S4 and S4* program, this incident shows that this program certainly didnt lack foresight.
The Chinese apparently use 2 75 MWth for their Type 93 and it has only 10% or so enriched uranium which means currently our reactor tech for submarines is almost on par if not on par with Chinese and with the 200 MWth reactor we will perhaps surpass them in this domain.The 200MWe reactor design for S5 and P77 (likely based on Russia's OK-650B) is also ready. 10 year refueling cycle.
India's new submarines to get 200-MWe nuclear reactor to boost power
The reactor will be installed on India's upcoming S5 Nuclear Class Submarine and the six-planned Nuclear Attack Submarine (Project 77).
Arihant size does influence the article it can launch but the conscious choice for some IRBM class SLBM show it is planned rather than a forced decision. Not sure many, if any IRBM class slbm is in service by the nations that operate ssbn. Without knowing the arihant silo dia, we can not tell even why it was made that way. But it is likely how we have progressively built our capability. So a submarine purpose article was derived from the Agni 4 class first stage , both A1P and A4 have same dia 1.2m , that for submarine use evolved into a 1.4m stage booster-sustainer stage. Similarly the 2m dia class A3 A5 now get translated into 2.4m dia SLBM K5. We could easily have built K5 with same A5 characteristics for easier weapon system integration, but it did not happen.
Most likely it was not, a fine balance between the economic aspect (wrt financial situation in the 70s & 80s) of the country vs the strategic need , esp as this program was the sole way of building an underwater fleet.
I can not tell about the reactor part, but on the slbm front most of the in service missiles are 2m dia or more huge sized right ? that means much higher powerful gas ejection method can be implemented in the 2.2m or more dia tubes. K-4 being much slimmer simply can not generate that level of release thrust obviously. Even if you try to use A5 GG for the canister launch, during transition from silo tube to water the missile would tumble & lose balance due to huge initial shock against the outside water layer beyond its tolerance imo. Therefore it is better to use a puller mechanism that clears the water surface then ignites the booster stage. Ejected nosecap means no need to carry this excess weight after job done.
