Naval Group of France Withdraws from the Indian Navy’s P75I project to acquire six new submarines

Naval Group, a French company, announced on Tuesday that it will be unable to participate in the Centre’s P-75I project, which calls for six conventional submarines to be built in India for the Indian Navy, due to conditions in the request for proposal (RFP) concerning the air independent propulsion (AIP) system.

The announcement by Naval Group comes only one day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Paris, where he will meet newly re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.

The AIP technology allows a conventional submarine to stay submerged in water for extended periods of time at faster speeds.

The Project 75 (India)-class submarines, abbreviated as P-75I, are a projected class of diesel-electric submarines for the Indian Navy. The P-75I class is a successor to the Indian Navy’s P-75 submarines.

The Indian Navy plans to purchase six conventional diesel-electric attack submarines as part of this project, which will include advanced capabilities such as air-independent propulsion (AIP), intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), special operations forces (SOF), anti-ship warfare (AShW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW), land-attack capabilities, and other features. Under the Make in India plan, all six submarines are expected to be built in India.

The Government of India (GoI) picked two Indian shipyards, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL), as the two Indian finalists in the P-75I competition on January 21, 2020.

ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) of Germany, Rubin Design Bureau of Russia, Navantia of Spain, Naval Group of France, and Daewoo Shipping & Marine Engineering (DSME) of South Korea were among five foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) nominated as finalists in P-75I.

The Barracuda class (also known as the Suffren class) is a nuclear attack submarine built for the French Navy by Naval Group (previously known as DCNS and DCN).

The class is propelled by a nuclear reactor with a revolutionary hybrid architecture that combines electric propulsion for low-speed cruise with turbo-mechanical propulsion at higher speeds. The submarine can travel at a top speed of 25 knots (46 km/f; 29 mph) and has a 10-year range. There are 60 persons on board, including 12 officers and 48 sailors.

The submarine’s armament consists of four 533mm torpedo tubes and 20 storage racks for a variety of armaments, including F21 Artemis heavy torpedoes, Exocet SM.39 Block 2 anti-ship missiles with a range of 50 kilometres, SCALP naval cruise missiles with a range of over 1000 kilometres, and FG29 mines. Per weapon rack, two mines can be carried.