Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV)
India is a nation that fights for entering the select group of countries that build nuclear powered submarines. Its program ATV, or Advanced Technology Vessel, was initiated in 1974. But after three decades it still had not presented results that could modify the current picture of the navies with nuclear propulsion.India has been working actively since 1985 to develop an indigenously constructed nuclear-powered submarine, one that was possibly based on elements of the Soviet Charlie II-class design, detailed drawings of which are said to have been obtained from the Soviet Union in 1989. This project illustrates India's industrial capabilities and weaknesses. The secretive Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project to provide nuclear propulsion for Indian submarines has been one of the more ill-managed projects of India.
Although India has the capability of building the hull and developing or acquiring the necessary sensors, its industry had been stymied by several system integration and fabrication problems in trying to downsize a 190 MW pressurized water reactor (PWR) to fit into the space available within the submarine's hull. The Proto-type Testing Centre (PTC) at the Indira Gandhi Centre For Atomic Research. Kalpakkam, will be used to test the submarine's turbines and propellers. A similar facility is operational at Vishakapatnam to test the main turbines and gear box.
The Indian nuclear powered attack submarine design is said to have a 4,000-ton displacement and a single-shaft nuclear power plant of Indian origin. By some accounts it would be 9,400 tons displacement when submerged and 124 meters long. With the participation of involved Russian scientists and technician in the diverse phases of the program, came the possibility of that the first Indian submarine with nuclear propulsion can be operational in 2009, having been launched in 2006-2007.
In 1998, L&T began fabricating the hull of ATV but the struggle with the reactor continued. After BARC designs failed, India bought reactor designs from Russia. By 2004 the reactor had been built, tested on land at the IGCAR and had gone critical. Its modest size, around 6,000 tons (the Ohio class SSBN in the movie Crimson Tide weighs over 14,000 tonne), led experts to call it a “baby boomer”. While the present project ends at three units, defence officials have not ruled out building larger submarines on the basis of national strategic imperatives. These have changed since the conception of the project.
By 2004 it was reported that the first ATV would be launched by 2007. At that time it was reported that it would be an SSGN and displacing some 6,500 tons, with a design derivative of Russia's Project 885 Severodvinsk-class (Yasen) SSN. The ATV multirole platform would be employed for carrying out long-distance interdiction and surveillance of both submerged targets as well as principal surface combatants. It would also facilitate Special Forces operations by covertly landing such forces ashore. The ATV pressure hull will be fabricated with the HY-80 steel obtained from Russia.
This would have the possibility of multiple performance: it could use missiles of cruise of average reach (1,000 km), ballistic missiles of short reach (300 km), torpedoes and mines, besides participating of operations special. If it will have success in this taken over on a contract basis, will be valid to assume that the Indian Fleet will count on four to six of these submarines until the year of 2020.
The ATV is said to be a modified Akula-I class submarine. The Russian Akula-2 and Yasen are also modified Akula-1. By this line of reasoning the ATV would be in league of Yasen, so the ATV would be 6500 tons light, 8500 tons armed and surfaced and 10000 tons submerged. It would be the biggest and heaviest combat naval vessel built in India to date.
The 100-member crew, which will man the submarine, is being trained at an indigenously-developed simulator in the School for Advanced Underwater Warfare (SAUW) at the naval base in Vizag. Hands-on training will be done on the INS Chakra, a 12,000-tonne Akula-II class nuclear-powered attack submarine being taken on a 10-year lease from Russia next year. SBC in Vizag is to become the assembly line for three ATVs, costing a little over Rs 3,000 crore each or the cost of a 37,000 tonne indigenous aircraft carrier built at the Cochin Shipyard. Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has begun building the hull of the second ATV at its facility in Hazira, to be inducted into the navy by 2012.
As of 2007 the first of the five long-delayed ATVs was scheduled to be fully-ready by 2010 or so. In August 2008 it was reported that on January 26, 2009, the sluice gates of an enclosed dry-dock in Visakhapatnam were to be opened and the world was to take its first look at India's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV), as it entered the waters.
In February 2009 defence minister A K Antony confirmed that India's nuclear-powered submarine is in the final stages. “The Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project is in the final stage. We had some problems with the raw material in the initial phase. But now the project is in its final stage,” he said at the ongoing Aero-India show. This was a rare admission by the defence minister - not only on the existence of the secretive project to build an indigenous nuclear submarine, but also on its developmental status. The submarine, modelled on the Russian Charlie class submarine, is slated for a sea trial in 2009. Officials in the navy and atomic energy department are hopeful of meeting the deadline this time. In the long run, the government plans to buy three nuclear submarines to provide the navy with capability to stay underwater for a very long time. Though defence and nuclear scientists have been working on this project since 1985, they had initial setbacks with the material and miniaturisation of the nuclear reactor which will be fitted into the submarine's hull.
