When is a nuclear submarine not a nuclear submarine?
There’s a crude British idiom – ‘All fur coat and no knickers’ – that we use to describe something that is all style and no substance, something that is superficially impressive but lacking the fundamentals underneath.
Take for example, the recently launched Indian nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant (Destroyer of Enemies). Just how many enemies the Arihant could be the destroyer of right now is debatable, for you see…
…the Arihant was launched without its nuclear reactor, which will not be ready for another year, or so. No one is saying for sure when the reactor will be ready…
Ladies and gentlemen, the world’s first non-nuclear nuclear submarine. The reason the Arihant was launched without its reactor seems to be one of prestige – it’s taken more than ten years to get this far and presumably someone in the Indian government said, ‘just get the thing in the water, we’re starting to look like idiots’. In an added comedy twist, the Arihant’s launch tubes aren’t wide enough to accommodate any current designs of sea launched ballistic missiles.
Of course, it’s not the first time a flagship nuclear project has launched without vital components being in place. French nuclear berks AREVA have been building their so-called state of the art OL3 EPR reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland for four years ‘without a proper design that meets the basic principles of nuclear safety’. The EPR may be coming to Britain as part of Gordon Brown’s nuclear ‘renaissance’. There’s going to be all manner of fun.
Still, the Indian government could be really on to something here – they’re showing the way forward. If we can have the non-nuclear nuclear submarine why not the non-nuclear nuclear weapon and the non-nuclear nuclear reactor? Imagine the day when scientists unveil the AFCANKPWR (All Fur Coat And No Knickers Pressurised Water Reactor).
(More tales of nuclear insanity can be found at Nuclear Reaction.)
Update: ‘Launch’ is probably not the word an impartial bystander would have used…
Yesterday, the Arihant, which is Indian for “Destroyer of Enemies”, made first contact with water, when the Navy flooded a dry dock in the southern port city of Visakhapatnam. According to Indian officials, the submarine must now undergo extensive sea trials in the Bay of Bengal. The nuclear powered, 112-meter (367 feet) long submarine is intended to carry ballistic missiles and will be operated by a crew of some 100 men. However, the Arihant still is far from reaching operational status, as it currently is little more than a floating hull. Its key capability of nuclear propulsion is not yet available, as the nuclear reactor still has to be fitted. Also, significant systems, such as surveillance equipment as well as ordnance, are still missing, according to Uday Bhaskar, a former naval commander and director of the National Maritime Foundation. It will, therefore, probably take India a further three to five years before the Arihant is fully operational.
Posted on September 4th, 2009 at 9:49am under Nuclear: power and weapons
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• 5 Comments |
I thought you were going to be telling a joke then and it kind of was but a rather depressing one.
Poo.
Dumb journos need to get some education before writing articles on technical stuff they dont understand. Leave alone installing a reactor, a nuclear sub cannot even be fueled once its hull has been welded close. In fact refueling a nuclear sub is a messy process requiring the sub to be cut open into half. If one is to believe that Arihant has no propulsion, that would mean the rear half of the sub is a hollow shell. That would create such a weight imbalance that the damn thing will sink head first as soon as it hits warer.
The press is confused because of tight lipped BARC scientist. First the press reported that a functional reactor like the “half sub” shown to them was on arihant. When the scientist corrected them that “its incorrect that a functional reactor is on the sub” the press took it as “no reactor”.
Since the Arihant reactor section called the “half sub” is 42m long, you cannot build the sub without it. The sub is built in prefabricated sections (some 10 of them) stuffed and loaded with equipment and then welded together. Only journos have the imagination to weld hollow sections together.
Arihant needs to undergo structural and integrity test before the reactor will be activated. Since this is the first nuclear sub its tests would be prolonged.
In all its probability Arihant not only has its propulsion in place but is also fueled to go.
Here is the propulsion “half sub” of Arihant.
How does it actually move along?
You know, I assume, that warships and in fact ships generally aren’t launched ready to go? You launch them pretty much as soon as they can float, and then you tow them to a fitting-out dock where you add (for example) turrets, electronics systems, radars, weapon mounts and so on. Once the hull hits the water, you still have a good two years or so before the ship moves off for sea trials, followed by handover and acceptance.
You also know, I assume, that big ships aren’t normally slid down slipways to be launched any more, but flooded out of the construction docks?
You know, too, I assume, that the tubes aren’t big enough for ballistic missiles, but are easily big enough for cruise missiles?
Saying it doesn’t have a reactor fitted is just weird because you would basically have to cut the sub open again to fit one. Saying it doesn’t have a functional reactor would be more or less par for the course for a sub that had just been launched.
For an insightful and intelligent take on nuclear submarines, here’s Mad Nad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icxJggfW0T0&feature=related
lolz