If India wants to modernize its navy quickly, it must rely on money and spend a lot of money to buy advanced weapons. However, Modi vigorously promoted "Made in India" and wanted to change the situation that Indian weapons were "made in all countries" in the past, so this will not be the main road for the modernization of the Indian navy. The other is to continue to make domestic products and make their own weapons. But India's experience in the past eight years shows that India can't do it, and there are too many shortcomings to accomplish it.
The most striking of the nine items is that India will build a destroyer of100000 tons. In other words, India wants to build a 10 destroyer of 65,438+30,000 tons, comparable to 055, which is obviously aimed at China. In addition, India will also build or purchase lightning protection ships, frigates, submarines, support ships and so on.
According to the bidding amount, it will cost at least $8 billion to build four amphibious assault ship, $20 billion to build a130,000-ton destroyer, $8 billion to build six destroyers, $2 billion to build a 1000-ton light frigate and five 45,000 frigates. These projects add up to more than $40 billion, and in 2022, the Indian navy's procurement funds were only $6.36 billion. In other words, in the most ideal situation, the Indian navy needs at least five years to build so many surface ships. This has not taken into account the cost overruns of various plans.
Look at the technical level. In order to realize the localization of weapons, both the national defense industry and the basic industry cannot be broken, while India has shortcomings in manufacturing and basic industries. For example, in the field of mechanized construction, India has not solved the production problem of special steel, including aircraft carrier deck steel and hull steel. Therefore, although the "Made in India" domestic product priority policy has been implemented for more than eight years, India's desire to fully realize localization from mobile phones to fighters is still full of ideals and the reality is very skinny. The overall level of India's defense industry has not been greatly improved, and the status quo that weapons and operating platforms are heavily dependent on imports has not changed much.
In addition, Modi did dismantle his own platform: India's domestic defense industry originally lacked advanced production and technical capabilities. As a result, Modi stopped Indian defense enterprises from importing foreign raw materials and spare parts through administrative across-the-board measures, resulting in India's local defense industry not producing enough weapons. If you walk too fast, you will easily fall down.