France ready to offer naval SCALP missile with three Scorpene subs

The naval cruise missile has a range of 1000 kms after being launched from a Scorpene class submarine.

Published on: Jul 13, 2023, 13:06:49 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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Apart from offer to build three more Scorpene class submarines for the Indian Navy at Mazagon Dockyards in Mumbai, France has also agreed to arm the air independent propulsion (AIP) equipped submarine with a naval cruise missile, which has double the range of SCALP air to ground missile carried by Indian Air Force (IAF) Rafale fighters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on INS Vikrant aircraft carrier.

Upgraded from the SCALP missile, the naval version has a range of over 1000 kilometers when launched from a submarine and goes up to 1400 kilometers when launched from a warship. The turbojet powered cruise missile is sub-sonic and remains sub-surface before taking to the skies while approaching the target and then annihilating the potential enemy threat on ground. The missile is being used by the French Navy on board its frigates since 2017 and onboard its Barracuda class submarines from 2022. The missile can also be used on Scorpene class submarines after slight technical modifications of the torpedo tubes.

While Indian Navy officials and diplomats have seen the performance of the Naval SCALP in France, it is understood that the missile manufacturer is willing to produce the cruise weapon in India under the “Make in India” route. The decision to build three more submarines at MDL has been taken as the entire process for Indian Navy’s Project 75 I will take a minimum of 15 years or more. The time delay can be estimated from the fact that the decision to make six Scorpene (Kalveri) class submarines was taken when Atal Bihari Vajapee was the Prime Minister and George Fernandes was the Defence Minister in 1999. The sixth of the submarines will be delivered to the Indian Navy in 2024, a quarter of a century after the 30 year submarine program was given approval by the Cabinet Committee on Security headed by PM Vajpayee.

Read more: France likely to have UPI system with India, first in Europe after Singapore

Given the rapid expansion of Chinese Navy which is expected to patrol Indian Ocean waters by 2025, the Indian Navy has no options but to counter the PLAN challenge in the Indo-Pacific as it cannot allow Beijing to dominate the sea lanes from Gulf of Aden to South China Sea with the help of India’s once upon a time arch rival Pakistan.

It is quite evident from the content of bilateral ties with France that PM Modi visit will take the strategic relationship on a top gear with President Emmanuel Macron and his companies only waiting for India to ask for the technology the country wants.

Politically what is quite interesting is that PM Modi has been offered a state visit by US and France on the eve of 2024 Lok Sabha general elections, while UPA Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was offered the same immediately after the Congress got 206 seats in 2009 Lok Sabha elections. That PM Modi has been feted by both President Joe Biden and will now be by President Macron, reveals the confidence they have on the Indian leader in 2024.

Fact is that both Biden and Macron have close personal relations with PM Modi, who likes to bat straight without compromising on India’s strategic autonomy be it on Ukraine war or expansionist China.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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