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Submarine warfare to feature in Indo-French naval exercise

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

Advanced naval exercises, including mock submarine warfare, will be conducted for the first time between the French and Indian navies off the Bombay coast later this month.

The Indo-French joint exercise, scheduled to begin on February 23, will be the first advanced naval exercise between the two nations.

Contrary to earlier reports, neither nuclear aircraft nor nuclear submarines will be part of the French fleet. The French fleet will consists of an aircraft carrier, the Foch, two destroyers, and a support ship.

According to sources at naval headquarters, the exercise will be the first step towards building an Indo-French naval alliance for future activities like peacekeeping, disaster management and operations against maritime piracy.

A formation, led by the Foch, will attend the exercise in which the Indian Navy's Western Naval Command will take part. The formation will be under the command of Rear Admiral Alain Coldefy of the Foch.

The Foch is a conventional aircraft carrier, with a 27,307 tonne displacement and runs on six boilers. It has a strength of 1,689 sailors, of which 672 maintain the ship's Etendard aircraft and Puma helicopters. The ship will end its career after France's first nuclear aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, becomes fully operational in 2001.

The Foch will be accompanied by the destroyers, the Duquesne and Tourville. The latter destroyer is from the French Indian Ocean fleet, the Al Indien. The support ship is the Joules T.

The Duquesne has a displacement of 5,090 tonnes and has on deck one Marine Nationale helicopter. The destroyer is armed with Exocet missiles.

The Tourville has a displacement of 4,580 tonnes and has Exocet missiles and Lynx helicopters on board.

The Foch was supposed to arrive in the Indian Ocean last year, but the Kosovo crisis forced the French navy to postpone its visit.

From the Indian side, two ships from the Godavari class, one Rajput class, and one SSK class submarine will take part in the exercise.

The exercise, which will be held more than a hundred miles from the coast, will last a day and a half. After the exercise the French formation will push southwards and will conduct an exercise with Sea Harrier aircraft at Goa.

"This will be an eyeopener for both sides. For the first time both of us will carry out advanced exercises," a senior official at naval HQ said.

Besides this naval exercise, the annual maritime interaction between the Indian Navy and France's Al Indien fleet, which operates from the Red Sea, will also be held in coming weeks. According to sources, on March 2, a formation from the Al Indien fleet will visit Vizag and interact with the Eastern Naval Command. This is the first time a French naval team will visit the Andhra Pradesh port.

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