THE Bangladesh Navy went three dimensional in 2017 with the commissioning of two Ming Class submarine from China. The navy now operates, as Wikipedia says, two submarines, five guided-missile frigates, two patrol frigates, six guided-missile听corvettes, four missile boats, five offshore patrol vessels and other coastal patrol vessels, mine sweepers, auxiliaries and amphibious landing craft and rapid response boats. To get an insight into warship building in Bangladesh, ships like frigates, corvettes, missile boats, offshore patrol vessels and coastal patrol ships and five prominent shipbuilders were examined.
Among the five guided-missile frigates, four are China-built and one is from South Korea. Two patrol frigates are Hamilton Class Cutter from the United States. Cutters are high endurance patrol ships operated by the US coast guards. The navy designated Cutters as a patrol frigate. Among seven frigates, six are refurbished. Only the South Korean Ulsan Class frigate was newly built in 2001. The average age of all frigates is 36 years. If we look at frigates by type and make, we find that the average age of patrol frigates (US Cutters) is 53 years, China-built frigates 32 years and the South Korea-built frigate 22 years.
Among the six guided missile corvettes, four are China-made and two are UK-built. The average age of all corvettes is 17 years. Ships by type and make reveal the average age of Chinese corvettes five years and UK-built ships 40 years. Chinese corvettes are newly built and UK-built ships are refurbished.
All four missile boats are of China origin and commissioned in 1988鈥�1992. All boats have been modernised with C-704 missiles. The average age of all boats is 35 years.
Five offshore patrol vessels are UK-0built Island Class ships commissioned in the Royal Navy, UK in 1978鈥�1980. The navy acquired the ships in 2003 and 2004. The average age of the vessels is 44 years.
What is the combat-effective service life of a warship? There is no thumb rule to define the service life of a warship. The length of combat-effective service life varies from country to country. Ships the frigate size and below are generally thought to have a service life of about 30 years. Many navies undertake modernisation programmes to extend the service life. Ship鈥檚 operating cost increases and combat-effectiveness reduces when a ship is operated well beyond its service life. On this consideration, two Hamilton Class Cutters are supposedly due for retirement, four China-built guided missile frigates are presumably in the extended service life period. Both offshore patrol and missile boats are understandably also in the retiring age.
The navy need to have a well-designed plan to replace retiring frigates as it may not be able to spare so much of money to buy nor build seven frigates in short a span of time. The navy will have to decide between 鈥榤aking in Bangladesh鈥� or 鈥榗ontinuing foreign purchases with options between newly built and refurbished ships.鈥�
The fleet inventory has always been import-dependent. Some procurement contracts had clauses like 鈥榯echnology transfer鈥� without SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) policy objectives. Such contract clauses did not produce any result.
The navy took over Khulna Shipyard Limited in 1999, Dockyard Engineering Works Ltd in 2006 and Chittagong Dry Dock Limited in 2015 with two fundamental objectives. One was to stop operating losses for the government and the other was to add impetus to domestic shipbuilding industry. The first objective has been achieved as all the three yards are generating profit. The shipyards generally have technical and technological limitations to build warships indigenously. Khulna Shipyard and Dockyard Engineering Works have additional limitations because of infrastructure and hydrological condition and Chittagong Dry Dock has infrastructural restrictions to construct frigate-size ships. There were, however, attempts to build a couple of patrol craft.
Dockyard Engineering Works was a pioneer in converting four pilot boats into riverine patrol craft in 1972. After more than four decades, two 648-ton large patrol craft and nine 350-ton coastal patrol craft were built in Khulna Shipyard. The large patrol craft were built in 2017 and five coastal patrol craft were built in 2013 and four in 2023. Out of four large patrol craft, the first two were built in China and other two in Khulna Shipyard. All large patrol craft and patrol craft were built on Chinese design and with Chinese technical assistance. An initiative was taken in 2016 to build six frigates in Chittagong Dry Dock. It fell flat as the idea was conceived without upgrading the dry dock鈥檚 capacity to build warship and not having sustainable shipbuilding policy.
Western Marine Shipyard, Ananda Shipyard and Slipways Ltd, Chittagong Dry Dock, Khulna Shipyard and Dockyard Engineering Works are the five prominent shipbuilders in Bangladesh. Western Marine Shipyard and Ananda Shipyard and Slipways are private enterprises. Chittagong Dry Dock, Khulna Shipyard and Dockyard Engineering Works are public shipbuilders operated and managed by the nave under the defence ministry. Western Marine, Ananda Shipyard and Chittagong Dry Dock are relatively new in the industry. Khulna Shipyard and Dockyard Engineering Works are about 70 and 100 years old.
The largest ship that Western Marine built was the 109.65-metre (6,500 DWT) oil tanker. Ananda Shipyard鈥檚 largest product was 2,774-DWT oil tanker for the navy. Both Western Marine and Ananda Shipyard products, as retrieved from respective web sites, are mostly small, special-purpose vessels like ferry, tug, dredger, etc. Neither has built large ocean-going commercial ships. The principal product of Chittagong Dry Dock is repair service and fabricating steel structures for different organisations. Products of Khulna Shipyard and Dockyard Engineering Works are small vessels, repair services and fabricating steel structures for different organisations. None of the enterprises have the experience of building large, ocean-going commercial ships.
India extended $500 million defence line of credit to Bangladesh in 2018 to strengthen military cooperation. There is debate about the terms and conditions of the line of credit whether it is favourable to 鈥楳ake in Bangladesh鈥�. On June 30, 2024, the Directorate General Defence Purchase on behalf of the navy and India鈥檚 Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd, an enterprise of India鈥檚 defence ministry signed a contract to build one 800-ton ocean-going tug in Garden Reach鈥檚 yard in Kolkata at a cost of $21 million. In addition to the line of credit, Garden Reach signed a memorandum in May 2018 with Khulna Shipyard to provide assistance in the design and construction of warships.
According the Hindu online (September 6, 20221), 鈥楤angladesh has purchased arms from China, including two conventional diesel electric submarines. China has emerged as one of the top arms suppliers globally, and especially for countries in India鈥檚 neighbourhood. In a bid to counter this, India has of late significantly expanded its military diplomacy and assistance for capacity building and capability development for countries in the Indian Ocean region.鈥� Both the line of credit and the agreement between Garden Reach and Khulna Shipyard have very slow progress because of too many conditional dos and don鈥檛s by the lender.
To be a warship builder, a shipyard鈥檚 requisite is to have the expertise on building ocean-going commercial ships 鈥� from design to commissioning. Building a warship is more complex than building a commercial ship. The most complex dimension of the warship building is integrating or interfacing the combat information and weapon systems as it has to operate in hostile waters. The learning curve on building commercial ships gives the expertise and skills to build warship. Commercial ship-building also gives a shipyard financial strength to invest in naval ship-building capacity.
A shipbuilder, whether a commercial or naval shipyard, should develop itself as a dual-capacity shipyard to build both commercial and warships. A shipyard with dual capacity has higher chance to withstand difficult times such as business downturn. A shipyard鈥檚 commercial and naval shipbuilding capacity complement each other. New orders of naval ships provide enough work when demand for commercial vessels are low. In the event of a downturn in business, the navy can help to keep shipyards open at least to some extent and keep workers employed. Conversely, during the periods when the navy is not interested in procuring ships, at least for the moment, a continued fulfilment of contracts to build commercial ship helps to keep skills growing.
Research is a grey area in all shipbuilders. Shipbuilders can collaborate with research institute. Research assures investment in capacity-building. Shipbuilders must have a viable business model for building commercial ship to be able to build warships on a scale that Bangladesh would need. There will be periods when the orders would not be coming from the navy and when it happens, shipbuilders might have to lay off much of their work force or adopt a damaging hire-and-fire policy.
In the endeavour to build warships, the navy will have to lead the initiative pragmatically as three shipbuilding yards are under its management. Therefore, considering the limitations of yards, the navy has to ascertain which types of ships are suitable for building in which shipyard. A national shipbuilding policy is imperative for sustainability. All shipbuilders must have a business model to build large, ocean-going commercial ships. The builders that will not have a long-term business model to build commercial ships would stay small and cannot have self-sustained warship-building capacity.
听
Mohammad Abdur Razzak ([email protected]), a retired commodore of the Bangladesh navy, is a security analyst.
