Naval Operations Analysis in the Indian Ocean Region A Review

The end of the Cold War resulted in a fundamental swing from a navy designed to engage a blue water battle fleet to one focused on forward operations in littoral waters. The Cold War era had fuelled massive research and development (R&D) in design of sonars that was able to substantially minimize the uncertainties of the underwater environment. The shift of the naval theatre to the littoral waters led to a paradigm change in terms of technology requirements to retain the effectiveness of these sonars. The underwater environment in littoral waters is significantly influenced by the local conditions and is known to be site specific. The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is even more challenging as the shallow waters are compounded by tropical conditions. This article identifies gaps in sonar technology contributing to their ineffectiveness and presents a naval operations analysis strategy to significantly improve their performance in the IOR.