22.4.10

INS Shivalik


Stealth, or deception, has always been a gamechanger in warfare. With India’s first indigenously-designed and manufactured ‘stealth’ frigate INS Shivalik finally all set to be commissioned on April 29, the Navy is steaming ahead to induct even stealthier warships. The new advanced stealth warships will include seven frigates under Project-17A and four guided-missile destroyers under Project-15B, which in all will cost upwards of Rs 65,000 crore. Navy, in fact, wants to induct all these seven advanced frigates by 2020 for a greater blue-water warfare punch. With the government according “acceptance of necessity” in June 2009, the seven frigates will be built at Mazagon Docks in Mumbai and GRSE in Kolkata with “integrated construction technology.” Apart from the indigenous efforts to turn stealthy, Navy is also going to get three more stealth frigates (Teg, Tarkash and Trikhand) from Russia under a Rs 5,514-crore project from 2011-2012 onwards, which will add to the three such warships (Talwar, Trishul and Tabar) already inducted in 2003-2004. Navy’s endeavour is to go in for warships with ‘minimal’ radar, infra-red, noise, frequency and magnetic ‘signatures’ to beat enemy detection and radar systems. “This ensures reduced detection and lock-on ranges for hostile anti-ship missiles and underwater weapons,” said director-general of naval design, Rear Admiral K N Vaidyanathan. “We are already working on the designs for P-17A and P-15B warships,which will have much more stealth and advanced weapon systems. The challenge is to drastically lower the signature of even their weapon systems (by hiding them under the deck),” he added. All this will, of course, follow completion of Project-17 to build three Shivalik-class stealth frigates for Rs 8,101 crore and Project-15A to construct three Kolkata-class 6,640-tonne destroyers for Rs 11,662 crore, both underway at Mazagon Docks. While both projects have suffered from time and cost overruns, Navy is now confident of getting the next two frigates, INS Satpura and INS Sahyadri, in 2010-2011. The three destroyers, in turn, will be delivered by 2012-2014. For now, Navy is all excited about the multi-role INS Shivalik, which is armed with a deadly mix of foreign and indigenous weapon and sensor systems to deal with "multiple-threats" in all three dimensions -- air, surface and sub-surface. While INS Shivalik has the Russian Shtil surface-to-air missile systems, Klub anti-ship cruise missiles, the 10-km range Israeli 'Barak-I' anti-missile point defence systems, Navy says the 143-metre long frigate is over 60% indigenous. "In terms of stealth, it compares with the best frigates in the world at present. It 'paints' quite small on radar screens of other warships," said Rear Admiral Vaidyanathan.

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