Bharat Rakshak

Philip ,the stratpage article on Oscar modernisation is not fully correct , Oscar 2 is being modernised with Oniks and Kalbir but the number of missile each tube will carry is not very certain , so the 72 missile is not exactly the truth.

That was one of the initial reasons for not acquiring, but later on, I believe one of the shipyards, in all probability CSL, was designated for maintaining the carrier, after infrastructure upgrades. PSL did not figure in the thought process, it was not on the horizon.But IAC 1 will carry more planes (30 vs 28)?

Could someone please translate the mallu

http://www.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/M ... &BV_ID=@@@

Thanks in advance.

Ramana, HNY!!!

maz,
That news has been taken off the website.

Also guys, can we continue the IAC discussion in this new thread INS Vikrant News and Discussion. Thanks!

INS Khukri survivor bats for his captain at Diu memorial
Posted: Mon Jan 09 2012, 02:55 hrs Rajkot:
On Sunday, the tourists who visited INS Khukri Memorial at Diu had a special guide in Pritam Singh to narrate the story of this ill-fated ship, which sank with 18 officers and 176 sailors 40 nautical miles off Diu after being torpedoed on December 9, 1971, during the Indo-Pak war.

Singh (64), one of the 70 survivors and the only one to ever visit this memorial, gave this voluntarily service for two reasons close to his heart: firstly, to personally pay tribute to his colleagues and seniors, and secondly, to clear recent controversy surrounding his former captain that raised questions about possible aversion of the disaster.

“It’s an emotional moment for me. From here, I would like to speak for my captain,” he said, adding, “I had been planning to come here for a long time and speak about the incident. And finally, I did so.”

Singh, who used to look after electronic equipment on Khukri, retried from Navy in 1975 and joined Merchant Navy. He is now settled in his native Moga village in Punjab.

Referring to a leaked Naval report during 2005-2006 and a book, Sinking of Khukri: Survivals Stories, that had raised some doubts, Singh told tourists at the memorial, “It pains when I hear that my then Captain M N Mulla, who was later awarded gallantry award, Mahavir Chakra, might have saved the ship had he opted for a different strategy.”

“Some blame Mulla for reducing speed of the ship that led to the attack. It was not his decision, but of an engineer specially deployed by the administration... Mulla kept telling others till the last minute to abandoned the ship and take the rafts,” he added.

Singh maintained that Khukri’s sonar set could detect only up to 3,000 yards and it was no match to Pakistan’s Hangor submarine that could fire up to 6 km. “I was taking news update on Doordarshan at 9 pm when the first torpedo hit us. It was soon followed by two more.”

According to Singh, the ship took just three minutes to go down and there was not even time to throw inflated liferafts in the sea. Seventy crew members got hold of some rafts thanks to the automatic release system. They spent the whole night in the sea and were rescued by another naval ship Kirpan in the morning, he said.

Singh also spoke for Kirpan’s captain R R Sood. “Some people say Kirpan should have picked us up in the night itself. But I believe Captain Sood took the right decision to not stop, which saved lives of 240 people on board his ship.”

Singh, who plans to spend two days at Union Territory of Diu, wished to get in touch with all the survivors. “I am in touch with only two of them. Wish I could know about others, too,” he told The Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ins-k ... l/897492/0

This statement is factually incorrect, Cmde SN Singh in fact had innaugrated the memorial http://article.wn.com/view/1999/12/22/Unveiling_of_INS_Khukri_replica_buoys_old_memories/
I distinctly remember this coz Cmde SN Singh is a family friend.
In fact my dad was on Kripan that night.

Wouldn't knowing to swim be one of the pre-requisites before joining the navy?
Unless there is more to the story....

The engineer in all probability would have been Lt. V K Jain
http://indiannavy.nic.in/t2t2e/trans2em ... _sonar.htm

My admiration and respect for Captain Mulla just keeps getting deeper. To reconstruct the events of that night, Capt. Mulla and his obsolete ships deploy against a modern French submarine, with state of the art sonar and torpedoes.

Typically surface ships cruise at speeds four times the speed of dived submarines, and this prevents submarines from effectively tracking them. However, instead of taking this defensive posture and evading PNS Hangor, Captain Mulla takes an offensive posture.

He slows down and sails in a pattern to give Lt Jain a fighting chance to detect the Pakistani submarine on his experiemental sonar. He knows fully well that his slowing down and executing a grid search pattern will enable the Pakistani submarine to track him, and yet he still took that chance and batted on front foot.

There is no greater bravery than being fully aware of the odds stacked against oneself, yet squaring shoulders & looking at adversity straight in the eye with the chin up. May the almighty bless the souls of Capt. Mulla, Lt. Jain and the other warriors of that valiant crew.

Will this former captain not be tried in court for needlessly putting an officers life at risk and indirectly contributing to his death.

After all the goodwill the navy generates , one off events such as these can really put off young men and women who aspire to join the navy if proper justice is not served.

^^ I am pretty sure there is more to this story then what is being reported here, may be just a small slice of truth.

About INS Talwar incident.
[url]"http://livefist.blogspot.com/2012/01/indian-navy-frigate-captain-relieved-of.html"[/url]
Here it says. It was excise about " a sea swimming survival drill in the Arabian Sea, which involved officers and sailors jumping from the ship and rapidly swimming 50-meters away, simulating a jump-ship in the event of a hit or other accident. "

But "Sub Lt Kumar jumped, but failed to surface (ironically, he was a seasoned swimmer, ex-NDA). Elaborate search operations were conducted but he couldn't be found. First designated missing, he was later designated dead. On the ship's return, Captain Parmar was relieved of command. The navy has, however, said that the CO has been asked to step aside only so that the investigation isn't prejudiced."

Saar, the TSP captains book on sinking Khukri reeks with inconsistencies and there are reports that PNS Hangor was in its Base of Karachi Harbour only not on patrol.

Infact, Recently former Navy personal have recently revealed that the Submarine that sunk Khukri was detected a few times but did not surface at all from Dec 3 to Dec 9 and was most probably a US Nuclear sub. It also maintained much Higher speeds that the Hangor could.

This was done IN rule of the seas was completely paralysing Pakistan and trying to change the outcome of the war by reducing the Indian blockade effectiveness and getting supplies to Pakis.

tsarkar, Your account puts the incident in a whole new light.

So the Khukri was hunting for the sub and got torpedoed thrice. And it slowed to allow the experimental sonar signal processing system a fighting chance to detect the other sub.

BTW hats off the IN for demonstrating constant innovation.

most definitely

Lt Cdr VK Jain was an IIT Kgp alumni. IIRC there was a bravery medal too instituted after his name. Some of the older forum members from IIT Kgp (EE) might remember him.

And for the uninitiated A.Paulraj described in the link is the founder of Beceem wireless which made a standalone LTE(4g modem) modem and was later acquired by Broadcom. He was also a prof in Stanford.

X-posting from army thread.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/will- ... on/898335/



that spoil my start of the day ...

[url]Infact, Recently former Navy personal have recently revealed that the Submarine that sunk Khukri was detected a few times but did not surface at all from Dec 3 to Dec 9 and was most probably a US Nuclear sub. It also ma[i]intained much Higher speeds that the Hangor could.[/i][/url]




1971 I use to follow india news lot.It is true that news was that yellow or sub called fargo was in the area.Those name are co-inside with USA N/Subs.It is to bad the US have to sink indian warship when the war was almost over.It was India who give news that it lost the warship.Pakistan say after 4-5 days that it sink warship.In other word if India wuold't say no body will find out that we have lost the warship.I am sure the US will never said it.

Yes, I knew him. He was a year senior and a very smart, brave kid even in college. A pleasure to chat with him. It was with horror when I came to know that he was on the Khukri. A couple of other Navy friends always spoke highly of him.

tsarkar, If there was no special equipment on board the ship what would have been its normal course of action?

Paul Raj's critique of the basic science behind the experimental equipment is troubling.

Unless there was some gross dereliction of duty, it is hard to justify an Admirals Mast. As far as the story goes, the Captain was conducting a team building exercise and due to the enthusiasm of a young officer, a tragedy occurred. Stuff happens.

Even more troubling is that adviser chap, who chucked the good Cmdr out of the program. His imprint seem to crop up awkwardly in odd places

Fellow hall mate if you consider me a RP'ite (for my brief sojourn there). I know someone who knew him very well. Personally know a few from Kgp who made the IN as career. More highly skilled and Technical people opting for the Armed Forces is a much needed thing in todays world of warfare. There's a need some of them make it to the COAS, CNS etc..or spearhead a strategic command initiative.

The next step up India needs is a civil/military investment in sea-bed exploration - maybe unmanned submersibles so that the wreck can be examined to look for any clues about the sinking. There is an off chance that the type of torpedo could be found from debris.

After all this time finding the definite type of torpedo would be hard.

The South Koreans were lucky that the Chnonan went down in shallow waters and that she was raised relatively soon from the sea bed.

Second nuclear submarine headed for year-end launch


Nerpa only inducted by mid-2013??

read it again - says 2nd half of 2012.

there are plenty of civil deep sea exploration outfits who will find and explore the Khukri wreck....an example being the guys who found the titanic, probably in much deeper water.

There are multiple ASW procedures that would have been carried out, primarily developed by RN in WW2 but learnt by (R)IN during the same time, as well as during exercises.

These would have been better than the grid pattern at slow speed executed by these ships, that allowed Hangor to track Kukhri. Readers should realize warfare is patient business. Hangor tracked Kukhri from morning till evening before it could confidently predict its course.

Even then the first torpedo missed. As Kukhri charged towards the torpedo wake, the second torpedo hit. If the second torpedo too missed, then Kukhri would have closed range sufficiently to depth charge. It was a close call and could have gone either way. Dusk attack helped, because visual sighting of torpedo tracks became difficult.

However given the fact that Pakistani Daphne had a more modern sonar, odds were stacked against Kukhri. Indian Type 14 was built 1955 while Pakistani Daphne was built 1970. There was a 15 year technology gap.

Not really, he is being factual. Even Edison failed 99% of the time. No disrespect or shame in that. A3 and A4 missiles both failed in their first firings. Learning from mistakes is the best possible outcome.

Where it goes wrong is that we often build personality cults around "great individual", and when initial indicators appear of things going wrong, instead of undertaking course correction, everyone is in awe, and dares not to upset the scheme of things, and express views contrary to that of the "great individual". Ofcourse, "great individual" can be "great leader", "great scientist", "great general", "great admiral" among others.

The other extreme behavior is peer & public humiliation of those who fail.

Ofcourse, today's India has matured significantly, and barring the media, most of the cross section of the populace avoid both extreme behaviors.

A single ASW ship without any ASW helicopter support and an experimental sonar trying to catch and kill a conventional submarine is really on a suicide mission , the captain of the boat has to be really really lucky or the submarine commander has to be really really stupid to screw things up. It appears the Pakistani sub took its own time to go for the hunt even though he missed the first time , Very Heroic of Captain Mulla and his crew to take this mission.

Even today hunting a single conventional submarine in high seas or littoral environmant devotes a significant surface ship and Air borne ASW asset to try to find it and the odds are still in favour of conventional submarine specially in littoral environment , like the many exercise of US CBG versus conventional submarine fleet in littoral environment has proven the conventional submarine still gets better off most of times.

tsarkar thanks for your response. The troubling aspect is not his critique but the issues it raises. Let me articulate it better later.

The Khukri class belonged to the Type 14 Blackwood class "second-rate" ASW frigates.Their main armament was the LIMBO mortar .The Type 14s' limited size, at just 310 ft (94 m), restricted them from continuing past the 1970s and continuing the work as anti-submarine ships. Their small hull limited the extent of modifications and upgrades possible, preventing the Type 14s from being modernised with more effective weapons, effectively rendering them obsolete. All were decommissioned in the 1970s.

(Wik) The LIMBO mortar had a range of only 1000 yds,linked to the ship's sonar.The range of the mortars was controlled by opening gas vents from 400 to a maximum of 1,000 yards (366 and 910 m). The weapon was linked to the sonar system of the ship, firing on command when the target was in range. The rounds were projected so that they fell in a triangular pattern around the target.
The firing of the Mortar Mk 10 was controlled by the Type 170 (and later the 502) attack sonar from the Sonar Control Room (SCR), which was generally located next to the operations room in the warship.
The 170 sonar had 3 operators who maintained sonar contact with the target and effectively aimed the weapon in bearing, range and depth. The operators were controlled by the SCO (Sonar Control Officer) who was in charge of the SCR.
When a contact had been confirmed as a hostile submarine, the SCO manually fired the Mortar Mk 10 from the SCR upon receiving the order from the captain in the operations room. The firing was done by means of a pistol grip and trigger mounted to the deckhead immediately behind the operators.

From the above one can see that the Khukri and her sisters,were outclassed by the Daphne class Hangor,built a decade later.The action was a mismatch. The Daphne's sonar too detected the Khukri at a reported range of between 6-8 nm.Even if the Khukri had detected the sub earlier,LIMBO's range was just 1000yds.In the circumstances ,it was very courageous of the Capt. of the Khukri once the torpedo attacks were detected to go in for the kill ,despite the sub's earlier advantage of attacking first.The absence of a helicopter on these small frigates now virtually obsolete,was a grave shortcoming.In fact barring the Vikrant,none of the IN's surface ships could carry an ASW helo.The Leander's were the first.The IN's warships would have to rely upon speed,a good sonar and luck to avoid a sub's torpedo attacks from succeeding.Had the IN not given its own subs orders not to attack unless the targets were positively identified as belonging to the PN (to avoid an excuse for western powers to come to the aid of Pak),a couple of merchantmen sunk off Karachi would've had a salutary effect upon the operations of the PN and its sub fleet.

war gamers Journal article

Sinking of the INS Khukri

A daughter remembers:

Why they chose to go down with the ship?

From the above article it seems IN and IAF devoted a huge amount of resources in Op Falcon to hunt down the Hangor but without luck

The battle between INS Khukri/Kirpan and Hangor is more like WW2 era Sub/Surface ship battle albeit with sophisticated sonar to aid , Indian Ships lacked stand off weapons like torpedoes hence had to come closer to cause mortal damage to Hangor with its ASW Mortars , Hangor had capable sonars but the fact that its torpedoes failed to explode the first shot at Kirpan and the 3rd one fired was out ran by the same ship probably nothing more then a more sophisticated straight runner torpedoes.

Khukri was indeed unlucky to be hit by the first shot while Kirpan had its own fair of its luck to miss two torpedoes fired at her.

^^ Was it due to some evasive measures taken by INS Kirpan or it was just pure luck on there side that both the torpedoes missed it

Hey Austin thanks for the article.

[[b]i][b]HANGAR had sailed from Karachi on 22 November for a patrol off the Saurashtra coast. On 1 December, she was ordered to shift to the area off Bombay to relieve her sister submarine MANGRO who was completing her patrol.
On 2 December, HANGAR sighted the Western Fleet which was on its way to its patrol area. HANGAR reported this to Karachi and continued her patrol off Bombay. She was unable to find good warship targets. Thereafter "The Story of the Pakistan Navy" states:[/b][/i][/b]




When Krachi was under attack then these subs were at harbour how these sub were petrolling indian coust.Or if they were petrolling then why they did't attack indian boats to save there ships getting dustroyed by Indian attack.One more time Khakry was hit by Amerian sub.