Indian Naval Discussion

[Altair]

Then Hire the Pakis to keep Britiz law and order.

Awesome! tere mooh mein mothi laddooo!

[maz]

SNAIK, many thanx for data on the Big Vik. Would you know what the full load displacement is ? I reckon its 45000+ tons.

Thanks

[andy B]

Andy B, a good Navy always tries to achieve Sea Control, that allows usage of the sea for any purpose militarily or economically for the benefit of the nation. For example, drilling for oil offshore of Vietnam. For sea control, one needs reach and presence. In simple terms, going there and staying there. Staying power is defined as endurance and ability to fight it out across a broad spectrum of threats.

On the Eastern seas, the Arihant and Chakra submarines along with VLS equipped Ranvir/Ranvijay and Prithvi equipped OPVs will project power afar. The Shivaliks will provide multi-functional capabilities like ASW and Fleet AD. The Kukhri/Kora will defend our Island territories and scout for the main fleet.

On the Western seas, the OPVs will protect SLOC. The Sindhu's/Talwar's and their land attack Klubs will enable power projection over land. The Vikramaditya will provide mobile protection to the fleet. The Godavaris/Brahmaputras/T209s will provide significant ASW capabilities. The Delhi's will provide fleet air defence. Missile boats will scout and attack whenever needed.

Amphibious capabilities exist on both coasts. Logistics are doubled with 4 tankers in service.

Tsarkar sir,

Many thanks for replying to my post its interesting to see that your reply combines the induction of new platforms and their capabilities with how tie with the operational application under the Navy's strategy....the decade of 2010 to 2020 is going to be a most interesting one indeed!

[Singha]

for all the hu-ha by khan about the J-20 and follow on naval strikers, they have the most stealth platforms and by implication the means to test and find the best anti-stealth radar means which they are surely doing in the background.
I suspect all their new fleet ships will have anti stealth radar modes inbuilt and will be retrofitted quietly on the DDG51 ships.
they already have networking among the fleet.
the SM6 SAM is already in testing
awacs platforms can also get such new kit.
F22 backed by big-aperture F15 radars can fly from land and boasts a 900km combat radius unrefuelled with 6 bvr aam.

I suspect this distributed network of ships and f22 in western pacific will be used to target any J20 type strike planes.

[Kersi D]

Philip, Best option for UK is to become three Island provinces of India with the Queen as the heriditary Governor. Art 370 can be extended to them if they want.

[Kersi D]

Ramana , I've always maintained that one day Britain will become "the jewel in India's crown"! Mittal,Tata and Cobra beer are the first steps in this direction.Once that happens,there will be no need to return the Koh-I-Noor!

We will just grab the Kohinoor from the Poms
K

[Kersi D]

the Pakis to keep Britiz law and order.

The Pot calling the kettle Black

[Varoon Shekhar]

Is Varunastra a torpedo, or a torpedo control system, or something else, like a ROV underwater. The description in the BR homepage article( news section) does not make it clear.

[SaiK]

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3664/img2456j.jpg
http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/181/img2457w.jpg
varunastra pics

[John]

SNAIK, many thanx for data on the Big Vik. Would you know what the full load displacement is ? I reckon its 45000+ tons.

Thanks

Shouldn't it be same if not less than Talwar since it no longer has Kashtan (about 20,000 kg for the whole module IIRC), more or less made up for any weight increase from Brahmos.

[pragnya]

Is Varunastra a torpedo, or a torpedo control system, or something else, like a ROV underwater. The description in the BR homepage article( news section) does not make it clear.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3664/img2456j.jpg
varunastra pic

Varunastra ready for trials

varoon, you can see the details in the link.

[SNaik]

SNAIK, many thanx for data on the Big Vik. Would you know what the full load displacement is ? I reckon its 45000+ tons.

Thanks

Right you are - 45400 tons.

[Austin]

C band
http://www.smp-salyut.ru/images/list/podber1.pdf

Rarely find radars using C band these days , mostly all long range radars are L band , C band are mostly used for satellites etc any advantage of C band radar ?

[SNaik]

C band
http://www.smp-salyut.ru/images/list/podber1.pdf

Rarely find radars using C band these days , mostly all long range radars are L band , C band are mostly used for satellites etc any advantage of C band radar ?

Well if you look at the specs, it is a bit of an early warning radar.

[Varoon Shekhar]

Thanks Pragnya. But what is confusing are the following two lines. Why did the report have to confuse lay readers - up until then, they were doing fine, and the article made sense.

"Varunastra detects enemy object and informs the control room. It is a clever underwater spy"

"Varunastra carries the Takshak."

So the question remains, is Varunastra an underwater surveillance vehicle, a torpedo carrier/launcher, or an actual torpedo?

[SaiK]

it should be ddm. takshak is thermal torpedo per previous reports.. and varunastra is a heavy wire guided one.

[pragnya]

Thanks Pragnya. But what is confusing are the following two lines. Why did the report have to confuse lay readers - up until then, they were doing fine, and the article made sense.

"Varunastra detects enemy object and informs the control room. It is a clever underwater spy"

"Varunastra carries the Takshak."

So the question remains, is Varunastra an underwater surveillance vehicle, a torpedo carrier/launcher, or an actual torpedo?

no varoon, it is a HWT and not a surveilance vehicle. it can't loiter and wait for the targets.

what it has is an intelligent homing device which can detect, target, differentiate the target from the decoys and confuse the enemy with maneurs before hitting.

varunastra is an advanced version of ship launched takshak. takshak can be launched from both ships and subs.

take it FWIW. i am no expert. may be SNaik/john can clarify this better.

TSS article here - Underwater might

...............................

has this been posted before

[Austin]

Well if you look at the specs, it is a bit of an early warning radar.

SNaik can you explain what you mean by early warning radar , all LR Radar on ships are early warning type , it is mostly the choice of band they use is bit intriguing , NATO LR radars on ships have L band but Russia uses C band.... there must be some pro and cons of such using each band. The C band they are mentioning are the IEEE standards i think.

[SNaik]

Well if you look at the specs, it is a bit of an early warning radar.

SNaik can you explain what you mean by early warning radar , all LR Radar on ships are early warning type , it is mostly the choice of band they use is bit intriguing , NATO LR radars on ships have L band but Russia uses C band.... there must be some pro and cons of such using each band. The C band they are mentioning are the IEEE standards i think.

No, it's the NATO designations they use. C band means 0.5 to 1.0 GHz, that's even longer wave than IEEE L band. And the Russians consider that longer waves are better for detection of stealth aircraft.
Fregat M2M is a NATO E band (2 to 3 GHz) which corresponds to IEEE S band (2 to 4 GHz) nicely. IEEE C band is 4 to 8 GHz, a compromise between S and X bands, and you'll never use that for long range detection.

[Austin]

No, it's the NATO designations they use. C band means 0.5 to 1.0 GHz, that's even longer wave than IEEE L band. And the Russians consider that longer waves are better for detection of stealth aircraft.

Ok that makes sense now with that low band/frequency they should even detect F-22/PAK-FA types at long ranges , although its resolution and accuracy of target will get affected . Thanks for the clarification.

[SaiK]

thanks to pragnya for linking those excellent documents, with ton of data.

only few nuclear subs can be off limits from these torpedos like the khaan's seawolf class that goes beneath 650m.

[Philip]

Nice (old?) article on the "S" class Shivaliks,tealth features,etc., and other comments on the IN's warship strategy.Not sure if it was posted earlier.

http://weapons.technology.youngester.co ... igate.html

[srai]

^^^

This one is better:
SHIVALIK: India's New Generation Warship
By Vice Adm Rajeshwer Nath
Issue: Vol 25.2 Apr-Jun 2010 | Date: 07 March, 2012

[vina]

This one is better:
SHIVALIK: India's New Generation Warship
By Vice Adm Rajeshwer Nath
Issue: Vol 25.2 Apr-Jun 2010 | Date: 07 March, 2012

Hmm interesting. It is to the Navy's credit that a Naval Architect and a purely technical person from the constructor branch rises to to a Vice Admiral. Pretty good for a person from a non combatant arm. The last I heard of him in the early 90s, he was a Rear Admiral and I thought that is as far as a non com goes.Looks like he rose further and then retired.

The day, the Air Force and Army get equivalent Aerospace Enggs and Mech Enggs into their force and give them clear career paths that let them rise to levels of seniority, will be when those services can redeem themselves from the rut they are stuck in wrt modernization and weapons development

[nelson]

This one is better:
SHIVALIK: India's New Generation Warship
By Vice Adm Rajeshwer Nath
Issue: Vol 25.2 Apr-Jun 2010 | Date: 07 March, 2012

Hmm interesting. It is to the Navy's credit that a Naval Architect and a purely technical person from the constructor branch rises to to a Vice Admiral. Pretty good for a person from a non combatant arm. The last I heard of him in the early 90s, he was a Rear Admiral and I thought that is as far as a non com goes.Looks like he rose further and then retired.

The day, the Air Force and Army get equivalent Aerospace Enggs and Mech Enggs into their force and give them clear career paths that let them rise to levels of seniority, will be when those services can redeem themselves from the rut they are stuck in wrt modernization and weapons development

OT - There are select vacancies for Technical Qualified / Technical cadre in all three services. In Army there are up to 10 posts in the rank of Lt Gen tenable only by Technically qualified officers. This apart from those officers in Technical stream who opt for General Cadre. Previous VCOAS is an M Tech from IITD. In Airforce, AOC-in-C Maintenance command officer is usually from Engineer Cadre, and there are other vacancies in AM rank for the 'non combatant' officer cadre. This is just to say that there is no correlation between technical cadre officers rising to high ranks and the rut the Armed forces are stuck in wrt mordenisation and weapons development.

[Cain Marko]

I have been wondering - can the Shaurya be used on destroyers? I would think that this is definitely possible - it's dimensions are v.similar to that of the Granit and slightly more than the Brahmos, although it weighs 2X the Bmos. What would be the advantages?

1) V.long range - upto 1500km+ depending on warhead weight.
2) hypersonic speeds - time to target is v.low
3) impact is far more than even supersonic missiles
4) More of an LACM than AShM?


Disadvantages
1) Take up lot of real estate
2) can't carry in large numbers
3) Susceptible to interception?
4) Could it engage moving targets at long ranges (say 700km?). How would targeting be achieved? Say a LRMPA detects a worthy target 1000km away. For Shaurya to reach target vicinity, it would take about 10 minutes, can the missile be updated midcourse? Or can it carry a seeker that will allow it to detect and engage? In 10 minutes, assuming target becomes aware of MPA, it can move about 5km in a circular area, can the Shaurya detect such movement, make terminal corrections (using a seeker of some kind) in time and engage? Can target's SAMs engage Shaurya - let us assume a layered defense with S300 variant with 200km missiles @ M5 speeds as outer ring, and Shtil type at 50km plus CIWS.

According to this book - it all depends on how small the RCS is and the incoming missile's ability to maneuver.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6195&page=58

Hypersonic missiles are within the design envelopes of several modern air defense systems that have been designed to defend against tactical ballistic missiles with hypersonic terminal velocities. For the hypothetical defensive system considered above, and for a radar cross section of greater than 0.1 square meter, there is relatively little difference in the lethal range for hypersonic missile speeds between Mach 6.5 and Mach 8. However, the vulnerability of a hypersonic missile to surface-to-air missiles can be reduced through combined reductions in radar cross section and in-flight maneuvering, and, to some extent, an increase in speed. The lethality of command-guided, surface-to-air missiles is markedly reduced for targets with a radar cross section less than 0.1 square meter. Overall, the most important factor in hypersonic missile survivability is the size of radar cross section.

Basically, the above authors suggest that if the incoming Ashm is about 0.1-0.5m RCS, target defences have only about 20-30 seconds reaction time. And that is if ship is on state of alert, if not, it won't even know what hit it. All in all, I think a Shaurya type would be mighty useful vs. capital assets such as FFGs and higher. ONe thing is for sure an impact from something that big and fast (not to mention the warhead) will be enough to sink a massive carrier in one blow, total loss. No limping back home. Of course, the USN seems to have this issue licked with the SM3/RAM combo.

[A Sharma]

Indian Navy in fast-forward mode

[srai]

Indian Navy in fast-forward mode

..
Since then, the navy has inducted the first of its newly-designed Teg-class guided missile ships, INS Teg, from Russia (Apr 27) while plans are being firmed up for building four amphibious transport dock ships like the INS Jalashwa, as well as six new conventional submarines with air independent propulsion (AIP) and cruise missile capability.
..
Overall, the navy has planned to acquire some 500 aircraft, about 100 of them combat jets, and the remaining for transport and surveillance roles. Helicopters form a major chunk of the proposed acquisitions.

Sources told India Strategic that the 45 MiG-29Ks that the Navy has already ordered from Russia will only be used on board INS Vikramaditya and India's first indigenous aircraft carrier now under construction. Both these will have ski jumps and arrested wire recovery (STOBAR or Short Take Off but Arrested Recovery).

Notably, the Russians have already modified the arrester wires on INS Vikramaditya to accommodate the naval variant of India's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), the naval prototype (NP-1) which was test flown on April 27.

India is working on two more aircraft carriers, possibly of over 60,000 tonnes, and it will take some time to select the combat jet combination for them. Those two carriers should use slingshot propulsion by steam turbines rather than ski jumps, and of course, the standard three arrestor wires.

That technology will possibly have to come from the US carriers, where slingshot takeoffs are routine. Naval teams area already in touch with manufacturers as part of the learning process, after which RfPs should appropriately be issued.

French company DCNS is already involved in making six Scorpene submarines at the Mazagon Dock in Mumbai, with a proposal to upgrade the last two of them with AIP capability, which can extend the operational submergence of a submarine from about three days to seven or so.

As for the nuclear submarines, which can stay underwater for three months, the Indian Navy is working on two or three more Arihant-class submarines, but they should progressively be equipped with more powerful nuclear reactors and weapons than INS Arihant, whose systems are now being fine-tuned.
...

[John]

I have been wondering - can the Shaurya be used on destroyers? I would think that this is definitely possible - it's dimensions are v.similar to that of the Granit and slightly more than the Brahmos, although it weighs 2X the Bmos. What would be the advantages?

You are suggesting Shaurya type ashm? The biggest obstacle will be it will have little to no terminal maneuvering what so ever and couple that with diving attack profile it will make the missile quite vulnerable for any terminal interception. Also unlike hitting land based target the target window for hitting a vessel is quite small plus you have to adjust frequently for any movement of your target which it may not be to accomplish being quasi ballistic missile?.

[member_22906]

Some chaiwala news... FWIW, LPD could be complete flat-tops rather than the INS Jalashwa variety. Design not formalized (ofcourse) but specs pointing to LPH type air complement requirement

[Cain Marko]

I have been wondering - can the Shaurya be used on destroyers? I would think that this is definitely possible - it's dimensions are v.similar to that of the Granit and slightly more than the Brahmos, although it weighs 2X the Bmos. What would be the advantages?

You are suggesting Shaurya type ashm? The biggest obstacle will be it will have little to no terminal maneuvering what so ever and couple that with diving attack profile it will make the missile quite vulnerable for any terminal interception. Also unlike hitting land based target the target window for hitting a vessel is quite small plus you have to adjust frequently for any movement of your target which it may not be to accomplish being quasi ballistic missile?.

Actually I am not suggesting anything - just wondering...

Regarding terminal maneuvering - it was said in some reports that the missile is capable of some maneuvering - don't know though how it will manage it in terminal stage at that speed. Another concern is that it is not a sea skimmer so will be detected at altitude. Although it is also said that it can fly at lower altitudes in the final phase. But these problems are not unique to ships; land based targets and ADS will offer similar difficulty for shaurya types.

The Hindu reported that the missile flew at 7.5M and covered its full range of 700 km in 500 secs. The missile performed a terminal evasive maneuver before accurately striking the target.

Shourya could get through the air defense of an adversary country because it was highly manoeuvrable, Dr. Selvamurthy said.

Question is what type of maneuvering are they talking about? How does it know when to do a terminal evasive maneuver? Does it have some kind of sensor that detects SAM launch and then it executes maneuver? Or is it preprogrammed? I am thinking it is the latter, and if so, how effective are such maneuvers?

I think the main advantage of Shaurya types is ridiculously small reaction time it affords for defense systems. Like that article says, if the RCS can be kept to a real small level ~ 0.1 msq - it hardly provides about 20 seconds window from detection to impact. Can they get off any SAMs in that time frame?

As far as target window and acquisition - how do they propose to do it for a hypersonic brahmos? A similar seeker could do it perhaps?

Don't really know, I am just throwing things out there.

[Cain Marko]

Here is another interesting article related to missile interception:

http://ciim.usf.edu/ujmm/pdf/UJMM_2-2_( ... n_Luis.pdf

Points to note:
1) Incoming missile speed @ 2000m/s (same as Shaurya approximately)
2) Incoming missile altitude at time of detection = 50000m (10000m more than Shaurya's cruise altitude)
3) Time to reach critical height of 5000m ~ 66 seconds, Shaurya will be much faster (around 30 seconds as per previous article).
4) Virtually every BMD/AAD/SAM system has an operational delay of anything from 72 seconds (Patriot) to 30 seconds, HQ-9 is around 70s and S-300 about 42 seconds.

Basically it seems that if the SAM system is not "hot" and ready to fire, it'll likely be dead!

NOw there are 2 unanswered questions in the above article(s) - RCS of incoming missile and ability to maneuver. With these 2 factors, problem becomes much more complex for the ADS, and Shaurya supposedly scores well on both these factors. Seems like it will be a pain to defend against it. No wonder then that the Russians planned to use the Iskander (Shaurya analogue) in response to the US idea to put up an ABM shield component in the Czech Republic. Nice.

Again, question is - is such a system viable for ships? With an adequate seeker target ship's movement might be offset (otherwise what is the point of Brahmos hypersonic?). But will ship air defences stop the Shaurya?

If the first question can be managed, there might not be a need to worry about ship AD - only the US has anything that can remotely manage such intercepts in the form of the RAM/SM3 combo. Dunno if Aster types can handle hypersonics. Certainly nothing in the IOR/SCS can field such robust AD on ships. The best that is available is the HQ-9.

It seems to me that while the world is in "shock and awe" about the DF-21D carrier-killer; a Shaurya would do a far better job considering it does not have a purely ballistic trajectory.

[koti]

What do the Replenishment tankers like Deepak Replenish? Apart from fuel, can they replenish Food or Ammunition too?
INS Deepak
I was unable to locate the Fire control and tracking radars for the AK-630s present on it.
Can anyone point them out?

[adityadange]

What do the Replenishment tankers like Deepak Replenish? Apart from fuel, can they replenish Food or Ammunition too?
INS Deepak
I was unable to locate the Fire control and tracking radars for the AK-630s present on it.
Can anyone point them out?

there is a dome like thing at the right of the highest mast on the ship. can it be the radar you are asking for?

[tsarkar]

Hmm interesting. It is to the Navy's credit that a Naval Architect and a purely technical person from the constructor branch rises to to a Vice Admiral. Pretty good for a person from a non combatant arm. The last I heard of him in the early 90s, he was a Rear Admiral and I thought that is as far as a non com goes.Looks like he rose further and then retired.The day, the Air Force and Army get equivalent Aerospace Enggs and Mech Enggs into their force and give them clear career paths that let them rise to levels of seniority, will be when those services can redeem themselves from the rut they are stuck in wrt modernization and weapons development

OT - There are select vacancies for Technical Qualified / Technical cadre in all three services. In Army there are up to 10 posts in the rank of Lt Gen tenable only by Technically qualified officers. This apart from those officers in Technical stream who opt for General Cadre. Previous VCOAS is an M Tech from IITD. In Airforce, AOC-in-C Maintenance command officer is usually from Engineer Cadre, and there are other vacancies in AM rank for the 'non combatant' officer cadre. This is just to say that there is no correlation between technical cadre officers rising to high ranks and the rut the Armed forces are stuck in wrt mordenisation and weapons development.

Harjinder Singh rose to AVM in the era when the COAS rank was AM. More details on R&D effort here http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Histo ... AFMfr.html

[tsarkar]

What do the Replenishment tankers like Deepak Replenish? Apart from fuel, can they replenish Food or Ammunition too?
INS Deepak
I was unable to locate the Fire control and tracking radars for the AK-630s present on it.
Can anyone point them out?

there is a dome like thing at the right of the highest mast on the ship. can it be the radar you are asking for?

The four AK-630 on Deepak are EO guided like the AK-630s on Teg. There are two EO suites fore and aft on the superstructure.

[ASPuar]

This one is better:
SHIVALIK: India's New Generation Warship
By Vice Adm Rajeshwer Nath
Issue: Vol 25.2 Apr-Jun 2010 | Date: 07 March, 2012

Hmm interesting. It is to the Navy's credit that a Naval Architect and a purely technical person from the constructor branch rises to to a Vice Admiral. Pretty good for a person from a non combatant arm. The last I heard of him in the early 90s, he was a Rear Admiral and I thought that is as far as a non com goes.Looks like he rose further and then retired.

The day, the Air Force and Army get equivalent Aerospace Enggs and Mech Enggs into their force and give them clear career paths that let them rise to levels of seniority, will be when those services can redeem themselves from the rut they are stuck in wrt modernization and weapons development

Huh??

What are you talking about?

Air Force:

AOC-in-C Maintenance Command, ACAS Engineering

Army:

Lots of Engineer Lieutenant Generals have been Army Commanders (Noble Thamburaj, S. Pattabhiraman, PS Bhagat, etc etc)
There is a post of Chief Signals Officer who is a Lt Gen, as well as the Comdt of the MCETE is a Lt Gen
DGEME who is a Lt Gen is an engineer, as is Commandant, MCEME
Engineer in Chief is a Lt Gen
Comdt CME is a Lt Gen
Director General Border Roads Org is a Lt Gen
And many more.

[Avik]

^^^^^^

Totally agree with AS Puar saab. In addition to whats been outlined above, at any given time, at least two to three officers from the Corps of Engineers and Signals are in three star General Staff posts in Army HQ alone. There are more two stars engineers in Corps and Command level posts.

[chackojoseph]

Farewell at sea for Vice Admiral KN Sushil

[koti]

Navy Inducts Mig29Ks