Indian Naval Discussion

[Austin]

These days so many things are manufactured in China and the wide use of COTS on Military Platforms that you never know which part of the electronics you use in electronic system are actually designed by some western company but were manufactured in China.

What type of tiles do western ships use on their platform for Boilers etc if not asbestos for environmental reason ? If there is a western solution that does not involve asbestos why not use them ?

[Singha]

which western naval ships have steam boilers ? even commercial ships use marine diesels.
our ganga and godavari class frigates have some form of western steam boilers I think.

[Austin]

INS Viraat , Tanker Jyoti and perhaps few other ship you mentioned has boilers but what other option is available besides asbestos if fire bricks have failed , probably if it comes to proven reliable working one over decades then perhaps asbestos are the only choice ....... I am sure IN must have evaluated what was available to them before opting for proven asbestos once the Chinese fire bricks failed.

[member_23455]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ins-v ... w/1150500/

However, there is a deficiency of CIWS in India with the licence manufacturing of the AK 630 systems having just commenced. While the Navy has not specified when the CIWS would be fitted on board, the Vice Chief has said it would be integrated when the warship is scheduled for its first minor refit.

An internal audit report drawn up in 2009 came down heavily against the Navy for poor planning...

Some more dope on why there is no "cee-whiz".

[member_26622]

A gas turbine can go from idle to max power really fast. A nuclear power plant will likely not match this acceleration and the container sized compactness of turbine is a plus. Power plant size will be more relevant for smaller carriers than the 100K ton behemoths...

As a Wikilook will reveal, the N-reactor designs are significantly different for submarines and surface ships - the sub ones are more challenging for sure, nevertheless the IN will have to factor in Russian TOT, desi learning curve etc in their timelines if they want N-propulsion in IAC-2.

Gas turbines are compact but fuel hungry. Using Nuclear propulsion will save on fuel tank space and not require frequent supply in high seas. It will likely be cost effective in the long run given our foreign dependence on Oil. In a war situation, our top constraint will also be oil.

IAC 2 powered by Arihant style nuclear power packs along with Arihant nuclear sub will be a great power projection combo. Indigeneous in making and in operation !

[Vishy]

On CIWS in INS Vikramaditya, all the earlier information suggest that it has the Kashtan CIWS system, so it is utterly confusing about all this talk of no CIWS.

[Singha]

[a] it is not in open domain how much of domestic uranium is available and viable for extraction. we are not overly rich in it for sure. hence precious domestic supply must first be used and kept for N-warheads and N-subs at first priority. IFF there is surplus and if the huge cost of dockside hazardous material handling etc for ships make sense then only...and that too only for carrier . imo it doesnt workout for only 3 carriers planned. the french wised up and their PA2 will be gas turbine . its pretty much easier to just drop in a marine diesel or gas turbine plant COTS like LM2500 family or pielsticks..all proven over millions of hours in the field than some greenfield experiment.
our reactor designs are not bleeding edge "lifetime no refueling"..they will need refueling so uranium must again be stockpiled.

the IN was reported to be not keen on kashtan due to high cost and probably because barak1 is more compact and gets the job done without the big size and bulk of the integrated kashtan system. they seem to be happy with AK630 and various new gen radars and kit to guide the weapon. even the cost of Barak-1 was said to be high.

insallah the P17A will have 48 Barak8, 32 barak1, 4xAK630 and 8 klubs as the weapons loadout. plus the Oto 127mm vulcano long range gun. maybe like the italian horizon ships add a couple more Oto76 anti-missile guns and delete the waist AK630 pair while keeping the stern pair of AK630. you can never have enough meat on the gun front.

I would say delete the main 127mm traditional gun since many other ships have the russian 100mm and 127mm guns in IN for the odd spot of shore bombardment, instead follow our italian biraders and keep the Oto super rapid 76 pair where their ships have it...likely to be very useful in anti missile role mashallah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nave_ ... difica.jpg
the P15B can up the Barak8 could to 64-72 and feature a taller radar tower to function as a pure-play AAW class.

[member_23455]

Gas turbines are compact but fuel hungry. Using Nuclear propulsion will save on fuel tank space and not require frequent supply in high seas. It will likely be cost effective in the long run given our foreign dependence on Oil. In a war situation, our top constraint will also be oil.

IAC 2 powered by Arihant style nuclear power packs along with Arihant nuclear sub will be a great power projection combo. Indigeneous in making and in operation !

If the Navy can sort out the design and production of an N-powered IAC-2 to meet an IOC of 2030, be my guest. Past experience might suggest otherwise. Overstating the oil case also does not help. The Army and the Air Force as well as the CBG around the carrier wont be running on N-power in a war situation and in the larger scheme of things the gas guzzled by a carrier makes little impact.

On CIWS in INS Vikramaditya, all the earlier information suggest that it has the Kashtan CIWS system, so it is utterly confusing about all this talk of no CIWS.

Well, since the Navy Vice Chief has been giving the press briefings, I guess the confusion is being created by the mother ship!

[member_26622]

I think that IN also wanted to scuttle the chances of the PN acquiring Scorpenes after the Agostas. In this respect,the PN is in a quandary.They either have to upgrade the Agostas themselves,or acquire Swedish tech from Kockums.Germany is unlikely to sell them U-boats.What they now plan to do is acquire large numbers of Chinese subs which are based upon the kilo .

On second thoughts, IN should have egged PN to acquire Scorpenes at 1 billion a piece. It would have bankrupted Pakistan if they spent 6 billion on six subs and shut off any further capital equipment acquisitions by PN for a decade...Been sarcastic here.

PN cannot have afforded Scorpenes in the first place. In fact Scorpene is a dead end for IN as well since most of the critical systems are likely been imported given the high costs. Can we afford to build another five or ten Scopenes to match PRC or PN numerically...likely Not at all.

Also, Why would anyone spend a billion on a conventional sub when a nuclear sub can be acquired for about the same price ? Ideally, we should scale back Scorpene orders from six to two given Arihant progress. Yes, our underwater assets are way lower than needed but the price is equivalent to daylight robbery in a police station HQ (bear my sarcasm hear too)

Given this high cost and delayed delivery experience, we should cross out any acquisitions from France or Europe for that matter. Rafale is another example where we seem to be unhinged in considering capability and cost effectiveness altogether. Waiting for the day we get over our scotch addiction!

[Singha]

the cost of the arihant or a new build Akula2 purchase would be well north of $1 billion even if amortized over a run of 3 each.

we are not in a position to build 2 a year in cold war style and churn out 10 of the same class.

[member_26622]

The BOW of IAC-1 looks more like that of a big destroyer then an aircraft carrier.

Any info from where the Gear Box Assembly has been procured from if its indigenous developed or procured abroad and which company ?

Elecon. Indian company.

Thumbs Up!

[Singha]

they assemble and service gearboxes from Renk germany among many things. all our P17 and ADS hence have renk gearboxes.
however some amt of local manufacturing of parts surely takes place which is a +ve......unlike Zorya kit which I dont think have any indian partner at all.
http://www.elecon.com/products.php?id=140&level1_id=30

[John]

the IN was reported to be not keen on kashtan due to high cost and probably because barak1 is more compact and gets the job done without the big size and bulk of the integrated kashtan system. they seem to be happy with AK630 and various new gen radars and kit to guide the weapon. even the cost of Barak-1 was said to be high.

One Barak-1 32 missile system with radar and rounds costs around 30 million, there are no price figures for Kashtan but i wouldn't be suprised if each system costs around the same. From what i remember back during talwar trials Kashtan underperformed leading to IN's skepticism of the system. Russia offered the improved Kashtan-m1 which supposedly addressed some of the issues' but IN stuck with Barak.

[Austin]

More likely IN already procured significant number of Barak-1 in late 90's for Viraat and P-16A class ship . then they decide to put the same on P-15 and Ranvijay/Ranjit class , so moving to other system was not worth perhaps the first ship had Kashtan built in as part of the deal and later types that was signed in mid 2000 was left without it as Barak-1 was wide spread.

[Philip]

Building non-AIP Scorpenes costing almost s much as a nuclear attack boat 4 times its size with over twice the weaponry sounds insane.The Q is how much material and components of the 6 subs have been acquired.Certainly cost wise the Q will arise when the time comes for building the last 2.Just look at how Russia is churning out 6 Kilo 636.3 subs-larger than the Scorpenes ,the first being delivered this Nov.,all by 2017,when the orders were placed as recently as 2009,and all six for the price of just two Scorpenes!

The IN have to be able to acquire a conventional homebuilt sub every year,apart from the nuclear boats and any foreign acquisitions like Akulas if we wish to maintain numbers and meet the minimum 24 sub inventory planned during the Adm.Bhagwat era. In fact,the sub inventory is far more important than the nuclear powered carrier which will cost at least a billion or two more than a conventionally powered one.As an interim step to keep numbers happy,the retiring Kilos should be replaced either by around 4 newer upgraded Kilos,or Amurs,both Brahmos equipped.The second line of conventional subs should be started only when a definitive concept/design is available,while the production of nuclear SSBNs and SSGNs accelerated.The second line should also be built by a pvt. yard,L&T or Pipapav instead of MDL which is responsible in large measure for the Scorpene fiasco,and is also way behind on schedule for other warships.We just cannot depend upon one single yard to build subs.HSL at Vizag is assembling the nuclear boats and should increase its infrastructure to be able to build two simultaneously.MDL and a pvt. yard can share the conventional boat orders and refit/upgrade work for older subs instead of them being sent to Russia as is the case .

The anti-missile defences of surface warships in the IN has been a patchy performance.Why we have not learnt the lessons from the Brahmaputra episode,when the ship was commissioned without any SAMs,is a mystery.There is also an element of mystery about the entire Barak-8 acquisition/development.Barak-1 was chosen as an urgent replacement for Trishul which failed.It was evaluated by the IN against strong opposition from the DRDO.An upright naval officer who recommended Barak was also allegedly castigated for it! There was an attempt to smear a former DM for the same.Having proved its worth,and being fitted to almost all our major surface warships,we are now jointly developing B-8.Here one must ask why other EU SAMs were not in the running,as we have an excellent relationship with French/EU missile firms for decades .Aster is one SAM that is a success.The reasons for the delay are also unavailable.Is it from our side or the Israelis,who have now said that it is going to be inducted into their forces shortly.If you look at most modern warships today,they have a triple layer of defence against aerial threats.LR/MR SAMs,a BPDMS and gatlings apart from a main gun which also has an anti-air capability.A carrier should have a gun/missile BPDMS apart from any LR SAM.

[Singha]

the IN was reported to be not keen on kashtan due to high cost and probably because barak1 is more compact and gets the job done without the big size and bulk of the integrated kashtan system. they seem to be happy with AK630 and various new gen radars and kit to guide the weapon. even the cost of Barak-1 was said to be high.

One Barak-1 32 missile system with radar and rounds costs around 30 million, there are no price figures for Kashtan but i wouldn't be suprised if each system costs around the same. From what i remember back during talwar trials Kashtan underperformed leading to IN's skepticism of the system. Russia offered the improved Kashtan-m1 which supposedly addressed some of the issues' but IN stuck with Barak.

but barak being VLS, means these 32 in two locations will cover the full spectrum, while you'd need 2 kashtan systems will below decks magazines to get the same missile arc coverage from the waist positions.

btw does the 2nd lot of talwar class have kashtan or barak1+ak630?

[member_23455]

One Barak-1 32 missile system with radar and rounds costs around 30 million, there are no price figures for Kashtan but i wouldn't be suprised if each system costs around the same. From what i remember back during talwar trials Kashtan underperformed leading to IN's skepticism of the system. Russia offered the improved Kashtan-m1 which supposedly addressed some of the issues' but IN stuck with Barak.

I think you may be confusing Shtil problems with Kashtan.http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Arti ... cle13.html

The Barak's fire control radars were causing the glitch apparently IIRC - and these kind of issues are common in the lead ship of a class.

[mody]

[a]

insallah the P17A will have 48 Barak8, 32 barak1, 4xAK630 and 8 klubs as the weapons loadout. plus the Oto 127mm vulcano long range gun. maybe like the italian horizon ships add a couple more Oto76 anti-missile guns and delete the waist AK630 pair while keeping the stern pair of AK630. you can never have enough meat on the gun front.

GD sir, still sticking with 8 Klub missile for a 6,700 ton Ship??? Brahmos is the the way to go.
Also add 2 + 2 launchers for Varunastra HWTs, 2 each for port and starboard sides.

[Singha]

imo fit any heavy ASM but not much point beyond 8 brahmos. instead we need to think of 16-24 addl cells for nirbhay. given the 6m length of these weapons this needs a big ship and perhaps only the P15B class will be large enough to take this enlarged strike array. something around 160m long but broad like the 20m wide burke class can pack in a whole lot of heat.

if you compare specs the INS Delhi is actually 10mts *longer* than the burke class, but 3 mts narrower and 4 mts shallower draft. so the burke is perhaps not so optimized for streamlined speed but packs a good amt of internal volume to pack in fuel and those huge and wide vls arrays.
hence a wider ship could perhaps accomodate a Nirbhay array that is 6 missiles across than 4 and four rows of that will permit 24 nirbhays.

[Aditya G]

According to prasun sengupta, in prefers barak over kashtan due to lower engagement height

One Barak-1 32 missile system with radar and rounds costs around 30 million, there are no price figures for Kashtan but i wouldn't be suprised if each system costs around the same. From what i remember back during talwar trials Kashtan underperformed leading to IN's skepticism of the system. Russia offered the improved Kashtan-m1 which supposedly addressed some of the issues' but IN stuck with Barak.

I think you may be confusing Shtil problems with Kashtan.http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Arti ... cle13.html

The Barak's fire control radars were causing the glitch apparently IIRC - and these kind of issues are common in the lead ship of a class.

[NRao]

Why do all these CIWS gizmos, which can fire at a very, very high rate, carry so few rounds in their storage? The AK-630M, fires at 10,000 per min and carries some 4000 rounds. Understand that they do not fire a lot at a time, yet.

[ramana]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/ ... pride.html

Ship that carries nation’s pride
Tuesday, 06 August 2013 | Abhijit Iyer-Mitra | in Oped


Given the quantum leaps in power that aircraft carriers bring, the reaction to their deployment is usually a very good gauge of one's friends and adversaries. Watch out for the Chinese and the Pakistani media when India launches INS Vikrant

August 12 will see the launch of India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier — the INS Vikrant. Though delayed and reportedly over the cost, this boat marks a significant milestone for India. Aircraft carriers though are problematic assets; while they do bring enormous benefits to a navy, they are also notorious for the geopolitical counter-currents they generate.

The first triumph here is that India’s hull construction has probably well and truly matured. Sure we do not have the advanced modular construction techniques that enable rapid constriction as yet, but the end result is still what looks like a reasonably state-of-the-art ship.

An aircraft carrier is an extraordinarily complex boat that has frustrated the best efforts of several nations. Pre-War Germany tried unsuccessfully to master its construction, having produced just one test ship — the Graf Zeppelin — despite its enormous intellectual resources and sophisticated research and development. The Chinese similarly have also failed to produce an indigenous carrier. To note here is the fact that the Chinese shipbuilding industry is far ahead of India’s, given that they are unfettered by the self defeating laws that have (quite possibly deliberately) made the Indian ship-building industry an insignificant entity.

China’s efforts to study and build a carrier have been long and arduous. It first acquired an ex-British-ex-Australian carrier called the HMAS Melbourne — an identical sister ship of the original INS Vikrant. It then bought two ex-Soviet ships — the Minsk and the Kiev — curiously of the exact same class the Indian Navy has acquired in the INS Vikramaditya. These ships were acquired with their blueprints. Additionally, in the late 90s Spanish ship-builder Bazan also sold China some unspecified designs. Despite this Beijing still had to buy yet another hull — of the Varyag — the successor ship in the Soviet Navy to India’s Vikramaditya class. This hull was only 70 per cent complete and had to be towed to China in a two year, 28,000 km ordeal that included a minor diplomatic spat with Turkey and a near spat with Greece. Despite having a thriving ship-building industry, the ship could be converted to a functioning aircraft carrier only in 2012 — a full 14 years after its purchase.

In fabricating the steel required for its boat and designing the vessel from scratch, India has, therefore, stolen a lead over China. Given the often-repeated failures of the defence research establishment here, and Chinese triumphs in this respect, this is an exception that deserves a standing ovation. It is also a resounding valediction of the Indian Navy’s approach of working to incrementally indigenise ship construction — a goal it has maintained since its earliest days.

There are two critical aspects that this carrier falls short on, and that need to be the focus of the Navy’s future: The indigenisations of propulsion and weaponry.

The chosen engines for this system are the US-made General Electric LM2500, four of which are required to power this ship. This is an engine that China also possesses and fields on one of its destroyers — the Type 052 Luhu, which means that the Chinese certainly have some in-depth knowledge of its operational capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. But the bigger story here is the absence of that elusive beast — the Indian engine.

This mystical creature has been something of the holy grail of Indian defence research and continues to elude us — be it for a tank, a fighter plane or a warship. Unfortunately, our scattered, unplanned and unstrategic procurement of various engines from various sources means that we have never been able to generate the bulk, or economies of scale, to demand serious technology transfer of this critical technology from suppliers.

Take the Air Force for the most recent example — despite choosing the Rafale as its frontline fighter, instead of using its M-88 engine (which was on offer) for the Tejas, India chose the US GE414 engines. Similarly India’s surface ship fleet uses several British, Russian, Ukrainian and the US engines and has yet to consolidate its future plans around one single-engine design.

Again, the weapons systems of the new Vikrant will also be foreign. The guns are slated to be Italian, and Russian, and the yet undisclosed air defence system probably Israeli. The aircraft complement will be a mix of mostly Russian MiG 29 fighters and Ka-31 family helicopters, and possibly some Tejas. Obviously a ship is just a platform; what turns it into a hunter are its weapons systems. While the hull is reportedly indigenous, the claim that the combat system that comprises the hull, its propulsion and its weapons, is indigenous, is starch too far. Contrast this with China, which may have imported the hull, but all the important bits — the planes, weapons electronics and the propulsion, are all Chinese made.

Perhaps more important are the geopolitical ramifications of setting an aircraft carrier out to sea. Given the quantum leaps in power that aircraft carriers bring, the reaction to their deployment is usually a very good gauge of one’s friends and adversaries. When China launched its carrier, the reaction around its maritime periphery was uniformly negative. However, when India’s carrier is launched, it’s likely that only the Chinese and the Pakistani Press will have anything bad to say. Yet, till the late 1990s and up into the early 2000s, the US and the Australian public literature — albeit niche, military and aviation magazines — were warning that Indian maritime abilities would have to be countered. Yet now such talk seems obsolete, with the almost uniform opinion being formed that India’s maritime expansion is a force for stability in the region.

Still, this does not seem to have filtered into Indian thought. Strategic autonomy remains the cornerstone of our policy and yet remains ill-defined in tangible terms. This means we cannot identify friends or foes openly, and if we cannot do this, we also cannot leverage the assets of our allies to project our own power. The consequent capacity duplication is bound to be ruinously expensive and unsustainable, given the huge economic lead that China has over India.

When INS Vikrant is launched, scan the international media carefully. At the risk of repetition, nothing tells you who your friends are and who your enemies are better than an aircraft carrier.

Lets await August 12 which is next week. Please start a new thread for the Vic=k!!!

Maybe with pics of the Old Vik and its role in 1971 war.

[nachiket]

Lets await August 12 which is next week. Please start a new thread for the Vic=k!!!

Maybe with pics of the Old Vik and its role in 1971 war.

A thread for the new Vikrant already exists: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6308&hilit=vikrant
It doesn't have any info about the old Vik though.

[ajay_hk]

Navy makes high-strength steel for warships
Kalyan Ray, New Delhi, Aug 4, 2013,

DHNS: Indigenous manufacturing of India's largest warship — the 37,500-tonne aircraft carrier INS Vikrant — has ended the nation's decade-old reliability on import for military grade steel, needed for warship building.

When the chips were down for one of India's biggest military projects, defence scientists and Steel Authority of India Limited (Sail) joined hands to create a special steel — DMR 249 — which would henceforth be used in all Indian warship-building projects.

A calculation suggests domestic production of this type of steel saved upwards of Rs 1,000 crore in foreign exchange only in material cost for the INS Vikrant project. The savings will be substantially more if all other ongoing warship-building projects, where this steel is being used, are taken into consideration.

The Rs 3,261-crore programme to construct the INS Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard was planned with imported steel. But soon after the steel cutting, the plan ran into rough waters as supply of steel from Russia completely stopped because of commercial disputes. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Sail came to the rescue. The Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory — a DRDO unit in Hyderabad — undertook the research, which led to the creation of two types of strategic steel.

While high-strength 249A-type steel is being used for IAC and other warships under construction, there is also 249B-type steel, with even higher strength, for the flight deck of the carrier. Sail made several changes in its furnace, rolling mill and heating pistons to produce this high-strength steel and roll it into sheets of thickness varying between 3 and 70 millimetre.

“Every tonne of the domestic steel costs Rs 4 lakh, while the imported steel would cost Rs 8-9 lakh per tonne,” a navy officer associated with the Vikrant project told Deccan Herald. {~50% cost savings in addition to developing this crucial technology in-house}

Since the aircraft carrier needs 26,000 tonnes of steel, the savings may be more than Rs 1,000 crore only on materials. “There are other hidden costs, but more importantly, nobody wants to part ways with such crucial technology,” he said.

At least three major indigenous warship-building projects of the Navy Project-15A (destroyers), Project-17 (frigates) and Project-28 (anti-submarine warfare corvette) have fallen behind schedule, leading to cost escalation. The rise is about 225 per cent for Project-15A, about 260 per cent for Project-17 and about 157 per cent for Project-28.

The main reasons contributing towards cost escalations is delay in supply of warship-building-quality steel by Russia. The high cost of import and delay in delivery forced the defence ministry to opt for self-reliance. “Now all Indian warships will use the DMR 249 steel,” said navy vice-chief R K Dhowan.

Incidentally, the Vikrant programme has recently received another Rs 300 crore from the Defence Ministry, which is keen to complete the project by 2018 so that India can operate two aircraft carriers simultaneously by the turn of the next decade.

[VinodTK]

From Times Of India: 'Maritime power critical to India's fortunes'

[Singha]

Why do all these CIWS gizmos, which can fire at a very, very high rate, carry so few rounds in their storage? The AK-630M, fires at 10,000 per min and carries some 4000 rounds. Understand that they do not fire a lot at a time, yet.

maybe to keep the magazine below decks compact and permit mounting of small ships like the tarantul class which had two in the back.

but most of these systems can be reloaded at sea I think...might have access to the magazine from a inside passage. seems to be a round "room" below the gun with a small door to reload rounds and carry out repairs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHk7yUzHCWI

[Sid]

Why do all these CIWS gizmos, which can fire at a very, very high rate, carry so few rounds in their storage? The AK-630M, fires at 10,000 per min and carries some 4000 rounds. Understand that they do not fire a lot at a time, yet.

maybe to keep the magazine below decks compact and permit mounting of small ships like the tarantul class which had two in the back.

but most of these systems can be reloaded at sea I think...might have access to the magazine from a inside passage. seems to be a round "room" below the gun with a small door to reload rounds and carry out repairs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHk7yUzHCWI

Their gun barrel will become overheated and will be rendered useless if fired at max rate.

Also their high caliber ensures total destruction if few rounds are to make contact.

[Singha]

from P17A, P15B onward the traditional turret shape on these guns can be changed to a faceted stealthy housing shown in above video - we can do it ourselves after testing a model. the ship main guns are already going in for low RCS faceted turrets and in future the main gun will hide inside a wedged shape housing pointing down and ahead.
when the ship is low RCS in entirety these exposed weapon RCS become a player.

the elephant in the room is how to stealthify the christmas tree called RBU

[Manish_Sharma]

^^ How about covering RBU launchers with stealth shaped conical canvas or some stealth material tents.

At the time of attack when the RBU 6000 rockets get fired, they'll rip through these tents and go after their targets.

[NRao]

maybe to keep the magazine below decks compact and permit mounting of small ships like the tarantul class which had two in the back.

but most of these systems can be reloaded at sea I think...might have access to the magazine from a inside passage. seems to be a round "room" below the gun with a small door to reload rounds and carry out repairs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHk7yUzHCWI

Their gun barrel will become overheated and will be rendered useless if fired at max rate.

Also their high caliber ensures total destruction if few rounds are to make contact.

What happens during combat? Do the combatants stop fighting and restart once the barrels cool?

Vids seem to show bursts of a sec or two. But even then the entire lot will be consumed in some 30 total/real seconds. Would reloading be automated? Got to be I would think.

[krishnan]

as per some youtube video they are manually fed

[akimalik]

maybe to keep the magazine below decks compact and permit mounting of small ships like the tarantul class which had two in the back.

I can confirm this.

as per some youtube video they are manually fed

If you mean manually reloaded whilst at sea, yes.
If you mean manually fed whilst firing, no.

[koti]

This decoy system seems to be far more effective then the single decoy shots we see during Navy day shows.
Rheinmetall MASS

Was this ever considered for IN? Is there a similar system on IN/RN ships?

[Philip]

This is being posted to understand the intennsity of the IN's task to conduct ops in the Indo-China Sea.
where China's massive territorial theft,the largest since WW2...apart from Tibet,is taking place.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang ... ld-war-ii/

China And The Biggest Territory Grab Since World War II

Filipinos protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, as part of a global protest over an escalating territorial row in the South China Sea. The territorial row centres on Scarborough Shoal, a tiny rocky outcrop in the South China Sea which the Philippines says is part of its territory because it falls within its exclusive economic zone. China, however, claims virtually all of the South China Sea, which is believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves, as its historical territory, even waters close to the coasts of other Asian countries. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that China’s mapping authority, Sinomaps Press, issued a new map of the country showing 80% of the South China Sea as internal Chinese water.

What’s at issue? Each year, more than half of the world’s annual merchant tonnage passes through the South China Sea as well as a third of the global trade in crude oil and over half of LNG trade.
College Grads Are Jobless In China's "High-Growth" Economy Gordon G. Chang Gordon G. Chang Contributor
China's Alibaba Is Soaring, But Avoid The IPO Gordon G. Chang Gordon G. Chang Contributor
The World's No. 1 Currency Trade . . . For Now Gordon G. Chang Gordon G. Chang Contributor
Chinese Shunning Luxury Stores At Home, Buying Abroad Gordon G. Chang Gordon G. Chang Contributor

Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over that body of water does not necessarily mean it will close the South China Sea off to international commerce. Yet that would be the next step. Given its extremely broad view of its right to regulate coastal traffic, Beijing will undoubtedly define the concept of “innocent passage” narrowly and require vessels entering that sea to obtain its permission beforehand and similarly require aircraft flying over it to do the same. The South China Sea, bordered by eight nations, has long been considered international water.

The New York Times noted Asian diplomats have seen the map with the stunning claim. Its release, the Times article states, was delayed from late 2012 “so that it could be formally authorized by the Chinese senior leadership.” The map is not yet publicly available.

Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China in 1947 issued maps with dashes at the edge of the South China Sea. The ambiguous markings led to the term “cow’s tongue” because of the shape of the area defined by the dashes. Mao Zedong’s victorious People’s Republic in 1949 adopted as its own Chiang’s expansive South China Sea claims.

Hopeful analysts had long maintained that the dashes—nine or ten of them depending on the map—signified China’s claim to only the islands inside the cow’s tongue. Those islands are subject to competing claims by other shoreline nations, specifically, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Moreover, there was great optimism when China ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea in June 1996. That multilateral treaty includes detailed rules on the calculation of territorial waters—generally limiting territorial claims to waters no further than 12 nautical miles from shore—and those rules were inconsistent with Beijing’s general assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea. Accordingly, analysts naturally thought—hoped, actually—that China had abandoned its expansive 1947-based claim.

Yet Beijing, despite treaty obligations, had long been laying the groundwork to close off the South China Sea to other nations. For instance, in August 2011 the official Xinhua News Agency issued a report stating China had “three million square kilometers of territorial waters.” It was impossible for the country to get to that figure without including its claim to most of the 2.6 million square kilometers of the South China Sea.

Moreover, in that same month Xinhua was even clearer when it asserted that the islands in the South China Sea “and surrounding waters” were “part of China’s core interests.” By using “core interests,” Beijing was signaling it could never compromise China’s sovereignty over either the islands or those waters.

In any event, Beijing’s new map, according to those who have seen it, removes any ambiguity by converting the dashes into a national boundary. All islands and waters inside the line, therefore, are China’s, at least according to the Chinese. It is the biggest attempted grab of territory since World War II.

The new map will roil Asian nations, of course. Last year, Beijing used force to seize Philippine territory, Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. The United States, despite its treaty obligations to defend the Philippines, let the Chinese take what they wanted. Nobody in the White House wanted to confront China, and there were voices in the Pentagon saying that China’s aggression served the Philippines right for kicking American forces out of the Clark and Subic bases. Now, the Chinese are going after Ayungin Shoal, long considered Philippine territory.

The ongoing seizure of pieces of the Philippines is an indirect challenge to America. Now, however, the issuance of the new map means Beijing has taken on Washington directly. If there has been any consistent American foreign policy over the course of two centuries, it has been the defense of freedom of navigation.

Why is this important? The world has prospered because of trade conducted freely over wide seas lanes and air routes. So China’s claim to the South China Sea, if permitted to stand, will mark the end of the open architecture of the Post-War world.

At the end of this week, President Obama will meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Rancho Mirage for two days of intensive talks. The White House, in announcing the meeting on May 20, said it wanted to “discuss ways to enhance cooperation.” The administration is hoping to build an enduring partnership with China’s increasingly militant one-party state and is trying to avoid disagreement.

Yet on the Beijing’s sea claims there can be no compromise. Either the South China Sea is Chinese or it is international water. The stakes—for China, for the United States, for the international community—are hard to overstate.

Follow me on Twitter @GordonGChang

Most of the frigates and destroyers conducting patrols in the disputed sea come from the nearest naval bases in Hainan Island, specifically Yalong, Yulin, and Zhanjiang naval bases, the report says. "It should also be noted that these bases serve as submarine bases approximately 640 nautical miles from Second Thomas Shoal."

The newly established patrol route has made the situation "more volatile" in the region, says the report, adding the "significant change" was highlighted by Chinese navy's deployment of ships in the vicinity of Second Thomas Shoal since February.

Mischief Reef is 22 nautical miles from Second Thomas Shoal, the ninth Philippine detachment and the nearest occupied feature to mainland Palawan.

China is doing in the seas exactly what it has been doing in Tibet and now Aksai Chin/Ladakh.

[Singha]

^^ How about covering RBU launchers with stealth shaped conical canvas or some stealth material tents.

At the time of attack when the RBU 6000 rockets get fired, they'll rip through these tents and go after their targets.

should be a fairly routine job to put in a stealth cover with sliding door. inside it can remain the same.

[Austin]

Vikramaditya , Interesting Angle

http://sdelanounas.ru/i/d/3/d3d3LnNldm1 ... E4NQ==.jpg

[Aditya G]

INS Kiltan (P-28):

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dyna ... 08501f.jpg

3 x P-28 @ GRSE:



Is it me or the Oto 76 turret looks different design?

[arijitkm]

INS Vikramaditya will serve Navy for 30 years

For all the debates over its price, utility and delay in induction, aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya is sure to serve the Navy for at least 30 years, says a senior technical officer of the Navy.

“The entry of the Vikramaditya marks a paradigm shift, as it heralds a new era in carrier operations in the Indian Navy. The way it has been rebuilt and equipped with advanced systems and machinery will ensure that it plods on for another 30 to 40 years,” Rear Admiral S. Madhusudanan, Admiral Superintendent of the Naval Ship Repair Yard (NSRY) in Kochi, told The Hindu.

Rear Admiral Madhusudanan headed the Navy’s inspection group that monitored the conversion of derelict Russian carrier Admiral Gorshkov into the Vikramaditya at Russia’s Sevmash Shipyard.

“It is not a question of the hull alone. Its air component, electronic suites and other equipment are all state-of-the-art,” he said, but declined to comment on reports about the carrier bracing for induction without a close-in-weapon system (CIWS) or missile defence. “Yes, there are certain issues there,” was how he put it.

(While the long-range surface-to-air missile — LR-SAM a.k.a Barak 8 — jointly developed by India and Israel is unlikely to be ready for induction in the next couple of years, delay in the development of the missile has already derailed commissioning of the Kolkata-class destroyers — the AK-630 CIWS is slated for integration aboard the Vikramaditya in a year or so.)

Rear Admiral Madhusudanan is elated about the forthcoming launch of India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier that will carry the legacy of India’s first carrier, INS Vikrant by taking on the name.

“INS Vikrant is a name that stands out. No other Indian warship has enjoyed the status it had, both in terms of combat proficiency and its reflection of the nation’s history,” said the Rear Admiral, who had served aboard the Vikrant and was part of the commissioning crew of INS Viraat.

[Austin]

Russian supersonic missiles behave like wolves

In that article Onyx range is mentioned as more than 372.8 miles which is around 600 km , So Brahmos should be around that range if MTCR is not clipping it also the wolf like hunting capability should be there in Brahmos too ...a legacy of Shipwreck.

[koti]

Vikramaditya , Interesting Angle

http://sdelanounas.ru/i/d/3/d3d3LnNldm1 ... E4NQ==.jpg

I've never seen a bigger bridge on an AC