[shortbread]

It's a terrible navigation route surrounded by countries in strife. The navy needs to pass through the waters of Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea before reaching Sudan. Pirates, a chinese base in Dijibouti etc..etc... And before all this the Indian personnel on ground need to transport all the citizens from the centre of the country towards the port, the staff most likely will be the last to be evacuated. I thought it would have been easier/safer flying them to Jeddah or Mecca, but perhaps air assets are more vulnerable or maybe there are way too many people to be taken out within a small window.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by ads11

I wager it must be tied to naval tradition somehow. Is it like a courtesy thing? I'll wait for the more knowledgeable members to chip in though.

Tradition/courtesy. Not necessarily just war ship, you can see merchant ships do the same.

Jeroen

[V.Narayan]

INS Imphal, third of the four Project 15B destroyers starts her sea trials. Commissioning likely towards the latter half of 2023. The 4 ships of this 7400-tonne sub-class are Visakhapatnam, Mormugao, Imphal and Surat. These four are an improved version of the Project P15A Kolkata class - Kolkata, Chennai, and Kochi. These in turn were an enlarged, up-armed and improved version of the 6700-tonne Delhi class - Delhi, Mysore, Mumbai. By pursuing a step by step policy and not drawing up specs copy pasted from Jane's directories of ships or aircrafts the Navy has in 25 years built up a squadron of 10 very capable long range destroyers all indigenously designed albeit equipped with foreign armaments. Unlike the IAF the Navy did not let the bombastic politics of DRDO of the 1960s to 2000s dominate them. And DRDO did not find designing frigates and destroyers as politically expedient as sexy fighters. The IAF needless made grievous mistakes but I'd offend many ex-IAF and other pilots on this forum if I vented my thoughts candidly.

It is unlikely there will be a Project 15C as this design has reached its limits and the Zorya turbines from Ukraine are now a no, no. It is a testimony to the naval designers in uniform that the hull & propulsion of Project 15 was so competent and versatile that it served us for not just one but two upgrades. For all the good work they do Maz Docks needs to learn to build ships in modern time frames of 3 to 4 years and get over their culture of taking 6 to 9 years.

The next will be the 14,000-tonne Project 18 which is expected to carry anti-ballistic missile capabilities.

Photo below of INS Visakhapatnam for representative purposes

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by shortbread

It's a terrible navigation route surrounded by countries in strife. The navy needs to pass through the waters of Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea before reaching Sudan. Pirates, a chinese base in Dijibouti etc..etc...

To be fair, the Gulf of Aden is pretty safe right now. Aggressive patrols by numerous countries have meant that piracy in these parts has pretty much died out. Loads of ships cross the Gulf of Aden daily, so shouldn't be a problem at all for an armed naval vessel. Most of the piracy now is concentrated in West Africa - specifically at the Gulf of Guinea where ironically, due to well-functioning (compared to Somalia atleast) governments, they won't foreign navies to come in & clean up the mess like the Somalis did. Also heard that South-East Asia has a piracy problem but don't know anything about that.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

For all the good work they do Maz Docks needs to learn to build ships in modern time frames of 3 to 4 years and get over their culture of taking 6 to 9 years.

My knowledge about shipbuilding is close to nothing. However, wouldn't the piece-meal orders remove the incentive to mass produce quickly? The Navy ordered just 3 vessels each from the Delhi-class & Kolkata-class destroyers which improved to 4 vessels for the Visakhapatnam-class. When we order just 3 ships at a time, wouldn't the supplier be disincentivized from a quick delivery?

[dragracer567]

Chinese Militia Ships stalked India-ASEAN naval exercises.

Some interesting new stories are coming out though they don't seem to be reported as well in India. India is currently holding what seems like a massive naval exercise with its ASEAN counterparts (hosted by Singapore) with ships from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It's particularly notable that India participated with two capital ships - the destroyer INS Delhi and the frigate INS Satpura along with the Boeing P8i aircraft - a pretty massive presence given the distance for a non-Malabar exercise.

What's interesting is that some ships of the Chinese militia - basically part of their navy but pretending to be fishing vessels moved toward them inside what was apparently Vietnamese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Five of these ships were specifically tracked by the Indian Navy, I'm assuming using the P8s likely because they were followed by a Chinese research vessel. A Chinese research vessel, the Xiang Yang Hong 10 (not sure if the same one from before) also came within 10 miles of a Vietnamese warship. Overall, the militia and naval vessels crossed without incident but this seems something out of the cold war. It's a nice line that India draws, exercising in the South China Sea but not provoking the dragon by, say, sailing across the Taiwan strait. For better or worse, we are involved in the Pacific side of the Indo-Pacific as well now, this time taking sides.

Source 1

Source 2

Destroyer INS Delhi



Frigate INS Satpura



Boeing P8i Neptune aircraft

[Ironhide]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

-------snip---------
Unlike the IAF the Navy did not let the bombastic politics of DRDO of the 1960s to 2000s dominate them. And DRDO did not find designing frigates and destroyers as politically expedient as sexy fighters. The IAF needless made grievous mistakes but I'd offend many ex-IAF and other pilots on this forum if I vented my thoughts candidly.
-------snip---------

Would like to hear your views on the same Sir, maybe it will lead to yet another interesting, enlightening, painstakingly researched and eminently readable thread here !

Cheers !

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Ironhide

Would like to hear your views on the same Sir, maybe it will lead to yet another interesting, enlightening, painstakingly researched and eminently readable thread here !

Cheers !

Thank you for reading and thank you for your kind words. There are several posts in this very thread especially in the first 10 pages that touch on this topic. To get a story of the early steps in indigenization I may suggest you read this article in full. It spells out the story from 1964 to 1990 that enabled us to first build our warships under license, then improve upon it and lay out the whole depth of organization of design & development & systems integration within the Navy and saving that fine Arm from the clutches of DRDO and its bureaucracy.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/comme...ahmaputra.html (Indian Navy - A Shipbuilders Navy: INS Nilgiri, INS Godavari & INS Brahmaputra)

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

India is currently holding what seems like a massive naval exercise with its ASEAN counterparts (hosted by Singapore) with ships from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Some interesting pictures from this exercise:

@gordianKnotRay posted this image on twitter that shows the combined India-ASEAN flotilla facing the Chinese flotilla:



An Indian Navy Shivalik class frigate with a Vietnamese Russian-built Gepard class frigate. The Indian ship has three times the tonnage of the Vietnamese one (Approx. 6000 tonnes vs 2000 tonnes) but they seem similar in the photo. Is it perspective?



Shot of the exercising fleet:



Vietnamese People's Navy (VPN) personnel salute a passing INS Satpura:



Singapore Navy (RSN) personnel wave at a passing INS Delhi:



I wonder why the Vietnamese personnel salute while the Singaporean personnel wave? Different traditions? What would the equivalent Indian Navy personnel do?

[ads11]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

What's interesting is that some ships of the Chinese militia - basically part of their navy but pretending to be fishing vessels moved toward them inside what was apparently Vietnamese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Five of these ships were specifically tracked by the Indian Navy, I'm assuming using the P8s likely because they were followed by a Chinese research vessel. A Chinese research vessel, the Xiang Yang Hong 10 (not sure if the same one from before) also came within 10 miles of a Vietnamese warship. Overall, the militia and naval vessels crossed without incident but this seems something out of the cold war.

It took me a moment to realise you were speaking about the PLAN's irregular fleet in terms of their militia vessels. Doesn't surprise me that they were tailing along watching closely. I imagine regular PLAN assets would've been keeping an eye on the exercises just as much as say the IN must have assets that keep an eye on any PLAN exercises in the IOR?

It's a nice line that India draws, exercising in the South China Sea but not provoking the dragon by, say, sailing across the Taiwan strait. For better or worse, we are involved in the Pacific side of the Indo-Pacific as well now, this time taking sides.

If push comes to shove I remain doubtful how far IN involvement will go east of the Malacca Strait. I think it's judicious to maintain ties with ASEAN partners and with QUAD partners in the region absolutely, but at the end of the day, the IOR is the IN's boathouse and getting drawn into a Taiwan Strait tussle might be a bridge too far to sell to the domestic audience (not even taking into consideration the global ramifications of if/when the inevitable Taiwan reunification invasion gets launched..).

Originally Posted by dragracer567

An Indian Navy Shivalik class frigate with a Vietnamese Russian-built Gepard class frigate. The Indian ship has three times the tonnage of the Vietnamese one (Approx. 6000 tonnes vs 2000 tonnes) but they seem similar in the photo. Is it perspective?

Has to be perspective for sure. The Indian vessel is about 30% larger dimensionally too (length and beam), not to mention displacement.

Speaking of frigates, what's the status on the Talwar class? Aren't there still some vessels yet to arrive from Russian yards? If the Ukrainians were refusing engine supply prior to the full scale invasion, what chances exist for those boats to still make it on time? Also what happens with the ships being built in Goa?

I imagine the Talwar class is at the low end of the frigate mix with the Shivalik class at the medium end and I suppose the upcoming Nilgiri class frigates the high end of the mix? Just trying to understand what the frigate mix is supposed to look like.

At least with in house design capability, it's good to know that should the remaining Talwar class order get tanked, there are domestic designs to fall back upon (though not sure how badly the budget or yard order book would get affected).

I wonder how the Shivalik and Nilgiri classes stack up against contemporaneous frigates like the FREMM.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by ads11

I
Speaking of frigates, what's the status on the Talwar class? Aren't there still some vessels yet to arrive from Russian yards? If the Ukrainians were refusing engine supply prior to the full scale invasion, what chances exist for those boats to still make it on time? Also what happens with the ships being built in Goa?

I imagine the Talwar class is at the low end of the frigate mix with the Shivalik class at the medium end and I suppose the upcoming Nilgiri class frigates the high end of the mix? Just trying to understand what the frigate mix is supposed to look like.

At least with in house design capability, it's good to know that should the remaining Talwar class order get tanked, there are domestic designs to fall back upon (though not sure how badly the budget or yard order book would get affected).

I wonder how the Shivalik and Nilgiri classes stack up against contemporaneous frigates like the FREMM.

1) The last news item I can find is that of the Russians saying that the first one made in Russian - the INS Tushil will be delivered this year. Would take it with a pinch of salt though, the Russians would probably prioritize their own armed forces right now. The ships to be built in Goa - supposed to be a class of its own called the Triput class is also supposedly delayed but I guess they will eventually be built given that they are already under construction. All this said, the Nilgiri class is itself delayed since the first ship was supposed to have been commissioned in November 2022 but we haven't even heard news of sea trials yet. Payments might be an issue as well, the Russian aren't really happy to receive payments in INR and I don't think the Chinese would be too happy to use their currency to payment for weapons that are explicitly aimed at them.

2) I suppose the Shivalik & Nilgiri classes are quite similar, the Niligiri is slightly bigger and is basically an advancement of the Shivalik class with major improvements like the AESA radar - not dissimilar to the variation between the indigenous destroyer classes. Also, if I understand correctly, the Talwar class vessels are serving with the Western fleet under the (non-carrier) flagship Kolkata & Visakhapatnam classes while the Nilgiri & Shivalik classes will likely be the (non-carrier) flagship of the Eastern fleet given that they are bigger and newer than the destroyers in that fleet - Rajput (many decommissioned) and Delhi classes (recently moved).

3) I doubt the orders will get tanked if it's true that all the ships are already under construction. Given the current scenario of shortages, we need all the vessels we can get, including further Nilgiri orders since I think the Brahmaputra class frigates and remaining Rajput class destroyers are nearing the end of their lifespan this decade. We'll likely get them eventually, albeit extremely delayed. If all goes well, the next-gen frigates should start coming in during the 2030s.

4) It depends on the version because the number of VLS, helicopters etc vary considerably but somewhat similar (give or take depending on the version). I guess they are also quite similar to the Nilgiri class in terms of size though the American version is as big as our newer destroyers. Offcourse, can't comment further due to my lack of knowledge on these things. The Nilgiri class itself runs really close to our newer destroyers in terms of size though with only half as any many Brahmos, torpedo tubes and CIWS.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

1) The last news item I can find is that of the Russians saying that the first one made in Russian - the INS Tushil will be delivered this year. Would take it with a pinch of salt though, the Russians would probably prioritize their own armed forces right now.

Thanks for this! Basically no one knows what sort of delay we're looking at for any Russian deliveries in the aftermath of their own self inflicted debacle. Splendid.

The ships to be built in Goa - supposed to be a class of its own called the Triput class is also supposedly delayed but I guess they will eventually be built given that they are already under construction.

Interesting, so are these like a B-spec Talwar class? Will these Goan origin vessels still be using Ukrainian marine turbines? Because that'll be another indefinite delivery delay surely.

How easy is it to swap out the propulsion systems on ships like this? Potentially a silly question but could you get some kind of off the shelf marine turbine that vaguely is similar in dimensions and other parameters and try to fix it? This might be more of a feasible proposition on the Indian designed ships, at least going by the tendency to design in extra room from the offset for future alterations - which afaik, is the opposite of the tight packaging favoured by Soviet/Russian naval design.

Payments might be an issue as well, the Russian aren't really happy to receive payments in INR and I don't think the Chinese would be too happy to use their currency to payment for weapons that are explicitly aimed at them.

I do remember seeing something in the news about Lavrov stating they're not happy with the prospect of INR payments, didn't realise it was linked to weapons deals too, not just oil. Not sure I follow what you mean about the Chinese being unhappy about the use of the yuan here?

2) I suppose the Shivalik & Nilgiri classes are quite similar, the Niligiri is slightly bigger and is basically an advancement of the Shivalik class with major improvements like the AESA radar - not dissimilar to the variation between the indigenous destroyer classes. Also, if I understand correctly, the Talwar class vessels are serving with the Western fleet under the (non-carrier) flagship Kolkata & Visakhapatnam classes while the Nilgiri & Shivalik classes will likely be the (non-carrier) flagship of the Eastern fleet given that they are bigger and newer than the destroyers in that fleet - Rajput (many decommissioned) and Delhi classes (recently moved).

Ah right, so the upper end of the frigate matrix is allocated towards countering the PLAN essentially whilst the lower end contends with the PN. Guess that makes sense. I would've thought units of each class are evenly distributed between the two sectors but interesting to see that isn't the case. I'm guessing another factor must be the yards from whence they came, though that falls apart a bit with Mazagon building all of the Shivalik's and some of the Nilgiri's.

We'll likely get them eventually, albeit extremely delayed. If all goes well, the next-gen frigates should start coming in during the 2030s.

I take it this is a follow on class to the Nilgiri? Wonder if design work has started on that already.

[V.Narayan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaYixdkY4IQ

An interesting video by the US Naval Institute on the depth of expansion of the PLA Navy. A bit long. You could skip from one chart to the other.

[skanchan95]

In a significant milestone for the Indian Navy, MH60R helicopter undertook maiden landings on the indigenously designed & constructed destroyer, INS Kolkata. This achievement provides a major boost to the Indian Navy’s Anti-Submarine Warfare capability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28d_9B4JVZ4

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by ads11

Interesting, so are these like a B-spec Talwar class? Will these Goan origin vessels still be using Ukrainian marine turbines? Because that'll be another indefinite delivery delay surely.

I guess it would be something like the Kolkata class vs Visakhapatnam class destroyers. It would also have more indigenous stuff but nothing is really confirmed yet. But pretty sure its going to use the Ukrainian turbines since there is no alternative except for some new turbine that the Russians claim to have develop in lieu if we can trust the claim.

How easy is it to swap out the propulsion systems on ships like this? Potentially a silly question but could you get some kind of off the shelf marine turbine that vaguely is similar in dimensions and other parameters and try to fix it? This might be more of a feasible proposition on the Indian designed ships, at least going by the tendency to design in extra room from the offset for future alterations - which afaik, is the opposite of the tight packaging favoured by Soviet/Russian naval design.

That's a question for Jeroen or Narayan sir or anyone else who know their way around a ship. My experience is limited to some research vessels for studying seaweed and clams

I do remember seeing something in the news about Lavrov stating they're not happy with the prospect of INR payments, didn't realise it was linked to weapons deals too, not just oil. Not sure I follow what you mean about the Chinese being unhappy about the use of the yuan here?

Well, the Chinese wouldn't be happy with us using their own currency to buy weapons that we could potentially use against them. This is a serious issue with non-western alternatives to USD.

Ah right, so the upper end of the frigate matrix is allocated towards countering the PLAN essentially whilst the lower end contends with the PN. Guess that makes sense. I would've thought units of each class are evenly distributed between the two sectors but interesting to see that isn't the case. I'm guessing another factor must be the yards from whence they came, though that falls apart a bit with Mazagon building all of the Shivalik's and some of the Nilgiri's.

I suppose the number of ships per class is so small that it would be a logistical nightmare if just 1 or 2 ships from the same class were allocated to the same fleet. It's not like the US or China where they mass produce ships from the same class.

I take it this is a follow on class to the Nilgiri? Wonder if design work has started on that already.

I guess it would be a fresh design since the Nilgiri itself is an evolution of the Shivalik, so not sure how much they can stretch it further. Given that it's pretty much confirmed that the next destroyers i.e Project 18 will be atleast 13,000 tonnes, that pretty much opens up the big gap for a 7,500-9,000 tonne frigate which would be bigger than our current destroyers but more in line with many of the modern frigates from Europe.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Shot of the exercising fleet:

Attachment 2450099

I'm inclined to think its the Delhi in the center, maintaining course while the others fork out? Good to see the old gal out-n-about. I have been trying to follow the updates about completion of her refit regularly, but hardly any photos could be found. I was making do with the ships of the Delhi class under covers at Mazgaon Docks on Google images . Obviously heavily outdated ones. Even now - not able to find any high resolution close-up shots of how the Delhi/Mumbai look now, post Brahmos conversion as well as updates to the anti-air capabilities.