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Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet frigate Admiral Makarov Project 11356. Russian MoD picture.
India’s Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) cut a steel plate for its first locally built Project 11356 frigate on September 21. The official ceremony of steel cutting was being live-streamed on the same day by the Ishwari Digital media platform.
During the ceremony, the Vice Chief of the Indian Navy’s (IN’s) Staff Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar cut the first plate of steel for the premier Indian-built Project 11356 frigate.
In his turn, a representative of GSL said the construction of the Project 11356 frigates would be the largest shipbuilding program to be conducted by the enterprise. “Thanks to the commencement of the project, the shipyard has entered the league of the Indian enterprises that are capable of building large surface combatants. Therefore, India’s capabilities to construct this type of defense hardware will be dramatically reinforced,” he said. “We are planning to fulfill the program in time. The enterprise rapidly adopted to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to minimize its impact on manufacturing processes,” he added.
According to the representative of GSL, the new ships will incorporate “a large number” of indigenous subsystems.
Goa Shipyard Limited picture showing the keel laying ceremony for the first firgate
India has designated the new ship ‘Advanced Missile Frigate’ (AMF). “GSL commences production of Advanced Missile Frigates, with ‘First Steel Cutting’ today at the hands of Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar — another landmark step in Defence Shipbuilding and a major boost to ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ [projects],” said GSL in a tweet on September 21.
Russia and India previously contracted the delivery of four Project 11356 frigates to the Asian country. Under the deal, the Yantar Shipyard (a subsidiary of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation) and GSL are set to build two ships each.
The Project 11356 frigate is designed to strike surface/underwater combatants and aerial targets in both blue and green waters. The ships operate both in battle groups and as standalone naval platforms. The frigate is armed with an A-190 10 mm naval gun, strike missiles (including the Kalibr and Shtil missile weapons), and torpedoes. The ship can store a Kamov Ka-27 naval rotorcraft. The Project 11356 frigate is 124.8 m long and has a displacement of 3,620 t, a full speed of 30 kt, and a cruise range of 4,850 nm.
The naval platform has been designed with the use of stealth technologies; the acoustic signature of the ship has also been reduced, while the system’s protection against high-precision weapons has been reinforced. The frigate’s powerplant integrates four gas-turbine engines. The ship can employ only one gas-turbine engine to sail in order to increase the service life and cost-effectiveness ratio of the main powerplant.
India cuts steel for its first locally-built Project 11356 frigate - Naval News
India’s Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) cut a steel plate for its first locally built Project 11356 frigate on September 21. The official ceremony of steel cutting was being live-streamed on the same day by the Ishwari Digital media platform.www.navalnews.com
Another representative of GSL told TASS at the Army 2019 international military-technical forum that the Indian Project 11356 frigate would receive a number of locally built subsystems, including a 76 mm naval gun, the BRAHMOS cruise missiles, two 30 mm anti-aircraft guns, two torpedo launchers, and a rocket launcher. The source added that the sensor suite of the new ship would also comprise several Indian items, including a sonar, an information combat-management system, and an electronic warfare system.
Agree with @Nilgiri here. It is mostly about capacity building, also about time. Some of those ships were sitting in Russian yards without the Ukrainian engines after Russia's Crimean adventures. Russian's were offering them at a lower price to us & Ukraine has no problem selling engines if the ships go to India. This is a cheap way of getting some good ships fast and also upgrading GSL's shipbuilding capacity. We already use the Talwar class, so logistically its not a problem.
GSL doesn't have any experience in building larger ships like frigates. They have so far made patrol boats of 1000-2000 tons. We need more of shipyard cabpable of making these ships. Just MDL, GRSE or CSL wont be enough. Shivalik is the successor of Talwar yes. Successor not necessarily in terms of tech rather domestic design and building capability. Besides the Shivalik's production line closed long ago. Restarting that is an expensive proposition especially when Shivalik's successor is ready.
Ironic you asked the question to @Nilgiri, Shivalik's successor is called the Nilgiri class frigate.
A total of 7 ships will be built at MDL and GRSE using modular construction. This is very important and it speeds up ship production. 6 of them are already under construction. The 1st one was launched in 2019. All will be delivered by 2025.
I love the names of the ships in the P-17A class: Nilgiri, Himgiri, Udaygiri, Dunagiri, Taragiri, Vindhyagiri, Mahendragiri
All named after mountains, Giri means mountain is Sanskrit.
I’ve been to Indonesia and it feels like you’re in India without being in India.Yeah we got several places in Indonesia which use Giri word attached into it
what's with Indian navy choice of arm launchers instead of VLS??INS Tabar (F44), a Talwar-class frigate of Indian Navy departs the Port of Naples after conclusion of exercises along with Antonio Marceglia (F597), a FREMM/Carlo Bergamini-class frigate of the Italian Navy. Also, note that the Russian TK-25E-5 electronic support measures system on the Tabar has been replaced with the Indian Varuna ESM package.
View attachment 25190
Other recent updates include the addition of an Atlas Elektronik ACTAS towed array sonar on the Tabar:
View attachment 25191
what's with Indian navy choice of arm launchers instead of VLS??
no plan to overhaul with VLS ??Far as I know, at the time these ships were contracted (Batch-1 Talwar 1997, P-17 Shivalik 1999, Batch-2 Talwar 2006) it was the only system available. It was only in the 2010s that the VLS version of 9M317 SAM emerged on the Admiral Grigorovich class (improved Talwar/Krivak). Batch-3 & 4 which were contracted in 2018 will be using the VLS version....while the indigenous ship designs have moved toward the Barak-8 system jointly developed with Israel.
While its not official, I'm pretty confident in stating that at some point in future, both the Batch-1/2 Talwars and Shivaliks will be upgraded with 9M317ME VLS version.
no plan to overhaul with VLS ??
edit: in the near term
Great progressThe first P-17A (INS Nilgiri) hull was laid down at MDL Mumbai in Dec 2017 & launched in Sep 2019, and now the radar mast has been installed, so seems like the superstructure construction is mostly complete:
View attachment 33707
Thanks to Dharani for finding! Beside the P17A FFG you can also see the mast of one of the P15B DDGs also being built at the yard.
Commissioning is currently scheduled for August next year. The nearly 7,000-ton frigate will look like this once completed:
View attachment 33708
Main VLS armament will include 8 x BrahMos anti-ship missiles (~Mach 2.8, range could be up to 450-500km now that extended range versions were tested after India became MTCR member) and 32 x Barak-8/8ER SAMs (~90km to ~150km), total 40 cells*. But as one can see on the CGI above, just like most other modern Indian designs, there's lots of additional space available for future upgrades.
* the 8 Brahmos cells are of a different type & much larger, considering the huge size & weight of the missile.
7 ships of this class are being built, 4 at MDL Mumbai (west coast) and 3 at GRSE Kolkata (east coast).
Along with another p 15 b class destroyer called ins surat