Two launches and one shot

Just no small stuff: India's navy was able to report two launches and a missile shot within a few days in mid-May.

In Mumbai, both the "Surat", a Project 15B destroyer of the Visakhapatnam class, and the "Udaygiri", a Project 17A frigate of the Nilgiri class, were christened and launched at Mazagon Docks Ltd. "Surat" is the fourth and, for the time being, probably the last ship in the batch of the improved Kolkata class (7,300 tonnes). It is named after a port city 250 kilometres north of Mumbai, where extremely durable ships are said to have been built 300 years ago - they were a good 100 years old and were still seaworthy! This will be remembered when the "Gorch Fock" and her ancestors reach this age between 2040 and 2060.

Another ship

Indian frigate Shivalik (Project 17). Photo: Michael Nitz

"Udaygiri" is named after a mountain range in the east of the country. It is the third in a series of seven ships from the second batch of Shivalik-class frigates - at 6,300 tonnes, it is also more likely to be found in the heavier segment of frigates. With the new builds of these ship types, India has further expanded the proportion of weapons and on-board systems developed in the country. Worth mentioning here are the BrahMos anti-ship missiles and the long-range Barak 8 air defence system.

India's proximity to Russia

Indian frigate Tushil of the Talwar class (3rd batch), Yantar shipyard. Photo: USC

India - which has been the favoured focus of the USA's East Asian interests since the Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework published by the US President in February. is thus consistently pursuing the path of increasing independence from Russian systems on which it had relied for decades. In addition to India's Russia-friendly but internationally unclear positioning in the UN votes on the Ukraine war, the four frigates of the third batch of the Talwar class that are still being delivered are evidence of this. This is the export version (project 1135.6) of the Grigorovich class, as used in the Black Sea Fleet - of which two units are currently being delivered by the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad/Königsberg and two units are being built in India itself.

Airborne-launch of the Helo. Photo: Indian Navy

And a shot

The following day, the first test firing of an air-to-ship missile with a nationally developed sea-target missile was carried out. After firing from a Seaking 42B naval helicopter, all parameters of the Seaskimmer were met on the test range along the north-east coast of India and a high hit accuracy was confirmed.