One of the few accounts of INS Chakra, Charlie class submarine, in Indian service.

It may be recalled that Captain Alexander Ivanovich Terenov, the Russian safety captain of the Project 670 K-43 nuclear submarine INS Chakra from 1986 to 1991, who initially trained the Indian crews at Vladivostok, and then served alongside the three successive Indian captains for four years, has praised the Indian submariners for their professionalism in his book, “Under Three Flags, The Saga of the Submarine Cruiser K43/Chakra.”

The nuclear propelled Charlie was taken on a three year lease from 1988 from the Soviet Union. The deal was facilitated by Admiral of the Fleet Sergie Gorshkov, who was impressed by the Indian Navy’s Styx missile attacks off Karachi in the 1971 war and employment of Soviet supplied warships and submarines.
He reposed confidence that the Indian Navy could operate nuclear submarines effectively. The then Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, had initiated discussions with Soviet leaders for leasing a nuclear submarine.
The Indian crew under Captain Ravi Ganesh took over the K-43 and named her INS Chakra. Around then, US President Ronald Reagan asked Moscow not to transfer the boat. The crew had completed training by December 1987, but was kept waiting in Vladivostok and not allowed to go on board for some time.
The book indicates that it was Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who then managed to swing the transfer by approaching President Mikhail Gorbachev. The submarine was hurriedly commissioned and christened INS Chakra by T.N. Kaul, India’s Ambassador to Russia, who hosted a lunch and sailed out of Vladivostok on January 5, 1988 when the temperature was minus 25 degrees C.
The Chakra was ordered by NHQ to dive and proceed till the Malacca Straits underwater to avoid detection. Jane’s Defence weekly photographed her off Singapore from where a naval warship escorted her to home waters. On February 3, 1988, Rajiv Gandhi personally embarked the INS Chakra off Vishakapatnam to welcome her into the Indian fleet.
The submarine dived, and the PM and his entourage had lunch with the Officers and the Coxswain, an important key senior sailor whilst under nuclear power underwater. The Indian crew handled the reactor well after the Russians put the officers and sailors through the paces of nuclear operation. INS Chakra was operated for 72,000 nautical miles (133,000km), and her reactor was active for 430 days.
Five missile and 42 torpedo firings were executed under the Indian command with Russian supervision on board for safety, which speaks volumes of operational capabilities over four years.
An accident and fire on board the Chakra in 1989 saw her lose electric power and descend from 40 feet to 200 feet. The crew expeditiously ordered ‘emergency blowing of the tanks’ to surface the boat. The fire was contained and put off by joint heroic action of the Indian crew and the few Russians on board including Terenov. There was no radioactive leakage and the submarine returned to Vishakapatnam on her own, possibly under diesel power, or with assistance of tugs as the reactor must have been scrammed (emergency shut). A Russian support team and the naval dockyard took three months to put her back to the sea.
Submarine accidents nonetheless have happened worldwide including in the US, UK and, the Soviet Navies; each equipped with major submarine arms. There are lessons to draw from them.
It would be imperative for the Indian Navy to examine the cause/s of all submarine accidents– technical or human failures– and do the needful as preventive measures.

http://indiastrategic.in/topstories3022_The_Indian_Navys_Submarine_Arm_is_Dependable.htm

Thank you for the info. So if 20 years ago it was a valid option for one missile, and it took that long before another missile of similar class entered service, it couldn’t have been because of technical hurdles but because of design choice. If IIR homing was best homing for most missons, we would have seen it proliferate on many more missiles. There are probably pros and cons to active and passive homing which is why even some of tomorrow’s high tech antiship missiles are planned with active radar seekers.

The processing power and algorithms required for IIR homing at such high velocities of relative motion would be a significant uphill task in sea skimming mode. For a maneuvering missile where the target might or might not always be in field of view it would be even more difficult to constantly co relate the seeker data with pre loaded target data.

AMCA has been stalled since late 2012. All this wishful thinking that it will ever fly.

Zero confirmation on it. There is only one report about the project being put on hold from the Indian Express group and no other media outlet has confirmed on it, from official sources the program is entering full scale engineering design phase early next year. There is considerable research going on both in house and at university level wrt to AMCA technologies (RAOT materials, conformal antenna arrays, FBL, GaN t/r modules). All the updates about AMCA have come around Aero India events held every two years, it’s a nascent project, do not expect updates every other month.

Isn’t AMCA stalled anyhow?

Nope.

With India’s economy coming to a crunch, I don’t think they’ll be pumping too much money into AMCA just yet.

Still doing better than a lot of countries.

Rare pictures of Remora EW Pod in Indian service.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?89961-Indian-Armed-Forces&p=6850372&viewfull=1#post6850372

As far as I know, these are the first and only pictures of IAF Mirage-2000s carrying the R-73’s APU-73 pylons. While it has been known for some time that the R-73 had been integrated with the IAF’s Mirage-2000s, there was no photographic evidence of it that I was aware of. Until now that is.

Definitely looks like it.

After a few hiccups during the pre-launch count down and even after the auto-launch, the 17-metre tall missile rose majestically from a mobile launcher and zoomed into the sky. After the three stages got separated as planned at different altitudes, the nose cone carrying the dummy payload withstood scorching temperatures of 3000 degrees celsius , while re-entering the atmosphere and zeroed in on to the pre-designated target point in the Indian Ocean, 5000 km away with an accuracy of a few metres after a flight duration of little over 20 minutes.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/nuclearcapable-agniv-tested-for-second-time/article5130101.ece?homepage=true

is is possible.
look t this picture of a RMAF Su-30MKM, armed an AIM-120.

Obvious size mismatch.