Once the Pion-NKS components of the Liana reconnaissance system are online, they are going to get just that.

Brave indeed putting a timeline on anything other than the ELINT capability of that system. Answers on what is powering the active radar element and what numbers will constitute the operational system are still outstanding last I read about it. Clearly both answers have a significant bearing on what level of coverage Pion-NKS will offer and how much value it will be in the role confidently predicted above.

I read on think defence (courtesy of Fedaykin I think ) that the RAF C130J is a tired beast that would need significant reworking to be a viable option in the future. If we are going down the Reaper ER-esque route then why not go for the C295 type option and keep pushing the UAV technology?

After all if we do that we won’t need to rely on the Reaper/Protector to fly off the carriers decks will we?

We dont have a logistics chain for C295. We do for C-130. That simple.

We dont have a logistics chain…..or even the slightest necessity….for Scorpion. We do for Reaper. That simple.

We dont need to induct new types. We have Sentinel. We have C-130. We have Reaper. If the need for broad area surface surveillence is there, and I believe it is, we need to adapt the systems we have to fit.

Boomer has a nice ring to it ! Used every now and again in the media here ! Does the US have a copyright on the word ?

Not a copyright as such but it is very much an overt Americanism!. Personally I’m always dubious of its use by a non-American as no service people I’ve ever encountered, not hailing from the land of the stars and stripes, use the term. Those that do often seem to be elements of the ‘internet enthusiast’ community who, commonly, have embraced Clancy fiction a little too hard and believe that ‘boomer’ is a generally slung about term.

Given the other factual inaccuracies in that article the use of the word seemed to reinforce a view of, perhaps, ‘youthful exuberence’ on the part of the author….certainly it didnt do anything to add any credibility to an article seemingly more intent on cheerleading a political relationship than worrying about the smaller details of the topic at hand!. Like the correct meaning of the acronym SSN!. I’m trying to stop short of reinforcing Jinans observation but do admire his forthright honesty calling the article for what it is!

… have you had a look at the handful of pics of the INS Kochi I posted here some time back ? Yes, they aren’t terribly revealing but do you have any thoughts ? Cheers.

Photo’s are excellent Vishnu, meant sincerely, impressed that things like the engineering control station and galley have been imaged. A lot of the times you only see missiles, guns and fire-control screens in the general media as the layman lacks the comprehension to know that these are amongst the least used systems embarked!.

Observations of what has been imaged are mixed to be honest. The operational stuff we’ve covered before, but, in engineering terms I love what I saw in the hangar shot….all the pipework exposed and stood off bulkheads where you can get access easily….cable runs all nice and exposed as well. Some say they should be panelled in to prevent knocks and scrapes….as an engineer though I’ll risk that and have it the way its seen there as it makes replacement and repair so much easier and quicker. Its the EO’s job to scream at anyone clumsy enough to knock and scrape cable runs anyway!. Not sure about the wheeled scaff-tower…..assuming thats a yard fixture though and, underway, there is some kind of lifting platform stowed away somewhere?. I think that dosa maker could catch on in a huge way by the way and I’d be very interested in contacting the manufacturer and see if we cant broker a deal to introduce them to the Royal Navy….Jack and Jenny would go nuts for that!.

Not so impressive, to my mind, there seemed to be a lot of laminated/veneer MDF board around the place?. In an explosion this stuff turns into shrapnel in a shockingly bad way but there seemed to be a lot of it as a surfacing material in several imaged spaces…including the bridge?. Some surfacing looks like solid wood….which, with romanticism, you love to see but again can turn into a sleet of sharp splinters in an explosion…but some definitely looks like MDF. Oh and the messdecks look a little tight….but I did like the look of the full-height lockers….somewhere proper to stow your kit so it doesnt get crumpled when you slam it in at the rush is a real quality-of-life thing at sea!.

All told she looks a fine ship from what I can see Vishnu….I’ve still no clear idea of what she was actually designed to do…..other than a little bit of everything….but she’s clearly been designed with maintainability and deployability in mind which is the way to do it. After all…..the ‘coolest’ weapons/sensors in the world wont add up to half a damn if the machinery is broken and you cant steam….or generate power….or any one of a dozen things goes wrong that sends the ship home combat ineffective!.

Jinan,

Loving the RBU detailing. If thats in response to me saying I didnt know the arrangement of the ‘Russian system’ mentioned earlier though I was actually referring to Paket….in the hopes that TR1 might have some documentation. 😀

er, having French Guyana, why would they operate feom Senegal?

had it been the French, you’d have had two aircraft carriers armed with Crusaders for air to air and Super Etendards for bombing, among other nice things, and the Foreign Legion on the ground… Chances are Argentina wouldn’t even try that stunt

What he said. Endex.

Arihant: How Russia helped deliver India’s baby boomer

“sub surface nuclear (SSN)” ……..think Mr Simha could stand a little work on his research technique.

Since when is an IN missile submarine known as a ‘boomer’?. As far as I know its only the US that uses the term?.

On the subject, I am baffled why navies did not go the anti-torpedo torpedo route sooner. AFAIK, the Paket-NK (on the 20380 frigates initially) is the first hard kill torpedo system that uses guided torpedoes of its own to intercept incomers…and it entered service only when the Steregyshiy was commissioned. Given the priority on submarine warfare during the COld War….why did it take so long?

Hmmm wonder where the reply I made to this went…..OK 2nd pass.

Essentially 3 reasons…..

To expand on these points a little….the perceived ‘western’ sonar edge over the anticipated opposition meant that we would, fairly reliably, hold a hostile subsurface contact before it could get into effective torpedo firing range. It being remembered that a torpedoes ‘advertised’ range is very different from that from which it could be fired at a reasonably fast target. If you know you have a good chance of seeing the other guy first you develop tactics to ensure he doesnt get first shot. If the other guy isnt shooting first why are you expending effort defeating torpedoes etc, etc. This is how the RN got itself into an ASW mess in 1982…the one thing that wasnt anticipated was a target that really could get in close.

In the unlikely event that a torpedo was fired with a solid solution soft-kill was anticipated to be the shield necessary. Torpedo decoys are not talked about in public forums, but, much faith was placed in them….this may have been largely inspired by the performance of WWII ‘Foxers’ of various stripe and, in equal measure, a byproduct of a general service disdain for the vagueries of the guided torpedo but it does seem to have become accepted wisdom somehow. It needs to be remembered that, much as with guided missiles, performance of homing torpedoes has been a bit patchy over the course of their history and the practice of defeating them sometimes the inspiration for derision and name-calling!.

Lastly the concept of hitting a torpedo with a torpedo does demand that you embark a series of weapons, with a sizeable ship impact, that have no function whatsoever if your ASW team does their job properly and keeps the hostile sub at arms length. The Eurotorp lads have obviously adapted their LWT design to dual-role ASW and anti-torp to mitigate this issue a bit, but, if you only have a pair of Mk32 triples aboard you dont have many shots to start with!. I’ve not seen the shipboard installation of the Russian system yet so I cant comment on how space-efficient it may be, but, as comparison I would make an assumption that a UDAV-type system has far more utility and a towed-decoy system obviously no magazine-capacity limitation.

The fact that the ASW game is rapidly evolving started sinking home in the early 80’s and the legacy position of the ‘western sonar edge’ now a vanishing one owing to the littoral shift and better tech proliferation. Perhaps, then, the evolution towards more systems like Packet is underway?. My money would still be on UDAV or something similar though.

Hi Austin .. let me get some specific details on this … It is an enormously unstealthy system that occupies huge space – I am told that, among other things, they consider it a hard kill system against incoming torpedoes – a system they believe is invaluable. I shall just post some rare video of the RBUs being fired off the Kochi during her sea trials.

Its a very versatile system in fact. Quite apart from the potential for hardkill disruption of an incoming torpedo its an effective ASW system in shallow and/or high-background level waters where detection and counter-detection can be at very short ranges and there can be far shorter readiness times required than needed for a guided LWT shot. Its also a great system for wideband ensonification….basically putting a lot of noise in the water in a very directional and controlled manner for creating an acoustic barrage between your ship/group and a possible submarine contact.

Significant ship impact to mount it of course, but, its a fairly simple system thats not a huge burden in maintenance terms. If memory serves the Turks have just developed a similar, lighter, system for some of their small combatant units. It surprises me a little that more havent followed suit.

To be fair, IN will be getting another 4 P15Bs, which should hopefully all be in service by the mid 2024s, to make seven such DDGs, which should add quite a bit of flexibility to the IN’s carrier escorting mission.

One thing I don’t get with the P15A and P15B, is why their SAM load is so small, at only 32 Barak 8s. That is about the loadout of a typical air defence frigate, rather than a destroyer.
Everything else — the 16 AShMs, the MF-STARs mounted atop a mast for high radar horizon, the planned ASW suite, and the twin helicopters are all good and expected for a modern, heavy hitting surface combatant of any mid to large size navy… but 32 SAMs seem too few for a true ship of this weight class.
I was wondering if the P15Bs would increase the number of SAMs from the P15As, but the armament between the two seem almost identical, apart from P15B having a larger calibre main gun.

Take your point Blitzo but its still factoring down as, at best, 3 deployable at any given time perhaps with another working-up/at x days readiness….and that best part of a decade away. Until then……???

The debate over SAM density has gone on a very long time and I imagine wont be resolved any time soon. There is a school of thought that says a multi-dozen saturation antiship missile attack is practically so hard to coordinate, within a realtime targeting window, that a ship doesnt need an extremely large SAM arsenal. In reality there will never be enough confirmable targets presenting themselves to require hundreds of missiles to shoot back at them.

Then there is the further argument that a competent attacker, one possessed of a large enough AShM inventory to mount streaming/saturation attacks, would not expose its launch platforms to an opposing naval area SAM MEZ and, therefore, cheaper SHORADS ‘missile-soak’ defence is the optimum. This is especially the case when there is organic Fleet Air Defence from a carrier, on call to the group, to ‘shoot the archer not the arrows’.

If those arguments hold merit then the modest SAM battery is fine and the design decision to proritise multirole over mission specificity is more valid. People point to the fact that no Sea Dart shooter, in the one ‘modern’ high intensity sea-air battle we’ve seen, fully depleted its initial wartime onload of missiles to support this assertion. Myself I’m not convinced either and tend to agree with you that a few more would be prudent…even if it were at the expense of other systems…where those systems are duplicated on other ship classes.