NEW DELHI: In a bid to shore up the country’s naval strength, the Indian Navy is exploring possible avenues of acquiring several stealth warships from European shipyards. And if everything goes well, it would be one of the biggest military contracts in recent times.

The Request for Information (RFI), the first formal step in the process of military acquisition, has been issued to about a dozen European and Russian shipyards. The proposed acquisition would be worth more than Rs 30,000 crore.

Confirming the issue, Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta, said it was prompted by the delay in acquisition of modern equipment that set in during the past two decades due to constraints on defence budgets and other factors, and the inability of Indian shipyards to deliver quickly.

However, “It is not necessary that we will take this route,” Mehta said. The other available option is for Indian shipyards to step up warship production to meet the projected force levels.

The RFI is for a set of seven stealth frigates, each costing about Rs 4,000 crores. According to a proposal, the first ship would be built in the foreign shipyard, while the rest six would be built at Mazagon Docks Limited in Mumbai or at Garden Reach Shipyard in Kolkata.

The project, called P-17A, is envisaged as the next generation ships of the ongoing Project 17 Shivalik class multi-role stealth frigates.

The first Shivalik class ship is expected in early 2007. Though the cabinet approved it in 1997, the Shivalik class construction was delayed by a few years owing to various factors. Project 17 envisages a total of 12 ships, and the seven ships for which the RFI has now been issued would form a part of the project.

The Indian Navy recently has been looking at both domestic construction and foreign acquisition of warships to make up for the shortcomings. India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier is under construction in the Kochi Shipyard, while another carrier is being readied in Russia.

After acquiring three Talwar class guided missile frigates from Russia, the Navy is awaiting three more ships of the same class, but with an advanced technology from Russia. These three ships are expected to join the Navy sometime in 2011. By middle of next year, the massive US landing platform dock Trenton would also join the naval services. A total of 30 warships in slated to join the Navy in a decade.

German shipbuilding company rejected on Thursday Greek criticism of an advanced fuel-cell-powered submarine, the Papanikolis, that has been bought by the Greek Navy.

An Athens official said earlier in the day Greece was refusing to take delivery of the 65-metre-long submarine, which has a displacement of 1,700 tons, because it did not meet “international standards.”

In Hamburg, the ThyssenKrupp company said the Papanikolis had been the prototype of the new Type 214 series and various problems had emerged during a year and a half of testing it at sea. These had been fixed.

“Technically, it meets the agreed terms, and it is a very good submarine,” said a company spokeswoman.

The Papanikolis is the first of four submarines of the type being sold to the Greek Navy. The other three are to be built at Hellenic Shipyards near Athens. The Type 214 was developed for export and has some similarities to the Type 212A supplied to the German Navy.

The hybrid power includes a fuel cell so that the submarines can remain under water for many days at a stretch.

Greece`s deputy government spokesman, Evangelos Antonaros, said earlier Thursday that Athens would not accept delivery of the vessel unless it fulfilled all the requirements and international standards.

Kuznetsov Back in Service
October 3, 2006: After nearly a year of maintenance and refurbishment, the Russian navy putting its only aircraft carrier, the Kuznetsov, back into service. Russian admirals want to build more carriers, and if the refurbished Kuznetsov performs well, that may happen. But that won’t be for another ten years, at the earliest. That won’t be easy, given the track record so far. The Kuznetsov didn’t enter service until 1995, and encountered a lot of problems with defective, or improperly installed, equipment. The refurb was supposed to put all that right. Time will tell.

Originally the Kuznetsov class of four carriers were conceived of as 90,000 ton, nuclear powered ships, similar to American carriers (complete with steam catapults). Instead, because of the cost, and the complexity of modern (American style) carriers, the Russians were forced to scale back their goals, and ended up with two 65,000 ton (full load ) ships that lacked steam catapults, and used a ski jump type flight deck instead. Nuclear power was dropped, but the Kuznetsov class was still a formidable design. The thousand foot long carrier normally carries a dozen navalized Su-27s (called Su-33s), 14 Ka-27PL anti-submarine helicopters, two electronic warfare helicopters and two search and rescue helicopters. Alternatively, the ship can carry up to 36 Su-33s and sixteen helicopters. The ship carries 2,500 tons of aviation fuel, allowing it to generate 500-1,000 aircraft and helicopter sorties. Because there is no catapult, aircraft cannot take off with large weapons loads. Kuznetsov is largely an air-defense vessel (its official description is as a “large aircraft carrying cruiser,” even though it looks like an aircraft carrier.) Crew size is 2,500 (or 3,000 with a full aircraft load.)

Only two ships of this class exist; the original Kuznetsov, which is in Russian service, and the Varyag, which was sold to China, by Ukraine, which inherited the unfinished ship then building in a Ukrainian shipyard when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The Varyag is still uncompleted, but the Kuznetsov entered service in 1995, after a decade of construction. In effect, the Kuznetsov is an experiment to see if Russia can operate a large carrier. For the past decade, while there was no money to send the carrier to sea much, a mock up of the flight deck was built on land, so the Kuznetsov’s air group could practice carrier landings.