VISAKHAPATNAM: The Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineeers (GRSE) Limited, Kolkata, a PSU of the Defence Ministry, will release the first of the four anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvettes, ordered by the Navy, in the middle of next year.
GRSE Additional General Manager Deepak Pathi told The Hindu from Kolkata that each ship would cost around Rs.700 crores and this was the first time that the ships, with the state-of-the-art technology, were built in India with mostly indigenous equipment.
Named project 28 class, each ship, known as “hunters and killers”, would be of medium size and would be fully packed with advanced and modern weapons.
Sources said the subsequent ships would be delivered in a gap of 15-18 months. The Navy plans to have 12 such ships and the order for these four ships was given under phase I.
Though the order for the corvettes was given as early as 2003 for some unforeseen reasons the plate cutting for the first vessel commenced only on August 12, 2005.
Each of the ASW corvette would have 2500 tonnes standard displacement with a length of 110 metres. It could sail at a maximum speed of 28 to 32 knots.
The ships would be powered by four Pielstick 12 PA6 STC engines, each rated at 4270 KW.
Known as ASW surface combatant for the Indian Navy for the 21st century, the vessels would be armed with stealth-mounted guns, the latest electronic warfare suite. The structure of the ship would be such that it would cut down noise drastically to prevent it from getting detected by enemy submarines. But it will be able to detect an enemy submarine from a distance and destroy it.
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