The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated that the four Krivak-III class frigates the
Indian Navy is buying from Russia will be armed with the BrahMos anti-ship cruise missile.
This decision will make them the world's most heavily armed 4,000-tonne warships.
The MoD's apex procurement body, the Defence Acquisition Council, approved the procurement
of BrahMos missile systems for the first two Krivak-III frigates.
These vessels also designated Project 1,135.6 will be almost fully built in Yantar Shipyard
in Russia.
India will procure 4 of these and the third and fourth frigates will be built at the Goa
Shipyard under a transfer of technology agreement.
An MoD release stated,
'The DAC granted approval for procurement of indigenous BrahMos Missile for two Indian
Navy ships to be built in Russia.
The indigenously designed BrahMos Missile is a tested and proven supersonic cruise missile
and will form the primary weapon on board these ships’
MoD stated that the Cabinet Committee on Security had approved the procurement of four frigates
in October 2018.
The price of the two ready built frigates has been agreed and arrangements for building
the next two in Goa are currently being negotiated.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes why the Russian made Indian Krivak-III class will
be world most heavily armed frigates in the world ?
Let's get started.
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Krivak class frigates have a length of 124.8 m (409 ft 5 in) and displaces 4,035 tonnes
when fully loaded.
The warships of this class have a speed of 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph) and range of range
4,850 miles or around 7,800 km.
The Krivak was designed by the Severnoye Design Bureau.
The topside and hull sections were redesigned to reduce radar cross-section, electromagnetic,
acoustic and infrared signatures.
The hull features an outward flare and the superstructure features a tumblehome angle.
The design also incorporates stealth technologies.
These frigates are the Indian Navy's workhorses are capable of engaging targets in all four
dimensions: underwater, on the surface, inland and in the air.
India already operates 6 Krivak-class frigates, called the Talwar-class after the lead vessel.
The first three frigates, INS Talwar, INS Trishul and INS Tabar, which were commissioned
between June 2003 and April 2004.
These were armed with the Russian 3M-54E Klub-N anti-ship missiles.
3M-54E Klub-N is a sea-skimmer with supersonic terminal speed and a flight altitude of 15
feet (4.6 m) at its final stage, when it has a speed of 2.9 mach.
It has a range of 220 km or 140 miles.
The next three, INS Teg, INS Tarkash and INS Trikand, which were commissioned between April
2012 and June 2013, carried the BrahMos.
With the remaining 4 also to be armed with BrahMos, India will have 7 frigates that will
armed with this deadly missile.
The BrahMos systems approved for the two ships include the VLS ( Vertical Launch System ) and
missiles on board.
The cost is estimated to be $350 million for the two ships.
Russian sources indicate that the deal for two ready-built Project 1135.6 frigates at
around $1 billion
That means each warships BrahMos arsenal will amount to about a quarter of the cost of the
warship.
This probably makes it the world's most expensive anti-ship missile arsenal.
Apart from these ,the ship are also equipped with a Shtil-1 medium-range surface-to-air
missile system.
The system uses SA-N-12 & a total of 24 missiles are accommodated in a magazine located below
deck.
The SA-N-12s have a range of 45 km or 28 miles and use inertial guidance and semi-active
radar homing.
The vessel’s main gun is a forward-fitted AK-190.
It has a firing rate of 60 rounds a minute and can engage targets within a range of 15.2
km or around 9.5 miles.
The Talwar is also fitted with two Kashtan Air Defence close-in weapon systems.
Each system includes two GSh-30k 30mm Gatling guns and two SA-N-11 surface-to-air missile
clusters.
The frigate is fitted with two twin 533mm DTA-53-11356 fixed torpedo tube launchers
firing SET-65E / 53-65KE torpedoes.
A 12 barrel RBU-6000 anti-submarine warfare rocket can fire 212mm 90R ASW rocket or RGB-60
depth charges.
The BrahMos cruise missile is produced by India-based BrahMos Aerospace, set up in 1998,
and is a joint venture between India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)
and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia.
BrahMos weighs in at 3000 kg or 6600 lbs, has a length of 8.4 m and a diameter of 0.6 m.
It has a solid-fuel rocket booster for the first stage and liquid-fueled ramjet for the
second stage.
Ramjet engine can power flight to sustained supersonic speeds.
It has no moving parts, like the compressors and turbines used in the turbofan engines
found on conventional jet planes.
They rely on the huge pressures created by fast airflow into the engine to ignite the
fuel and generate thrust.
BrahMos can be launched from aircraft, land installations and warships.
It is being tested for induction into submarines also.
A hypersonic version of the missile, BrahMos-II, is also presently under development with a
speed of Mach 7-8 to boost aerial fast strike capability.
It is expected to be ready for testing by 2020
BrahMos present a challenge to any surface ship.
The reason is its unique features.
1.
It has a supersonic speed of Mach 3 or 1 km per second providing very little time to intercept.
2.
BrahMos uses a 300 kg or 660 lbs Semi-Armor piercing warhead and also has very high Kinetic
energy since Kinetic energy is directly proportional to the square of velocity.
BrahMos actually has about 9 times the Kinetic Energy of conventional subsonic missiles like
Tomahawk.
The combined destructive force of massive warhead and kinetic energy is lethal for even
the biggest surface warships & bunkers.
Brahmas has been known to break ships in half in several tests.
3.
It can perform S maneuvers in the final stages of flight.
The missile basically doesn’t move in a straight line, making it very hard to intercept.
4.
There are lots of redundancies in the guidance system - right from the INS, GPS, GLONASS
and GAGAN making it hard to jam.
5.
The accuracy of around 1 square meter makes it apt for a precision strike on high-value targets.
Talwar class is clearly very heavily armed but its jewel is the BrahMos.
The best defense against the Brahmos missile is to destroy the launch platforms before
the missile could be fired.
Once the Brahmos gets launched successfully, it's a totally different ball game.
Even the U.S Navy will find it very difficult to defend against a barrage of BrahMos.
This basically means that India will four new warships that are relatively small in
size but having the capacity to take out much larger warships.
This is especially handy when dealing with the ever growing Chinese Navy.
It is to be noted that BrahMos also equips the India Navy's three Kolkata-class and four
Visakhapatnam-class destroyers; and will also equip the seven Project 17A frigates that
will shortly enter production.
It can be said that with the induction of the new warships , the Indian Navy will get
a significant boast when it comes to firepower.