INS_Arihant to Test fire 'K-15' and Nirbhay Missile.

India’s first indegenously developed nuclear submarine Arihant, which has “successfully” completed the sea trials held so far, will undergo its maiden missile firing test this month, top defence sources said.The aim is to handover the submarine to the Indian Navy during the International Fleet Review scheduled in February next year in Vishakapatnam.

“The tests held so far has been successful. We will, this month, fire Nirbhay missile from the submarine which will be followed by firing of another type of missile.
While Nirbhay is a 1000-km-long range subsonic cruise missile, the next missile would be India’s first Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), which has a range of about 700-1900 kms. These would be followed by another few rounds of tests.

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India's Next Guided Missile Destroyer to be commissioned on Sept 30

NEW DELHI: India's latest stealth destroyer, INS Kochi, will be commissioned into Navy later this month by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
Built by Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL), the new ship is part of the Kolkata-class (Project 15A) guided missile destroyers. The first ship of the class, INS Kolkata, was commissioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.

Parrikar is scheduled to commission the ship on September 30. Another ship, INS Chennai, is currently under production. These are the largest indigenously-built destroyer warships. The government had approved the construction of three Kolkata-class destroyers in May 2000.
Conceptualised by Indian Navy, Kolkata-class is a follow-on model of the Delhi-class and is fitted with modern weapons and sensor systems. The propulsion system of Delhi-class was also retained with minor upgrades. Most of the systems integrated in the ships are designed and built in India.
The destroyers are equipped with action information system and atmospheric control system. The modern stealth destroyers will demonstrate superior anti-surface warfare capabilities and anti-submarine capabilities.
The Navy had in February this year successfully test-fired the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from INS Kolkata during Tropex exercise conducted in the Arabian Sea.
The 290-km range conventional missile hit its target with pinpoint accuracy during this first-ever vertical launch.
INS Kolkata is also scheduled to fire a long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) later this year. Called Barak 8, the missile is being jointly developed by India and Israel.

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Pakistan's lies exposed by S. Zaidi about 1965 War

Historian and political economist Akbar S. Zaidi has dismissed “the victory myth” regarding the 1965 Pakistan-India war, saying that can be no a bigger lie, as Pakistan lost terribly. According to the Dawn, Zaidi’s comments came during his thought-provoking lecture titled ‘Questioning Pakistan’s history’, just two days away from observing Defence Day and marking the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war in the country.

He said that the history that is taught in Pakistan is not focused on the people of the country, but rather on the making of Pakistan.
Zaidi began the lecture by thought provoking questions such as “what is Pakistan’s history and is there a need to question Pakistan’s history. And when was Pakistan formed? Aug 14, 1947 or Aug 15, 1947”.
Zaidi read out an excerpt from a Pakistan Studies textbook in which it was claimed Pakistan came into being in 712 A D when the Arabs came to Sindh and Multan. He exclaimed “This is utter rubbish!”
He said the first interaction with Muslims and Arabs occurred in Kerala in South India for trading purposes.
Zaidi also said that the 1940 Pakistan Resolution called for the recognition of Muslims within Hindustan and not for a separate entity.
He also criticised how history in Pakistan is taught to students.
It is focused on rulers and generals and not on social history, he said.
The event was organised by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Karachi University.

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INS Dega to have Mig 29 squadron

Naval Air Station INS Dega that presently has the only Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) squadron in the country will also have a MiG-29 K squadron. “We intend to have it in place in the next two years and the creation of infrastructure has begun,” says Commanding Officer of INS Dega Capt. D Bhattacharya. Once it happens besides AJTs, pilots would also be trained on MiGs.

The Hawk Mk-132 craft were inducted forming the AJT squadron in November, 2013. It is the Hawks flying that accounts for the morning roar over the skies in the city.
The MiG squadron is expected to be launched once aircraft carrier Vikrant to be based at the Eastern Naval Command is commissioned in 2018. There are also plans to develop a sister airfield at Bobbili where a World War II airfield with two abandoned runways exists.
It will be developed as a diversifying airfield to meet contingencies like bad weather or runway-related problems in Vizag, says Capt Bhattacharya. The additional back-up is required with the number of assets increasing while Dega will remain the main base. Besides, INS Dega is a joint user airfield with civilian aircraft operating and the Navy offering operational support.
INS Dega presently has about 40 craft training pilots.
The Dega air station was abuzz with activity on Thursday with Kamov, Dornier, Chetak, UH 3H, Hawk Mk 132 and the pilot-less target Lakshya on display.

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US asks Pakistan to show ‘restraint’ in expanding Nuclear Power

The US has asked Pakistan and all other nuclear-armed countries to exercise “restraint” in expanding their nuclear capabilities after two American think-tanks said Pakistan could have the third largest stockpile of atomic weapons in about a decade.

                                                       

“We continue to urge all nuclear-capable states, including Pakistan, to exercise restraint regarding furthering their nuclear capabilities,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said yesterday.

He was responding to a question on a latest report by two top American think-tank, according to which in a decade or so, Pakistan would have more than 350 nuclear weapons that would be third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons after the United State and Russia.

The 48-page report titled “A Normal Nuclear Pakistan” by two renowned scholars Tom Dalton and Michael Krepon of Stimson Center and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – says that the growth path of the country’s nuclear arsenal, enabled by existing infrastructure, goes well beyond the assurances of credible minimal deterrence provided by its officials and analysts after testing nuclear devices.

The report said that Pakistan will retain its capabilities for the foreseeable future as a necessary deterrent against perceived existential threats from India.

“At this juncture, Pakistan’s military leadership in Rawalpindi can choose to accept success in achieving a strategic deterrent against India — a nuclear force posture sufficient to prevent limited nuclear exchanges and a major conventional war,” it said.

“Alternatively, it can choose to continue to compete with India in the pursuit of full spectrum deterrence, which would entail open-ended nuclear requirements against targets both near and far from Pakistan. These choices would lead Pakistan to two starkly different nuclear futures and places in the global nuclear order,” the report added.

The report also said that Pakistan consider five nuclear weapon-related initiatives including shifting declaratory policy from “full spectrum” to “strategic” deterrence, and committing to a recessed deterrence posture and limit production of short-range delivery vehicles and tactical nuclear weapons.

It also proposed that Islamabad will lift Pakistan’s veto on Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty negotiations and reduce or stop fissile material production, separate civilian and military nuclear facilities and sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty without waiting for India.

“Having succeeded in achieving the requirements of strategic deterrence, Pakistan is in a position to consider nuclear-weapon-related initiatives that would not impair Pakistan’s ability to deter existential threats,” the report said.

“Taking even some of the five initiatives we propose would clarify Pakistan’s commitment to adopt similar practices as other normal nuclear states. They would facilitateinvestments, both military and nonmilitary, that would address Pakistan’s national, social, and economic security interests in more practical ways,” it said.

“They would reduce risks of escalation that could lead to nuclear war. And they could facilitate Pakistan’s entrance into the nuclear mainstream, while strengthening nonproliferation norms, bolstering global disarmament hopes, and setting the bar higher for new entrants into the NSG,” the report said.

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How INS Arihant could be a game changer in the region?

New Delhi: The indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant is set to be launched for sea trials in a "month or two" and it will test-fire the submarine-launched nuclear capable ballistic missile BO-5, DRDO said today.

The nuclear reactor on board the INS Arihant was activated last year in August taking it closer towards sea trials after which the vessel would be inducted into operational service in the Navy.

"Arihant is going through the power-up cycle (in its nuclear reactor). It is the first time that we are doing the power-up cycle on a nuclear submarine. So, we are very cautious and going step by step. It will take a month or two more before it goes to the sea (for trials)," DRDO chief Avinash Chander told PTI.
He was asked about the present status of the indigenous nuclear submarine programme under which at least three Arihant-Class nuclear underwater vessels would be built for the Navy.

"During the trial phase, the Arihant will testfire the fully-developed BO-5 missile as part of the sea trials," he said.
Once inducted, the submarine will help the country complete its nuclear triad giving it the capability to respond to nuclear strikes from sea, land and air-based systems.
Nuclear triad is the ability to fire nuclear-tipped missiles from land, air and sea-based weapon platforms.
INS Arihant has been undergoing trials at Navy's key submarine base in Vishakhapatnam and has cleared most of its harbour acceptance trials.
The medium-range nuclear missile BO-5 has a range of over 700km-range.
The nuclear submarine will help India achieve the capability of going into high seas without the need to surface the vessel for a long duration.

Conventional diesel-electric submarines have to come up on surface at regular intervals for charging the cells of the vessel.

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India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, will be undocked on May 28

India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, will be undocked on completion of structural work at the Cochin Shipyard on May 28.

 

 

India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, will be undocked on completion of structural work at the Cochin Shipyard on May 28.

“All major equipment has gone into the vessel, which has now acquired the shape of an aircraft carrier, with a finished hull. Barring a bit of ongoing work on the super structure, structural work is all over and the internal compartments have all been welded in,” said a yard official.

Outfitting is steadily progressing at the moment, but a major part of it — including piping, electrical cabling, control system wiring — will be carried out after the vessel is launched, marking the culmination of the third stage of work in the second phase of carrier construction for which a contract was signed between Cochin Shipyard and the Navy in December last year.

The extended first phase of work on the carrier was completed in August 2013 when the carrier had its official launch, but there was a delay in the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) sanctioning money for the second phase, which as per a schedule prepared in 2010 should be over in 2016.

The CCS sanction for the first phase was Rs. 3,261 crore, while the allocation for the critical second phase is Rs. 2,840 crore. The equipment already fitted in will be set to work towards the end of the ongoing phase after which basin trials will commence in 2017 to be on time for delivery in end-2018. The aircraft carrier will displace over 40,000 tonnes at the time of its induction into the Navy.

Contract with Rosoboronexport
While some 14 contracts have been signed with the Russian Rosoboronexport for the carrier’s aviation complex, delivery of major aviation equipment has not begun yet.

The aviation complex is designed by the Nevskoye Design Bureau, as Vikrant will have a complement of Russian-origin MiG 29 K fighter planes operating from its flight deck alongside the indigenously developed Naval LCA (when it receives operational clearance).

Meanwhile, the yard is awaiting clearances from the Directorate of Naval Design (DND) to start installation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

“Ironically, obsolescence of equipment already delivered and stacked for sometime could pose a problem towards the end of the second phase when they are set to work,” said an official.

Equipment such as the massive gas turbines, for instance, would have outlived its guarantee period by the time the pre-delivery trials begin, he pointed out.

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Features of Indian Latest Warship : A stealth Destroyer

Indian Navy’s new destroyer, Visakhapatnam, with enhanced capability to operate in nuclear, biological and chemical atmosphere, will be launched in Mumbai on Sunday. Indian Navy’s new destroyer, Visakhapatnam, with enhanced capability to operate in nuclear, biological and chemical atmosphere, will be launched in Mumbai on Sunday. The ship is the first of the four follow follow-up order of the Kolkata class warships and will give a major flip to India’s maritime capabilities when it is inducted in 2018. Ahead of its launch, here are a few facts about the stealth destroyer. 1) The ship, named Visakhapatnam (Project 15 B), a stealth destroyer, is 65 per cent indigenous and has a number of weapon systems which have been made at home. 2) At 7,300 tonnes, Visakhapatnam will be the largest destroyer commissioned by the Indian Navy and will be equipped with the Israeli Multi Function Surveillance Threat Alert Radar. 3) The ship will be carrying 8 BrahMos missiles. 4) Navy officials said the Visakhapatnam is likely to be inducted in the Indian Navy by 2018. 5) The Visakhapatnam will be armed with a 127 mm main gun while the INS Kolkata has a 76mm Super Rapid Gun Mount. 6) She is equipped with a Ship Data Network, an Automatic Power Management System and a Combat Management System. Essentially, all information critical for the operation of the warship during all operations is available to key officers through the SDN which the Navy describes as a data information highway. 7) These ships are amongst the most technologically advanced Guided Missile Destroyers of the world, with state of the art weapon/sensor package, advanced stealth features and a high degree of automation. 8) With a displacement of 7,300 tonnes, each ship will be spanning 163 metres in length and 17.4 meters at the beam. It will be propelled by four gas turbines in Combined Gas and Gas configuration. 9) The ships are capable of achieving speeds in excess of 30 knots and have maximum endurance of 4000 nm at economical speed of 14 knots. 10) The destroyers incorporate new design concepts for improved survivability, sea keeping, stealth and ship manoeuvrability. These ships will be equipped to carry and operate two multiple role helicopters. 11) These ships have been designed for a complement of 50 officers and 250 sailors. 12) The ship’s fire power consists of sophisticated weapons-sensor suite including vertically launch capable Surface to Air and Surface-to-Surface Missiles for long distance engagement of shore and sea based targets.

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