India launches its first anti-submarine corvette

Kolkata/New Delhi, April 19 : India Monday launched its first anti-submarine warfare corvette that will boost Navy's fighting capability when commissioned in 2012.

According to officials, the corvette, Yard 3017, was launched by Mamatha M., wife of Minister of State of Defence M.M. Pallam Raju, at the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) in Kolkata.

"Four ships of this class are under construction at GRSE, Kolkata. The first ship is expected to be commissioned by mid-2012 and will be closely followed by the other three ships with the last expected to be commissioned by early 2015," a naval official said.

The corvette, a small fast-moving ship, was ordered in 2003 and the production is delayed by two years.

The official said the 3,100-tonnage ship would be fitted with the latest indigenously developed sonars to detect submarines.

"The torpedo tubes, and scutter (torpedo decoys) launchers contribute to its anti-submarine punch. In addition, the ship will also be equipped with vertically launched point defence missile system (PDMS) and close in weapon systems (CIWS) such as AK 30's and super rapid gun mount (SRGM)," the official added.

"The ship is also equipped with decoy system Kavach, which is designed to counter the threat of various anti-ship missiles," he said.

At present the Indian Navy does not have any anti-submarine corvettes. It had some Russian corvettes, which were decommissioned long ago.

For anti-submarine operations, navy uses bigger ships like frigates and destroyers.