Indian navy to welcome new ASW stealth corvette soon

According to the local press at India, Garden Reach Shibuilders and Engineers (GRSE) is set to deliver anti-submarine warfare stealth corvette INS Kavaratti to the Navy soon.

‘Kavaratti’ is the last of the four Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) stealth corvettes built by the GRSE for the Indian Navy under Project P28, he said. “All trials of the ship have been successfully completed, and we plan to deliver it by the end of this month,” Chairman-cum-Managing Director Rear Admiral V.K. Saxena stated. ‘Kavaratti’ will be the 104th ship to be constructed and delivered by the GRSE, he said.

With a displacement of 3,300 tonnes, the ship has a carbon composite superstructure, which has been flawlessly integrated with the steel hull through technology developed by the GRSE.

“The carbon composite superstructure provides advangate of a lower weight of the warship, thus increasing its stability, manoeuvrability and faster acceleration,” Saxena said.

The new technology will mean that the warship, which has 90% indigenous components, will also require lower maintenance, he said.

The ship is equipped to fight in nuclear, chemical and biological warfare conditions and its weapons and sensors suite is predominantly indigenous, according to Defence sources.

The first of the four ASW stealth corvettes under Project P28 – ‘Kamorta’, was delivered to the Navy in July 2014, ‘Kadmatt’ was delivered in November, 2015 and ’Kiltan’ was delivered in October 2017, a GRSE official said.

All these four corvettes under the project are named after islands in the Lakshadweep archipelago in the Arabian Sea, he said.