The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy.
The Indian Navy traces its origins back to the East India Company's Marine which was founded in 1612 to protect British merchant shipping in the region. In 1793, the East India Company established its rule over eastern part of the Indian subcontinent i.e. Bengal, but it was not until 1830 that the colonial navy was titled as His Majesty's Indian Navy. When India became a republic in 1950, the Royal Indian Navy as it had been named since 1934 was renamed to Indian Navy.
The primary objective of the navy is to safeguard the nation's maritime borders, and in conjunction with other Armed Forces of the union, act to deter or defeat any threats or aggression against the territory, people or maritime interests of India, both in war and peace. Through joint exercises, goodwill visits and humanitarian missions, including disaster relief, Indian Navy promotes bilateral relations between nations.
As of July 2017, Indian Navy has 67,228 personnel in service and has a fleet of 137 battleships and 235 aircraft. As of March 2018, the operational fleet consists of one aircraft carrier, one amphibious transport dock, eight landing ship tanks, eleven destroyers, thirteen frigates, one nuclear-powered attack submarine, one ballistic missile submarine, fourteen conventionally-powered attack submarines, twenty-two corvettes, one mine countermeasure vessel, four fleet tankers and various other auxiliary vessels.
The maritime history of India dates back to 6,000 years with the birth of art of the navigation and navigating during the Indus Valley Civilisation.A Kutch mariner's log book from 19th century recorded that the first tidal dock India has been built at Lothal around 2300 BC during the Indus Valley Civilisation, near the present day harbour of Mangrol on the Gujarat coast. The Rig Veda, credits Varuna, the Hindu god of water and the celestial ocean,with knowledge of the ocean routes and describes the use of ships having hundred oars in the naval expeditions by Indians. There are also references to the side wings of a ship called Plava, which stabilizes the vessel during storms. Plava is considered to be the precursor of modern-day stabilizers.The first use of mariner's compass, called as Matsya Yantra, was recorded in 4 and 5 AD.
Equipments:
Ships
The names of all in service ships and naval bases of the Indian Navy are prefixed with the letters INS, designating Indian Naval Ship or Indian Navy Station,whereas the sail boats are prefixed with INSV (Indian Naval Sailing Vessel).The fleet of the Indian Navy is a mixture of domestic built and foreign vessels, as of January 2018, the surface fleet comprises 1 aircraft carrier, 1 amphibious transport dock,8 Landing ship tanks,11 destroyers, 13 frigates,22 corvettes,10 large offshore patrol vessels, 4 fleet tankers,7 Survey ships, 1 research vessel,3 training vesselsand various auxiliary vessels, Landing Craft Utilityvessels, and small patrol boats.
After INS Viraat was decommissioned on 6 March 2017, the Navy is left with only one aircraft carrier in active service, INS Vikramaditya, which serves as the flagship of the fleet.Vikramaditya (formerly Admiral Gorshkov) is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrierprocured at a total cost $2.3 billion from Russia in December 2013.The Navy has an amphibious transport dock of the Austin class, re-christened as INS Jalashwa in Indian service. It also maintains a fleet of landing ship tanks.
The navy currently operates three Kolkata, three Delhiand five Rajput-class guided-missile destroyers.The ships of the Rajput class will be replaced in the near future by the next-generation Visakhapatnam-class destroyers (Project 15B) which will feature a number of improvements.
In addition to destroyers, the navy operates several classes of frigates such as three Shivalik (Project 17 class) and six Talwar-class frigates. Seven additional Shivalik-class frigates (Project 17A class frigates) are on order. The older Godavari-class frigates will systematically be replaced one by one as the new classes of frigates are brought into service over the next decade.
Smaller littoral zone combatants in service are in the form of corvettes, of which the Indian Navy operates the Kamorta, Kora, Khukri, Veer and Abhay-classcorvettes.Replenishment tankers such as the Jyoti-class tanker, INS Aditya and the new Deepak-class fleet tanker- help improve the navy's endurance at sea.
Submarines
As of December 2017, the Navy's sub-surface fleet includes one nuclear-powered attack submarine, one Ballistic missile submarine,14 conventionally-powered attack submarines.The conventional attack submarines of the Indian Navy consist of the Kalvari (French Scorpène-class submarine design), the Sindhughosh (Russian Kilo-class submarine design) and the Shishumar (German Type 209/1500 design) classes.
India also possesses a single Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine named INS Chakra. She is under lease to India for a period of ten years. Three hundred Indian Navy personnel were trained in Russia for the operation of these submarines.Negotiations are on with Russia for the lease of the second Akula-class submarine.
INS Arihant was launched on 26 July 2009 in Visakhapatnam, and was secretly commissioned into active service in August 2016.The Navy plans to have six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarinesin service in the near future.Arihant is both the first boat of the Arihant-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and the first nuclear-powered submarine to be built in India.
Weapon systems
The Navy use a mix of indigenously developed and foreign made missile systems. These include submarine-launched ballistic missiles, ship-launched ballistic missiles, cruise and anti-ship missiles, air-to-air missiles, surface-to-air missiles, torpedoes, air-to-air guns, main guns and anti-submarine rocket launchers. Its inventory comprises 100 mm (3.9 in) AK 190 gun with a range of 21.5 kilometres (13.4 mi), 130 kilometres (81 mi) KH-35E 4 Quad Uran, ASW RBU-2000 etc.
In the recent years BrahMos has been one of the most advanced missile system adapted by the India Navy. It has been jointly developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russian NPO Mashinostroyeniya. BrahMos is the world's fastest anti-ship cruise missile in operation. The BrahMos has been tailored to meet Indian needs and features a large proportion of India-designed components and technology, including its fire control systems, transporter erector launchers, and its onboard navigational attack systems. The successful test of Brahmos from INS Rajput provides Indian Navy with precision land attack capability.
India has also fitted its Boeing P-8I reconnaissance aircraft with all-weather, active-radar-homing, over-the-horizon AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles and Mk 54All-Up-Round Lightweight Torpedoes.[168] Indian warships' primary air-defence shield is provided by Barak 1 surface-to-air missile while an advanced version Barak 8 is in development in collaboration with Israel.India's next-generation Scorpène-classsubmarines will be armed with Exocet anti-ship missilesystem. Among indigenous missiles, ship-launched version of Prithvi-II is called Dhanush, which has a range of 350 kilometres (220 mi) and can carry nuclear warheads.
The K-15 Sagarika (Oceanic) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which has a range of at least 700 km (some sources claim 1000 km) forms part of India's nuclear triad and is extensively tested to be integrated with the Arihant class of nuclear submarines. A longer range submarine launched ballistic missile called K-4 is under testing, to be followed by K-5 SLBM.
Electronic warfare and systems management
Sangraha is a joint electronic warfare programme between Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Navy. The programme is intended to develop a family of electronic warfare suites, for use on different naval platforms capable of detecting, intercepting, and classifying pulsed, carrier wave, pulse repetition frequency agile, frequency agile and chirp radars. The systems are suitable for deployment on various platforms like helicopters, vehicles, and ships. Certain platforms, along with ESM (Electronic Support Measures) capabilities, have ECM (Electronic Countermeasure) capabilities such as multiple-beam phased array jammers.
The Indian Navy also relies on information technology to face the challenges of the 21st century. The Indian Navy is implementing a new strategy to move from a platform centric force to a network centric force by linking all shore-based installations and ships via a high-speed data networks and satellite(s).This will help in increased operational awareness. The network is referred to as the Navy Enterprise Wide Network (NEWN). The Indian Navy has also provided training to all its personnel in Information Technology (IT) at the Naval Institute of Computer Applications (NICA) located in Mumbai. Information technology is also used to provide better training, like the usage of simulators and for better management of the force.
The Navy has a dedicated cadre for matters pertaining to information technology cadre named as Information Technology Cadre,under the Directorate of Information Technology (DRI). The cadre is responsible for implementation for enterprise wide networking and software development projects, development activities with respect to cyber security products, administration of shore and on-board networks, and management of critical Naval Networks and software applications.
India's first exclusive defence satellite GSAT-7 was successfully launched by European space consortium Arianespace's rocket from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in August 2013. GSAT-7 was fabricated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to serve for at least seven years in its orbital slot at 74°E, providing UHF, S-band, C-band and Ku-band relay capacity. Its Ku-band allows high-density data transmission, including both audio and video. This satellite also has a provision to reach smaller and mobile terminals.
GSAT-7 approximately has a footprint of 3,500–4,000 kilometres (2,200–2,500 miles; 1,900–2,200 nautical miles) over the Indian Ocean region, including both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal region. This enables the Navy to operate in a network-centric atmosphere having real-time networking of all its operational assets at sea and on land
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