India will finally get a desperately-needed shot in the arm for its depleting underwater combat fleet. With INS Sindhukirti set for final "full-power trials" from Friday after being stuck in a refit for a decade, the Kilo-class submarine is expected to be formally handed over to the Navy next month.
The 3,000-tonne INS Sindhukirti's re-induction into the fleet is vital since the Navy is down to just 13 old dieselelectric submarines - barely half of them fully operational at present -and one nuclear-powered submarine with out nuclear-tipped missiles on lease from Russia.
A submarine's design or "prescribed life" is considered to be 25 years. But 10 of the 13 conventional boats are already older than that, with the others not being far behind. INS Sindhurakshak, which sank after internal explosions at Mumbai naval dockyard in August 2013 killing 18 personnel, was in fact one of the relatively newer submarines. The medium refit of the 25-year-old INS Sindhukirti, which was to be completed within three years, itself is a shocking story . Gross mismanagement, coupled with alleged perfidy by Russian experts, ensured the submarine remained stuck at Hindustan Shipyard (Visakhapatnam) since early 2006.
But the submarine is "as good as new" now, with hull renewal as well as new weapons, sonars, fire control systems and the like. The vessel will now also be capable of firing the almost 300-km Klub-S land-attack missiles from the six torpedo tubes fitted on its "nose".
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