Now SAIL is providing high grade ship building steel.
Kolkata-class and Visakhapatnam-class Destroyers: News & Discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
So, now the question is how do these destroyers cost around 1 billion dollars (double of equivalent chinese destroyer) while carrying less than half the armament?
Costly weapons and sensor suite, imported gas turbines and gear box, very small build numbers and too long build time.
Its a start.Indigeneous turbine,sensor suite and SAM will be in place in next 10 years.You have invest upfront to reap benefits later.
1. Lack of cohesive planning between Naval Design Bureau, MoD and the ship builder. Means often when the steel is actually cut for the ship, the shipyard doesn't knows what the ship will look like. The construction goes on while the design bureau tinkers with the design. All this adds to cost.
2. Piecemeal orders , meaning the shipyard every 7-10 years undergoes a cycle of losing its trained manpower and rehiring/retraining new hands. The subcontractors charge much more too. All the while the technical capability of the shipyard is overlooked too.
These two reasons mean that the ship takes much much longer to build than it would actually take in any normal case.
3. The thing called licence production. It means that all the things are atleast 250% more costly and takes 3 times the time to deliver.
4. Piecemeal orders and licence production for the weapons and sensor Systems as well. All this multiplies the cost manifolds.
5. Lack of any imperative for a government shipyard to improve their performance as the private shipyards are not given a fair chance.
You missed the biggest. Lack of Civil shipbuilding industry. Chinese, SK and Japanese are best in efficiency only because of this. Every other piece will fall in place if you have this.
It's impossible to give scale for all the indian shipyards considering size of navy and budget.
How is the Visakhapatnam Class an improvement over the Kolkata Class??? - In terms of stealth - it doesn`t seem to have an enclosed top deck
The Vizag class is an improvement. But it is not as drastic an improvement as we wanted to see. Let's compare the design of the two classes.
The Bow mounted SONAR :
Kolkata class :
A bulbous bow has advantages at low speeds, it increases stability at higher cross current speeds. This is essential if a vessel is heavy and encounters bad weather at oceans, that's why a lot of large commercial vessels have such a design. A bulbous bow also helps with low speed maneuverability.
There are problems with such a bow design in that it induces a lot of drag penalty. It also leaves behind a wider wake pattern(sometimes higher that 40 deg) & has a louder acoustic signature.
Vizag class :
The Vizag will have the same sonar as the Kolkata : the BEL HUMSA-NG. The Vizag has a conformal bow instead of a bulbous bow. Thus it has none of the problems of the traditional bulbous bow. It will have a narrower wake pattern, quieter acoustics & it is a low drag design. This should allow the ship to attain greater speeds with the same propulsion setup at the Kolkata class.
Water is far more difficult to displace than air. Thus even a marginal improvement in hydrodynamic design will yield a lot of improvement in performance. As always there are problems with anything new. The stability that the bulbous bow brought with it is now gone. Thus the Vizag needs active pumping mechanisms to keep the ship steady in all conditions.
The Vizag also has a angled bridge design compared to the flat faced bridge of the Kolkata. This will improve forward sector RCS.
Barring the 1st ship all other ship of the Vizag class will get the BAE Mk45 Mod4 naval main gun. The first ship has the 76mm SRGM for now, likely to be replaced later.
The 1st ship also had the BEL RAWL-02 radar which seems to have been removed. The Navy had signed a 1200 crore contract with TATA Power SED to license build 23 LANZA AESA Long Range Radars. It is likely that the Vizag class will get those radars.
Some NATO navies use that radar for BMD purposes. That might be where we are headed. The AD-1 & AD-2 BMD missiles were stated to be comparable to the SM-3 & ASTER-30 missiles. They might have a naval version of those missiles for the Vizag class to carry.
Over all the Vizag class is an excellent combatant. All the gripes about it are due to price, time & weapon load. I do agree with those criticisms. The Navy has handled this project awfully.
Type 055 is a 13000T ship whereas Kolkata class is 8000T. So there's an obvious firepower difference between the two.
And the Chinese have a more established shipping industry and build a lot at once, so their ships are cheaper. Plus many of our technologies are more advanced and some of the imported stuff is expensive, especially when procured in small numbers.
PLAN was quite sh!tty before they got rich. The first Type 052D was commissioned when China was a $10T economy. When China began its massive naval expansion in 2008, their GDP was $4.5T. So we are nowhere close to that at this time.
When they were a $3T economy, they had only 2 world-class destroyers at the same level (inferior of course) as Kolkata class. Whereas we have at least 3 destroyers. When they were a $5T economy, they still had the same 2 world class destroyers, whereas we are expected to have at least 14 before we breach the $5T mark. Then it's our turn for a massive naval expansion.
The P-15, P-15A and P-15B are all basically the same ships. Think of the AB class with Flight I, II etc.
NGD is apparently a new class and will form a family of new ships over the next 20 years just like the Delhi class was. So you can expect a lot of problems to be fixed by then. It's possible that two shipyards will build the new set of destroyers.
This is the new 8 VLS you are seeing of this BrahMos missile. I have a proof
Which has New 8 VLS installed in it. She is also in the INS Rajput D-5,Class Destroyer
INS Rajput armament .. anti surface and anti ship missile
Anti-surface:
4 × BrahMos supersonic missiles
2 × SS-N-2D Styx AShM missiles
INS Rajput D-51 has exactly the same 4 missile launcher. Of Brahmos missile
It is expected to be a long-range missile.
Upgraded BRAHMOS MISSILE
Surface/Sea Platform - 650 km (400 mi; 350 nmi)
To be upgraded to 800 km (500 mi; 430 nmi)View attachment 19896
Attachments
This is the new 8 VLS you are seeing of this BrahMos missile. I have a proof
Which has New 8 VLS installed in it. She is also in the INS Rajput D-5,Class Destroyer
INS Rajput armament .. anti surface and anti ship missile
Anti-surface:
4 × BrahMos supersonic missiles
2 × SS-N-2D Styx AShM missiles
INS Rajput D-51 has exactly the same 4 missile launcher. Of Brahmos missile
It is expected to be a long-range missile.
Upgraded BRAHMOS MISSILE
Surface/Sea Platform - 650 km (400 mi; 350 nmi)
To be upgraded to 800 km (500 mi; 430 nmi)View attachment 19896
Which has New 8 VLS installed in it. She is also in the INS Rajput D-5,Class Destroyer
INS Rajput armament .. anti surface and anti ship missile
Anti-surface:
4 × BrahMos supersonic missiles
2 × SS-N-2D Styx AShM missiles
INS Rajput D-51 has exactly the same 4 missile launcher. Of Brahmos missile
It is expected to be a long-range missile.
Upgraded BRAHMOS MISSILE
Surface/Sea Platform - 650 km (400 mi; 350 nmi)
To be upgraded to 800 km (500 mi; 430 nmi)View attachment 19896
