Not their role. Would make them more costly and reduce availability the exact opposite of what they are meant forAll these long endurance OPVs should have more distributed firepower IMO.
Not their role. Would make them more costly and reduce availability the exact opposite of what they are meant for
You on the other hand want 2500 odd tonnes OPV to carry only one OTV76mm automatic cannons and 2 Ak630's and a helideck? That's the current weapon systems available on our recent OPV's. Even Coast Guard of some navies include this weaponry.
They should atleast have minimum air defence for its own protection or say if its escorting some smaller fleets during war. This ship is a glorified convoy ship also used for special forces operation and for 60 days sea faring endurability.
TBH for its size it is very underequipped. Simply they could build 1000 tonnes 12 OPV's. Which can perform the same convoy roles with less time endurance.
@Notsuperstitious
@Vicky
Offshore Patrol Vessels have entirely different roles to play from frigates or corvettes, or similar classical convoy escorts. They were evolved as fishery protection vessels, lightly armed patrol vessels not required to use excessive force, perhaps the occasional gunshot fired to warn off an aggressive fishing boat captain charging aggressively towards the vessel and best kept at a distance to avoid an international incident. It can also serve, very well, in a loitering, observing capacity off the coast of Somalia, for instance; there is nothing to indicate that this is the work that it/they will do, but it is tempting to think so. Such collisions have occurred, regrettably, but AFAIK they were between Icelandic OPVs and British trawlers, not what we might have expected.
However, primarily, they can serve to protect our own fishery vessels, for instance, off the Sri Lanka fishing grounds where our mechanised boats habitually get into trouble, or in the waters off Saurashtra, where a drift of a few miles in windy conditions puts our fishing vessels in danger of drifting into Pakistani territorial waters, and gets the boats detained and the fishermen jailed for months. A third use would be to protect the deep recesses of the Bay of Bengal that are already overfished by Thai, Malay and Chinese vessels; apparently, other boats also come and fish there freely, and are under little or no surveillance.
They are not, as Vicky suggests, convoy escorts, being too lightly armed and too slow for that, nor are they special forces carriers, not unless they are very fast, very stealthy, and, yes, very heavily armed, but with primary emphasis on fast and on stealthy.
We have to read @Abingdonboy 's bewildered dismissal in that context. In the UK, they are clear that OPVs are effectively large boats, built for liveability and long endurance cruises, but lightly armed; nobody puts expensive arms and ordnance on fishery protection vessels if they can help it. The Sea Lords' eyes do not light up at the thought of putting in CIWS, SAM batteries, cruise missile vertical launchers, automatic cannon of 25mm or greater calibre, and torpedoes into boats that will spend most of their time with their crew intoning menacing police-like messages into megaphones.
But you may, ironically, be right; we have such bureaucratic interference that some chair-borne ministry mariner might well have the roles that you refer to in his mind (sic). In which case you both can laugh at the pompous definitions used or assumptions used, and bask in having been right all along, instinctively so. Until then, just let them remain fishery protection boats, please.
Small economies like Pakistan or Thailand have no money to buy enough frigates so the put everything on a small ship. We did that once too ( Veer-class corvette). Check the document this is mission customisable too.Thailand is putting missiles on their patrol boats. Australia making their patrol boats mission customisable.
USN LCS is a frigate not OPV. Big difference.Heck even the USN is ramping up fire power on their littoral ships conventionally and unconventionally across the board by using SAMs in a anti shipping role.
Exactly, What we need is lightly armed patrol vessels. To do low-intensity missions which will free bigger frigates to do missions which they were intended.So definitions dont matter at all, we are discussing if we have the need.
@Notsuperstitious
@Vicky
Offshore Patrol Vessels have entirely different roles to play from frigates or corvettes, or similar classical convoy escorts. They were evolved as fishery protection vessels, lightly armed patrol vessels not required to use excessive force, perhaps the occasional gunshot fired to warn off an aggressive fishing boat captain charging aggressively towards the vessel and best kept at a distance to avoid an international incident. It can also serve, very well, in a loitering, observing capacity off the coast of Somalia, for instance; there is nothing to indicate that this is the work that it/they will do, but it is tempting to think so. Such collisions have occurred, regrettably, but AFAIK they were between Icelandic OPVs and British trawlers, not what we might have expected.
However, primarily, they can serve to protect our own fishery vessels, for instance, off the Sri Lanka fishing grounds where our mechanised boats habitually get into trouble, or in the waters off Saurashtra, where a drift of a few miles in windy conditions puts our fishing vessels in danger of drifting into Pakistani territorial waters, and gets the boats detained and the fishermen jailed for months. A third use would be to protect the deep recesses of the Bay of Bengal that are already overfished by Thai, Malay and Chinese vessels; apparently, other boats also come and fish there freely, and are under little or no surveillance.
They are not, as Vicky suggests, convoy escorts, being too lightly armed and too slow for that, nor are they special forces carriers, not unless they are very fast, very stealthy, and, yes, very heavily armed, but with primary emphasis on fast and on stealthy.
We have to read @Abingdonboy 's bewildered dismissal in that context. In the UK, they are clear that OPVs are effectively large boats, built for liveability and long endurance cruises, but lightly armed; nobody puts expensive arms and ordnance on fishery protection vessels if they can help it. The Sea Lords' eyes do not light up at the thought of putting in CIWS, SAM batteries, cruise missile vertical launchers, automatic cannon of 25mm or greater calibre, and torpedoes into boats that will spend most of their time with their crew intoning menacing police-like messages into megaphones.
But you may, ironically, be right; we have such bureaucratic interference that some chair-borne ministry mariner might well have the roles that you refer to in his mind (sic). In which case you both can laugh at the pompous definitions used or assumptions used, and bask in having been right all along, instinctively so. Until then, just let them remain fishery protection boats, please.
Sir,
Thailand is putting missiles on their patrol boats. Australia making their patrol boats mission customisable. Obviously these countries have identified the need. Heck even the USN is ramping up fire power on their littoral ships conventionally and unconventionally across the board by using SAMs in a anti shipping role.
So definitions dont matter at all, we are discussing if we have the need.
I believe we need more weaponised platforms given our vast area of op, and we dont need a 22 billion dollar carrier. Obviously navy thinks otherwise.
The words, Convoy vessels, Special forces operations missions were taken from their RFP issued by the Navy. I do understand we need ships to patrol our EEZ's or do anti piracy operation in a far off area. But it is the size baffles me. Its the size of a corvette, or the size of a frigate of various navies. Size requirement is 2500 tonnes (+- )100 tonnes. So just for the sake of endurance we are putting 1000 tonnes on a ship to carry extra fuel and foods?
Do you understand in times of war definitions of frigates or OPV goes out of window and all targets become legitimate. The enemy wont let off the ship thinking its just an OPV. And it might still doing convoy roles in times of war, where enemy will attack any private supply vessels and an OPV is req to protect it. A minimum of 8 cell SAM does actually good to itself in times of protecting itself in times of war and other small ships it is escorting. If its attacked it will be a big morale down for the Navy.
What I am asking is, for its size, give it decent protection. Not even asking anti ship missiles. Just SAM's.
I just told your mate to bash on regardless, and to ignore me. Convoy vessel roles were there in the original DNA; in my post intended for @Notsuperstitious, I had talked about the tiny little Hunt class destroyers that did convoy duty before the frigates started rolling out (basic difference, frigates were built to Commercial Off the Shelf specs, or COTS, to use modern IT industry parlance, and were not to MilSpec); those little boats were based on what the RN earlier called escort sloops, basically fisheries and offshore boats that had a few guns bolted on.
The size baffles me, too; it makes this class thoroughly unfit for in-shore commando/special forces work. In Master Ian Chappell's words, it would stand out like a dog's balls. Out at sea, hauling this dead weight around would significantly increase the fuel expenditure (remember that a ship goes at a maximum speed governed by the square root of its length, so, shorter - smaller - the faster).
I don't understand what you are saying about times of war and target legitimacy. Why should we put these into harm's way in wartime? If they are fishery protection vessels, what would they be doing if the PN prowls around looking for fishing smacks to blow up? As for convoy roles, I found that reference a bit baffling: what private supply vessels (mercantile shipping, in other words) would, say, the PN be attacking? There's no other Navy that I know of in the vicinity that might have a gun to fire. First, if they fire on non-Indian flag-bearing vessels, there will be a coalition of maritime powers breathing heavily down their necks; they would have egregiously violated the freedom of the seas. It's illegal. Second, if they declare a blockade, how will they enforce it? With two and a half surface ships? Even the IN would find a blockade very, very difficult to operate, for reasons that became clear while studying the option a couple of months ago. What will either Pakistan or Sri Lanka do?
If you really want anti-aircraft protection, as you seem to have assumed that the main threat will come from the air, as well it might, won't a few MANPADs do? SAMs? AShW and ASW capability? why not just do a small frigate in the first place? The design would come out much nicer.
Just saying.
You and me know its not possible for adding ASW or AShW capability for roles its not designed to do. It means adding Sonars, specialised radars, missile/Torpedo tubes and other relevant infrastructure. In war times there is nothing thats called fair. Remember German Ship Emden in WW1? It created havoc in Indian Ocean with private merchant supply vessels refusing to travel to farther than India. Or German U boats in ww2 which attacked private merchant vessels in the Atlantic.
The thing is when and if things go desperate for India, we can summon private vessels to load supplies for our forces and population. In that case it does need convoys. Its true OPVs are not supposed to be in forefront in any war. But India has a vast coastline and we cannot ensure that any LOOL ship may slip through defences and target any coastal area just for proving an point (just like Dwaraka in 65') and an OPV comes in contact with it. Even our ICG has ordered OPV's with 2000 tonnes capability with nearly the same armaments like this one. Except it can also do environmental related tasks.
The main problem we face is the Chinese. They are churning out destroyers/frigates like pan cakes. Even if they decommission all their older ships, they are going to order 2 * IN capable warships in years to come. They are currently building 14 destroyers and 20 some frigates. We need to concentrate on small frigates and not waste the hull capability to go waste. The govt is not giving approvals too much easily nowadays. So they need to be optimal in what they order. I might be missing or there is some classified info. But for layman's eyes the OPV's size and its role does not correspond with each other. Its size for its role is a white elephant as you pointed out.
Fine. Great. So what is the point? That every vessel should be armed to do something other than it is designed to do?
My point is effective and efficient utilisation of every square inch of the platform for what it is designed for. In my naked eyes, this platform doesnt seem very efficient nor effective as we agreed.
You mean it's too large for your liking? I take it you have never been to sea.
Have been to sea quite very much. Nancowri and Akbar ships. If you are old and have travelled to Andamans u might know those names sound nostalgic