EDITORIAL1 : Tamal, the last imported warship
Context
Built in Kaliningrad, Russia, INS Tamal is expected to be the last Indian warship acquired from abroad, marking the culmination of the Navy's decades-long push for maximum indigenisation in shipbuilding.
INS Tamal
- INS Tamal is the eighth Talwar-class frigate — these are improved versions of the Krivak III-class frigates — built by Russia for the Indian Navy as a part of Project 1135.6.
- It is also the second of four additional follow-on ships of the class that were ordered in 2018.
- The first, INS Tushil, was commissioned in Kaliningrad in December last year. The final two, Triput and Tavasya, are being built in India by the Goa Shipyard Limited with transfer of technology and design assistance from Russia.
- Triput, which was launched into sea last July and is expected to be commissioned in 2026, will be India’s first indigenously built Talwar-class frigate.
- AIR: INS Tamal is a multirole frigate which has a maximum speed of 30 knots (56 km/h), and a range of upto 4,850 nautical miles (8,980 km). The ship will be manned by a crew of 250 sailors and 26 officers.
- It is capable of carrying out blue water operations in all four dimensions of modern naval warfare — air, surface, underwater and electromagnetic.
- INS Tamal carries two kinds of anti-aircraft missiles — 24 vertically-launched Shtil surface-to-air missiles with a range of upto 70 km, and eight short-range Igla missiles.
- SURFACE: INS Tamal’s anti-ship/ land attack capabilities are centred around the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. The ship carries a complement of eight such missiles which boast an operational range in the hundreds of kilometres, and can fly at speeds of upto Mach 3.
- UNDERWATER: For anti-submarine warfare (ASW), INS Tamal has a RBU ASW rocket-launcher, which can fire salvos of upto 12 rockets equipped with depth charges at a time.
- EW: INS Tamal boasts a complement of advanced electronic warfare (EW) suite and advanced Electro-Optical/Infra-Red systems, which act as ears and eyes of the platform. EW suite includes decoy launching systems which disrupt enemy radar, and jammers.
- The warship can also accommodate the upgraded Anti-submarine and Airborne Early Warning helicopters, the Kamov 28 and Kamov 31, which, according to the Navy, act as “major force multipliers”.
Towards indigenisation
- INS Tamal will be the last imported warship to be inducted into its fleet and is a major milestone in the road to aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) in defence.
- In the early years after Independence, India neither had the know-how to build its own ships, nor the resources to develop this capability.
- It was thus compelled to acquire frigates and destroyers from other countries, mostly the UK and the erstwhile USSR.
- INS Ajay, a small patrol vessel commissioned in 1960, was the first indigenously-built ship in India.
- India's push for naval indigenisation began with Leander-class frigates in the 1960s, which had just 15% local content.
Conclusion
- Frigates are primarily meant to serve as platforms for guided missile systems. They can serve in a variety of roles, from anti-submarine, anti-ship, and anti-aircraft warfare to land attacks, and can fight either solo or as part of a larger naval formation.