INDIAN NAVY DESTROYER VISAKHAPATNAM CLASS

INS Visakhapatnam class - Representational image

Indian navy is a blue water navy and has a sole responsibility to protect the maritime interest of India in the IOR [ Indian Ocean Region] region. Indian Navy planning their fleet to have ships which can be very well used to project power in the IOR region. Aircraft Carriers, Destroyers, Frigates, Submarines, Amphibious Ships, Corvettes, and Naval air assets are the arsenal of the Indian navy.

Indian navy in collaboration with naval dockyards of India planning to build many ambitious ships of many classes. One of the prime ambitious ship classes of the Indian Navy is Visakhapatanam class ships, Follow on class of the legendary Kolkata class destroyer.

Model Sketch of INS Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatanam class ships details,

Displacement                    :               7400 tons

Ship size                           :               Length 163 m

                                                          Breath  17.4 m

                                                          Draft      6.5 m

Propulsion type                :               Combined Twin gas turbine system

Range and speed              :               4000 nautical miles and 30 knots.

Ship compliment              :               50 officers and 250 sailors

Air compliment                :               Sea king or Chetak helicopter [2 number]

Weapons package            :               32 VLS cells of Barak 8 missile system for anti-aircraft roles.

        16 VLS cells for Brahmos Supersonic Cruise Missile for anti-ship             and land attack role.

        5 inch main gun (Possibly  BAE mk 45 naval gun from USA)

        Twin Torpedo tube

        RBU 6000 rocket for anti-submarine role.

One of the best in class stealth capabilities are added to the visakhapatanam class of ships for better survivability.  Their RADAR system of the ship is EL/M-2248 MF-STAR multi-mission AESA for primary tracking and Thales LW-08 for long-range research & tracking.

Total of four ships are planned to build, one can easily notice this ship has only 32 VLS cells for anti-aircraft primary roll but in future scenarios, those numbers may become inadequate. So there are provisions in this ship to add more VLS cells to accommodate new range-extended Barak(XR and LR versions) and also provisions to add more Brahmos missile in NG format. 

The ship's helicopters may change in the future with new MH -64 R from the USA.

[Images are taken from the google, Ownership with their original creator]