The Indian Navy commissioned its newest anti-submarine warfare corvette on Monday. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inducted the indigenously-built INS Kiltan at the Naval Dockyard in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
INS Kiltan – named after an island near Lakshadweep – is the third of four anti-submarine warfare ships to be built under India’s Rs 7,800-crore Project 28, The Indian Express reported.
The other two – INS Kamorta and INS Kadmatt – are already commissioned. The ship was built by Kolkata’s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers and designed by the Navy’s Directorate of Naval Design.
INS Kiltan is built with a superstructure carbon fibre composite material from Sweden that makes it lightweight, improves stealth and reduces maintenance costs, according to the Hindustan Times. The vessel is 100 tonnes lighter than the previous warships.
The ship’s weapons include a sensors suite that has heavyweight torpedoes, rockets, a 76 mm caliber medium-range gun and two multi-barrel 30 mm guns. It also has dedicated fire control systems, an advanced bow mounted sonar and air surveillance radar.
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