India Cuts Steel For Its First Locally-Built Project 11356 Frigate

India’s Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) cut a steel plate for its first locally built Project 11356 frigate on September 21. The official ceremony of steel cutting was being live-streamed on the same day by the Ishwari Digital media platform.

During the ceremony, the Vice Chief of the Indian Navy’s (IN’s) Staff Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar cut the first plate of steel for the premier Indian-built Project 11356 frigate.

In his turn, a representative of GSL said the construction of the Project 11356 frigates would be the largest shipbuilding program to be conducted by the enterprise. “Thanks to the commencement of the project, the shipyard has entered the league of the Indian enterprises that are capable of building large surface combatants. Therefore, India’s capabilities to construct this type of defense hardware will be dramatically reinforced,” he said. “We are planning to fulfill the program in time. The enterprise rapidly adopted to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to minimize its impact on manufacturing processes,” he added.

According to the representative of GSL, the new ships will incorporate “a large number” of indigenous subsystems.

India has designated the new ship ‘Advanced Missile Frigate’ (AMF). “GSL commences production of Advanced Missile Frigates, with ‘First Steel Cutting’ today at the hands of Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar — another landmark step in Defence Shipbuilding and a major boost to ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ [projects],” said GSL in a tweet on September 21.

Russia and India previously contracted the delivery of four Project 11356 frigates to the Asian country. Under the deal, the Yantar Shipyard (a subsidiary of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation) and GSL are set to build two ships each.

The Project 11356 frigate is designed to strike surface/underwater combatants and aerial targets in both blue and green waters. The ships operate both in battle groups and as standalone naval platforms. The frigate is armed with an A-190 10 mm naval gun, strike missiles (including the Kalibr and Shtil missile weapons), and torpedoes. The ship can store a Kamov Ka-27 naval rotorcraft. The Project 11356 frigate is 124.8 m long and has a displacement of 3,620 t, a full speed of 30 kt, and a cruise range of 4,850 nm.

The naval platform has been designed with the use of stealth technologies; the acoustic signature of the ship has also been reduced, while the system’s protection against high-precision weapons has been reinforced. The frigate’s powerplant integrates four gas-turbine engines. The ship can employ only one gas-turbine engine to sail in order to increase the service life and cost-effectiveness ratio of the main powerplant.

Another representative of GSL told TASS at the Army 2019 international military-technical forum that the Indian Project 11356 frigate would receive a number of locally built subsystems, including a 76 mm naval gun, the BRAHMOS cruise missiles, two 30 mm anti-aircraft guns, two torpedo launchers, and a rocket launcher. The source added that the sensor suite of the new ship would also comprise several Indian items, including a sonar, an information combat-management system, and an electronic warfare system.

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