Indian Destroyers & Frigates: Russian Gear Inferior

On May 9, 2022, Gessler kindly provided the following comments:

While I'm sure several factors (to include deficiencies in crew training and/or motivation at several levels) would have gone into this as well as the Moskva incident, I must point out that the equipment cannot be ruled out as the main culprit either. I'm specifically talking about the AK-630 close-in weapon system (CIWS) cannons & its supporting systems as well as some of the Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) complexes like the Shtil-1 (naval Buk)  .

Allow me to summarize the Indian Navy's nearly 40-year journey with those weapon systems, and the solutions sought to mitigate their shortcomings.

DESTROYERS

If we look at the Project-15 Delhi-class destroyers designed with Soviet inputs in the late 1980s, you'll find they're equipped with the AK-630 CIWS and the Shtil-1 complex, with the MR-123 & MR-90 Fire Control Radars (FCRs) respectively providing the targeting cues.

I'd gather the experience with the CIWS wasn't very good for the Indian Navy so the process began to replace the parts that don't work (radars & fire control systems (FCS) while retaining the parts that work fine (the rotary mechanism & the gun itself). 

On the Delhi-class destroyer’s successor, the Project-15A Kolkata-class, you'll see that while the AK-630 system has been retained. Its underperforming MR-123 (see 2nd paragraph) FCR is nowhere to be seen. CIWS guns obviously cannot work without radar cues so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the 'back-end' electronics of the AK-630 have been 'indigenized' to the extent where the ship's main Elta EL/M-2248  MFSTAR multifunction Active Phased Array Radar (APAR) itself can provide targeting cues for the AK-630's FCS.

Speaking of the MFSTAR radar...The operational experience with the Delhi-class destroyers Russian systems must have been quite unpleasant for the Indian Navy because as soon as the MFSTAR radar & the Barak-8 SAM system (jointly developed by India & Israel) became a viable alternative, they went to the extraordinary length of changing the configuration of the then-under construction (in 2000s) Kolkata-class ships AFTER they had already been launched, in order to remove the Shtil-1/MR-90 complex and replace it with the considerably superior Barak-8/MFSTAR complex - a system which now even allows for Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), something the Russian surface fleet can only dream of at the moment. This abrupt change in configuration induced quite a massive delay to the destroyer program, but the Navy must have thought it worthwhile.

See the original Kolkata-class configuration above, before the change.

But the discontent with Russian equipment was not limited to just Air Defence systems. It also extended to Surface-to-Surface Missile (SSM) systems like the BrahMos. Again, the kinetic & aerodynamic properties of the weapon were good enough (excellent, even), but was again let down by poor fire-control & electronics. 

On top of the bridge of the Kolkata-class, you'll find a Russian radar called the 3Ts-25E Garpun-B. This was the main FCR for designating targets for the BrahMos SSM. The Indian Navy understandably wasn't that happy with it...evidenced by the fact that the Kolkata's successor, the latest Project-15B Visakhapatnam/Vizag-class destroyer no longer carries that radar.

Obviously the ship's 16 x BrahMos SSMs still require fire control, that fact taken together with this news of tests of the SSMs with "advanced indigenous technologies" and "modified control system". This allows us to infer that the original Russian seeker-head & FCS of the BrahMos have now been replaced with Indian-built alternatives (see product posters here and here ). They now allow for the ship's main MFSTAR radar to also perform fire control for the BrahMos as well.

FRIGATES

Unfortunately, while the destroyers continued to evolve & get better with Western/Israeli/Indian technologies gradually replacing the Russian ones, the frigate classes of the Indian Navy continue to flounder. In 2018 India ordered 4 vessels of the Admiral Grigorovich-class (the exact class as Russia’s Admiral Makarov). This adds to 6 Russian built Indian frigates of the Talwar-class an earlier version. These Indian purchases of Russian built frigates can only be explained away as a piecemeal order to keep the Russians happy in exchange for their services elsewhere (we all know where). 

[Pete comment: At 4,000 tonnes displacement the Russian designed/built frigates are too small for India's growing blue water navy. I suspect “elsewhere” to be Russian assistance with India’s nuclear tipped Agni ballistic missiles and with Indian thermonuclear weapons].

This is while Indian frigates of indigenous design & build like the Indian Project-17 Shivalik-class (above), displacing 6,200 tonnes, already exist in service and exceed the capability of these Russian designs.

The Indian Navy might not have been comfortable with sub-standard Russian equipment or ship designs in the destroyer classes (which form the main escort for Indian carrier groups & task forces). But India has to accommodate the Russians somewhere, so frigates got the short end of the stick.

The only silver lining as far as the frigate classes are concerned, is that these 4 Admiral-Grigorovich-class frigates might be the last vessels of the Russian 'standard' to ever enter service with the Indian Navy, as even the future frigate types seem to follow the exact same standards as set by the latest Vizag-class destroyers: 

An artist's rendering of the new Project-17A Nilgiri-class frigate now under construction and to displace 6,700 tonnes.

Goodbye Russian SAMs & Fire Control Radars!