India To Get Latest Lightweight Mk-54 Anti-Submarines Torpedoes From US

India will get lightweight anti-submarines torpedoes to arm the eight P-8I maritime patrol aircraft it is buying from the US, with the Obama administration notifying the potential sale to the US Congress on Tuesday.

The news was welcomed by the US embassy in New Delhi, which said the sale of Mk-54 torpedoes reflects the mutual benefits of the India-US security relationship.

The Pentagon has "officially notified" the potential sale of Mk-54 lightweight torpedoes to the Indian Navy.

The Mk-54 is the most advanced lightweight torpedo in the US Navy inventory and is intended to be employed with the P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, eight of which are currently under construction for India by US aerospace major Boeing.

Saab Has Offered the Sea Gripen Fighter For The Indigenous Aircraft Carrier INS Vikrant.

Reports are coming in that Saab has offered the Sea Gripen fighter aircraft for the indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.

Saab has been studying the idea of designing a carrier-borne variant since the mid-’90s but the company only decided to launch the Sea Gripen program in the wake of its existing campaigns for the air forces of India and Brazil and the moves by the two countries to build a serious carrier capability, even though at that time there was no formal request from either country. Saab is planning to pitch the aircraft to countries with smaller-sized carriers and says they expect more nations to show interest in the Sea Gripen, because existing naval fighters are either of an older generation or large-sized, forcing them to buy or build large ships as well.

According to Peter Nilsson, Gripen’s Vice President of Operational Capabilities, the Sea Gripen is intended for both CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take Off But Arrested Recovery) as well as STOBAR (Short Take Off But Arrested Recovery) operations. “There will obviously be differences in the MTOW (Maximum Take-Off Weight). In a CATOBAR concept, the Sea Gripen will have a MTOW of 16,500 kilograms and a maximum landing weight of 11,500 kilograms. In a STOBAR concept it depends on the physics of the carrier. Roughly, the payload of fuel and weapons in STOBAR operations will be one-third less than the payload in CATOBAR operations. There will be no differences in ‘bring-back’ capability,” he says.

India To Get eight Minesweepers From South Korea

India is all set to place an order with a South Korean shipyard for building eight minesweepers for its navy in its quest to overhaul its existing fleet of such specialised warships, defence ministry sources say.

Eye on China, Indian Navy Boosts Eastern Command

With an eye on China as well as in keeping with India's "Look East" policy, the Navy is slowly but surely bolstering force levels on the eastern coast with new warships, aircraft and spy drones as well as forward-operating bases (FOBs).

So much so that the Navy has now upgraded the post of the chief of staff (CoS) at the Eastern Naval Command (ENC), which is next only to the flag officer commanding-in-chief, to a three-star general rank. Vice-Admiral S Lanba will take over as the new CoS at ENC on May 1, 2011. The other full-fledged naval operational command, the Western Naval Command (WNC) based at Mumbai, has had a vice-admiral as the CoS for quite some time now.

Additions to the ENC, which has around 50 warships at present, include the new indigenously-manufactured stealth frigate INS Shivalik, which is packed with weapons and sensors, and the 16,900-tonne INS Jalashwa, the huge strategic sea-lift amphibious warship second only to aircraft carrier INS Viraat in size.

India-US Naval Exercise Malabar Start From Saturday

Indian Navy’s three destroyers and the support vessels are positioned in the western Pacific where they will practice maneuvers on interdiction at sea and anti-piracy patrol with the US warships in the annual Malabar series of exercise, from Saturday. Although Malabar is essentially an Indo-US exercise, Japan, an important ally of the US and India’s strategic partner, was also invited.

But it pulled out at the last moment as its armed forces were dealing with the nuclear crisis.

Japan had earlier agreed to play host to Indian and the US naval warships by holding the exercise near the port city of Okinawa. After it’s withdrawal, the venue was shifted to somewhere in the western Pacific. Its’s withdrawal means that exercise has been scaled down there will be no submarine component and missing in action would also be the aircraft carriers.
The US in the past has fielded its Carrier Strike Group 7 with the USS Ronald Reagon at the helm, but in this edition the US Pacific fleet destroyers and corvettes would match the Indian participation. Indian fleet, comprising destroyers INS Delhi and INS Ranvijay, along with fleet tanker INS Jyothi, starting from eastern fleet headquarter at Vishakhapatnam has reached the area marked for exercise.