Russia to help India build 4 Project 15B guided-missile destroyers

The shaft lines for the Indian Navy’s Project 15B destroyers will be produced by the Baltic Shipyard.

The Baltic Shipyard will produce four sets of shaft lines for India's newest torpedo-boat destroyers under Project 15B, which will be built at shipyards in Mumbai from 2018 to 2024, a source in the Russian defence industry told Interfax.

The shafts are expected to be ready by 2017, Baltic Shipyard said on its website: “Under the terms of the contract concluded between Baltic Shipyard LLC, Rosoboronexport, and the foreign customer, Baltic Shipyard is to produce four sets of shaft lines by the year 2017.”

The statement notes that the first contracts for such machine parts were fulfilled by the enterprise in the early 1990s, while shafts for the predecessor Project 15A were made in 2007-2009.

The source in the Russian defence industry clarified that the shaft lines were for four Project 15B destroyers, currently being built for the Indian Navy at the shipyards of Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) in Mumbai. Engineers of Northern Design Bureau (St Petersburg) had been involved in designing the blueprint of the destroyer, according to the source.

Baltic Shipyard is to produce four sets of shaft lines by the year 2017. Source: RIA Novosti

Indian Defence Minister A K Antony previously stated that his ministry had signed a contract with MDL in January 2011 for the construction of four new Project 15B destroyers. The ships are due to be built sequentially in June 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024.

Three ships of the Project 15A guided-missile destroyers are being constructed in the MDL. The four Project 15B destroyers are essentially upgraded Project 15A ships, with changes in the superstructure that will improve stealth and include better sound and infrared suppression systems. The displacement of each Project 15B ship will be about 8,000 tonnes and they will operate two helicopters.

The Project 15B ships will be armed with the Nirbhay land attack cruise missile, which has a 1,000 km range, the hypersonic Brahmos-2 anti-ship cruise missile, with a 300 km range and Extended Range Surface to Air Missile also known as Barak 8ER, which has a 120 km range.


First published in Russian in VPK.