Keel laying of the two warships (Yard 3033 and Yard 3036) of Anti-submarine Warfare Shallow Craft (ASW SWC) project under construction by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE), Kolkata, was undertaken on 31 Dec 22 by Shri Giridhar Aramane, IAS, Defence Secretary. The ASW SWC ships will have over 80% indigenous content, ensuring that large scale defence production is executed by Indian manufacturing units thereby generating employment and capability build up within the country. He further said that with the induction of ASW SWC ships, the IN’s ASW capability will be enhanced.
Speaking on the occasion, Defence Secretary appreciated Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers’s efforts towards achieving the significant milestone. He stated that laying of keel for these two ships reinforces Indian Navy resolve towards completely indigenous shipbuilding as part of Prime Minister’s vision of ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’. VAdm Kiran Deshmukh, CWP&A, RAdm Sandeep Mehta, ACWP&A, Cmde PR Hari (Retd), CMD, GRSE, Cmde Indrajeet Das Gupta, WPS (Kol), Directors and other senior officials of Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and Indian Navy were also present during the occasion.
The ASW-SWC corvettes, are a class anti-submarine warfare vessels currently being built for the Indian Navy, by Cochin Shipyard (CSL) and Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE). They were conceived as a replacement to the ageing Abhay-class corvettes of the Indian Navy, and are designed to undertake anti-submarine warfare (ASW) duties – including subsurface surveillance in littoral-waters, search-and-attack unit (SAU) missions and coordinated anti-submarine warfare operations with naval aircraft. They were also designed to provide secondary duties – including defense against intruding aircraft, minelaying and search-and-rescue (SAR).
The ASW-SWC vessels are equipped with one RBU-6000 anti-submarine rocket launcher and two sets of light-weight torpedo-tube launchers for launching anti-submarine torpedoes, (presumably the Advanced Light Weight Torpedo (ALWT)), for neutralizing enemy submarines. The vessels are also equipped with mine rails, which enables the vessel to lay anti-submarine mines along the seabed. Aside from its primary anti-submarine weaponry, the vessels are also equipped with one small-calibre cannon (presumably the CRN-91 30 mm naval gun) and two 12.7 mm M2 “Stabilized Remote Controlled Gun” remote-weapon stations (RWS), equipped with optronic control systems.
