Again, what’s going onFire damages Indian Kilo Class Submarine at Mumbai Yard
Fire at Mumbai Yard resulted in damage to a recently upgraded Kilo class submarine.
Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
As I said a few months ago, Indian boat making capabilities are subpar. There was a post about the quality of shipbuilding compared using pics of Ship Hulls (Japan,China and Indian destroyers).I made a remark that the visibly poor craftsmanship of Indian boat-builders are more likely to be the norm across all services of the Indian naval forces rather than just the surface Fleet - including Submarines( SSBNs). I became, unsurprisingly, a focus of complaints regarding unfair bias and bad faith.
Some vindication have been there for me and possibly, more importantly, damning conclusions have to be drawn, especially in the light of a recent report by Jane's
This report has an introductory paragraphs that runs as follows :
"The Indian Navy (IN) has postponed by several months the commissioning of the second of six Kalvari (Scorpène)-class diesel-electric attack submarines (SSKs) following the discovery of what appear to be manufacturing defects."
So, the most recent and top of the line Diesel electric boats of the Indian Navy will miss its induction date due to manufacturing quality issues.
Do note that this submarine is NOT the first boat in the class. The first boat seems to have been inducted successfully. So there appears to be a lack in maintaining quality manufacturing processes. My doubts regarding the quality of Indian nuclear submarines hold.
It must be concluded that India indeed lacks experience in shipbuilding. I would like to add that such a deficiency seems to be spread across all platforms and India needs to invest into domestic shipbuilding capabilities and take long term approach in the matter. Building small auxiliary ships and exporting them would help.
Some vindication have been there for me and possibly, more importantly, damning conclusions have to be drawn, especially in the light of a recent report by Jane's
This report has an introductory paragraphs that runs as follows :
"The Indian Navy (IN) has postponed by several months the commissioning of the second of six Kalvari (Scorpène)-class diesel-electric attack submarines (SSKs) following the discovery of what appear to be manufacturing defects."
So, the most recent and top of the line Diesel electric boats of the Indian Navy will miss its induction date due to manufacturing quality issues.
Do note that this submarine is NOT the first boat in the class. The first boat seems to have been inducted successfully. So there appears to be a lack in maintaining quality manufacturing processes. My doubts regarding the quality of Indian nuclear submarines hold.
It must be concluded that India indeed lacks experience in shipbuilding. I would like to add that such a deficiency seems to be spread across all platforms and India needs to invest into domestic shipbuilding capabilities and take long term approach in the matter. Building small auxiliary ships and exporting them would help.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Wow, getting into a naval engagement with India must be really confusing. You show up in your jet with your ship-killer missiles only to find all their ships are already on fire so now you have no idea which ones have already been hit and are sinking and which ones still need to be hit! You start making calls to the last attack squad to see if they remember which ones they hit in order to determine which ones are left and end up having to retreat because you've loitered too long trying to figure it out and now you're low on fuel LOL
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by78
General
@Gessler,
Five years ago you made the prediction that P15B would enter service in 2018, which I deemed wildly optimistic based on India's abysmal record of project management. I had predicted 2020 as the earliest when Project 15B would enter service, and I have been proven correct. As seen and , the earliest commission date was to be sometime in 2021.
Then, this shipyard fire happened...
So I will accordingly update my prediction. P15B will not enter service until 2023 at the earliest. I think 2024 or 2025 would be realistic. Basically 11 years to from keel-laying to commissioning.
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by78
General
I don't know, but I have to trust the firefighters on this one. The fire appears to have been quite serious. I wonder if the hull will be totaled and therefore written off. If not, the repair could take a long time and at great cost, even if assuming that no critical subsystems have been installed.
I don't know, but I have to trust the firefighters on this one. The fire appears to have been quite serious. I wonder if the hull will be totaled and therefore written off. If not, the repair could take a long time and at great cost, even if assuming that no critical subsystems have been installed.
I am very skeptical if either of those pictures are depicting the actual ship.
From what I understand the fire was limited to decks 2 and 3, not exactly a fireball.
That said I do expect the commissioning deadline to slip further back
by78
General
Hard to see from these photos, as they were taken at night. The second one is from a live TV news report. What's also not clear are the terms "deck 2 and 3". Are these two decks just above the main deck, as per naval convention, or are they counting from the ship's bottom to top, as per non-naval convention? If the former, then the fire could still be very deep within the hall, and if so, judging from the photos, the damage could only have been extensive; if the latter, than there's an even bigger probability that the hull is lost.
But we'll have to see...
I'm not sure what "deck 2 and 3" means either; as you see, does it mean above the main deck or from the keel upwards?
But at present that is the only firm information we have.
I haven't come across any pictures showing the fire or the results of it on social media or on the major Indian defense tracking forums.
The picture with the weibo account tag is a picture that I haven't seen posted on any other forum or used in any news reports about the fire that I've seen (and I've been tracking a few Indian defense forums and the news feed for the fire), so I'm not even sure if it's depicting the ship at all or even if it's showing MDL. Out of interest, where did you find that picture in the first place?
[edit: doing a reverse image search of that picture, I'm 100% convinced it isn't of the P15B fire -- it's been featured in articles going back as far as 2015. I'm not sure what the original event was, but it certainly of the P15B]
The TV report one seems to just be a generic stand in picture of a "fire," and not intended to represent the actual ship.
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