Stealth guided missile destroyer Mormugao Commissioned, 15 more needed
Another stealth-guided missile destroyer was inaugurated with the commissioning of INS Mormugao by Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh on the eve of Goa Liberation Day
INS Mormugao is the second of the four ‘Visakhapatnam’ class destroyers of ‘Project 15B’, indigenously designed by the Indian Navy’s in-house organisation, Warship Design Bureau and constructed by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, Mumbai.
INS Mormugao is 163 metre-long and 17 metre-wide with a displacement of 7,400 ton and a maximum speed of 30 knots (55 kmph). The warship is packed with sophisticated state of the art weapons and sensors such as surface to surface missile and surface to air missiles. It is fitted with a modern surveillance radar which provides target data to the gunnery weapon systems on board.
It has been named after the historic port city of Goa, Mormugao coincidentally undertook first sea trial on December 19, 2021, when Goa celebrated 60 years of liberation from the Portuguese rule.
Shri Rajnath Singh, Raksha Mantri, while commissioning the Ship in a ceremony in Mumbai said the INS Mormugao is evidence of India’s excellence in warship development and design. The Navy chief said the warship’s commissioning, on the eve Goa Liberation Day, is indicative of the large strides taken in warship design and building capability over the last decade.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan and Goa governor PS Sreedharan Pillai were present at the ceremony at naval dockyard.
The INS Mormugao is among the most powerful warships made indigenously. The commissioning of the warship would boost the country’s maritime power. Two more ships of the same class are at different stages of construction. They are INS Imphal and INS Surat.
The Indian economy, which is among the world’s top five economies, and it would be among the top three in 2027 according to experts emphasized the Raksha Mantri.
The size of the growing economy demands that both Western and Eastern Fleet requires 8 destroyers each, while the flotillas for Southern Naval Command and Andaman & Nicobar Command require 3 destroyers each. Next the sister ship to VIKRANT and the next one the 70000 ton nuclear powered aircraft carrier will require 2 destroyers each.
Thus Indian Navy needs a total of 26 destroyers by 2035. Presently it has 11 of them with two more joining by 2025. However INS Ranvir and Ranvijay are likely to be decommissioned before 2030. Four next generation cruisers of 13000 ton displacement have already been planned of which the Navy req Navy’s 2 ships for each of its four fleets ie a total of 8 such ships.
However the need for 8000 ton destroyers will always be there. So addition of 15 such destroyers must be planned and simultaneous construction should be started at both Garden Reach and Mazagaon Docks, so as to c omission the first of the ships by 2028-29.
