Massive: First look of Indian Navy Project-18 Next Generation Destroyers with 144 VLS tubes revealed

Source : IgMp Bureau

Indian Navy Project-18 Next Generation Destroyer in a promotional video released by the Indian Navy

Today we will discuss about the Project-18 Next Generation Destroyers of the Indian Navy which will be approved and constructed in the coming years.

Indian Navy has recently launched a promotional video of futuristic weapons and platforms, where they have mainly displayed Next Generation Combat Management System (NGCMS). Next Generation Combat Management System basically will be an Integrated Combat Management System where there will be teaming up of Man and Machine, and there will be optimized interoperability. That means, the unmanned systems being developed by the Indian Navy, be it Unmanned Surface Vessels, be it Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or be it Unmanned Underwater Vessels, will work together under a single system, and they can work well with the older systems too and this is what being called ‘Optimised Interoperability’ which is technologically a big step.

#PathtoPride@IndianNavy showcasing next generation Combat Management System in #DefExpo22 .
Design caters for optimal interoperability targeting manned-unmanned teaming operations.
An Integrated Combat System evolving new age warfare.
#Technologyforfuture#AatmanirbharBharat pic.twitter.com/K6OrLrcZBX

— IN (@IndiannavyMedia) October 14, 2022

But our focus in the video is not the Next Generation Combat Management System but the ship displayed in the video. And whenever these kind of videos are being released, either the existing model or the future models are being used to display futuristic weapons. And if you closely watch the model displayed in the video, then you can easily recognize it as a futuristic ship which is going to be inducted in the near future.

Front Section of the Ship

If you closely look at the ship design, then you can understand that this is the model of Indian Navy’s much anticipated Project-18 Next Generation Destroyer which is shown to have equipped with huge amount of missiles. Let’s have a detailed study of this model below

On this ship, most likely a 127mm Naval gun will be used as you all may remember that few months ago Ministry of Defence has already said that a 127mm Naval Artillery Gun is being developed indigenously for the Indian Navy’s future platforms, and it will be a 62 calibre gun, the work on which has already begun in the country.

The main radar mast in this ship looks similar of the radar mast of existing Kolkata and Visakhapatnam class, which means an improved variant of MF-STAR AESA radar may be used, or an indigenous Ship mounted Long Ragne AESA radar will be built to look exactly similar like Israeli MF-STAR.

There are two Close-in Weapon Systems (CIWS) on the middle part of the ship on two sides, while just behind SATCOM antenna, there are one more Close-in Weapon System, while there are two torpedo launchers too just behind the SATCOM antenna mast, although it can not be understood that how many tubes are there in the torpedo launcher due to poor resolution quality of the video.

But the most important thing to watch out for in this ship, is the Vertical Launch System (VLS) for missiles. If we closely watch the ship from front then we can see that there is a 72 launch VLS in the front area while there are also another VLS launch system at the back part of the ship which looks identical to the front one, which means there are 72 more VLS cells behind, although we can not confirm it because of image resolution, for that we can only speculate that there will also be a  72 cells VLS behind.

Image Credit : Twitter @vinoddx9

If you closely observe the VLS cells of this ship, then you can understand that the VLS is designed just like Mk45 Vertical Launch System that means from one single Universal Vetical Launch System (UVLS) every type of missiles can be launched but the only difference is that short missiles will be installed in multiple numbers in single VLS tube, and for that reason it is being regarded that the final number of missiles may exceed the total VLS number of 144.

But the real punch will come when the hypersonic missiles like BrahMos-II(K) or DRDO’s own Hypersonic Cruise Missile will be available for deployment from these ships. This doesn’t mean that our current firepower of BrahMos missiles are lesser, if we install even 50% of the 144 VLS that means 72 VLS with BrahMos missiles then it will be more than the firepower of 4 Kolkata or Visakhapatnam class Destroyers which currently field 16 BrahMos missiles each and we are currently operating 3 Kolkata class and 1 Visakhapatnam class Destroyers that means we are operating 4X16= 64 BrahMos missiles at once, which is still less than one single Project-18 Destroyer’s firepower.

Although the punch comes with 16 BrahMos cruise missiles for Anti Ship role is huge, but for land attack role, we need 100s of missiles although that role is specifically for Cruisers, but when it comes to Next Generation Destroyers, they must field this capability and we are delighted that the work on it has already begun.

Overall, we can say that Indian Navy’s Project-18 Next Generation Destroyers is going to be an asset for the Indian Navy in the long run for power projection.

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