INS Dunagiri: India’s new stealth frigate echoes legacy of 1977 vessel

Kolkata, June 20 (IANS) The Nilgiri-class advanced, guided-missile, stealth frigate INS Dunagiri, to be commissioned into the Navy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kolkata on Sunday, June 21, is the reincarnation of another warship of the same name commissioned 49 years ago.

INS Dunagiri was built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) Ltd and delivered on March 30 this year with two other warships, INS Sanshodhak and INS Agray, which will also be commissioned by the Prime Minister.

The warship to be commissioned on Sunday is an advanced, radar-evading, digital warship under the Navy’s Project 17A, while the old INS Dunagiri (F36) was a steam-powered Leander-class frigate with a length of 113.38 metres and a displacement of 2,692 tonnes. The modern ship has a displacement of 6,670 tonnes and is 149 metres long.

Built by Mazagon Docks in 1977, the earlier warship was constructed under a foreign design licence, while the new one has an indigenous content of nearly 75 per cent.

“The old ship had a traditional steel superstructure that lit up brightly on enemy radar screens. The new frigate has complex stealth geometry and is built with radar-absorbent materials to significantly reduce its radar cross-section. It is made to act like a ghost on the water,” an official said.

As for armaments, the old frigate relied on twin 115 mm Vickers guns, while the modern one has a rapid-firing 127 mm main gun. F36 lacked advanced anti-ship missiles altogether, while the new Dunagiri packs BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles for long-range surface strikes, alongside Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells for Medium Range Surface to Air Missiles (MRSAMs).

The Leander-class frigate could only accommodate a single Sea King or Chetak helicopter, while the Nilgiri-class one boasts a larger deck, allowing it to embark and service two multi-role helicopters such as the MH-60R Seahawk or ALH Dhruv Mark-III.

“The indigenous content in the modern INS Dunagiri is immense. The entire structural hull was built using indigenous DMR 249A shipbuilding steel. Its Integrated Platform Management System has been developed indigenously to manage, monitor, and automate the ship’s complex Combined Diesel or Gas (CODOG) propulsion system, auxiliary systems, and power generation units through a unified digital interface,” the official added.

The ship’s Controllable Pitch Propellers (CPP) have been manufactured and integrated locally, with blades that dynamically adjust pitch to optimise fuel efficiency during quiet cruising or high-speed tactical manoeuvres.

The warship’s torpedo and rocket launchers are indigenous, as is the 76 mm Super Rapid Gun Mount (SRGM) for surface-to-air threats, paired with twin 12.7 mm Stabilised Remote-Controlled Guns (SRCG). It has the indigenous HUMSA-NG Sonar Suite and the Shakti Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite. The flight deck and telescopic hangar systems were indigenously re-engineered to seamlessly support and service the Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv Mk-III, vastly expanding the warship’s over-the-horizon surveillance and anti-submarine capabilities.

–IANS

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