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Moscow: Russia has completed the first stage of pre-delivery trials of the Akula-II class ‘Nerpa’ nuclear-powered attack submarine, which is likely to be operational with the Indian Navy much before New Delhi’s indigenous ‘INS Arihant’.

The ‘Nerpa’ submarine will join the Navy by the year-end with the first set of sea trials being completed successfully according to schedule, an official of the Amur Shipyard was quoted as saying by the ‘RIA Novosti’ Monday.

But top officials in both Moscow and New Delhi are tight-lipped about the armaments the submarine will carry.

While ‘INS Arihant’ is being armed with 700-km range K-15 nuclear-tipped missiles, it is not known if Nerpa will have Indian or Russian nuclear missiles.
‘Nerpa’, the Akula-II class submarine, has a displacement of 12,000 tonnes and is far bigger than ‘INS Arihant’, which has just 6,000 tonnage capacity.

India joined an elite club of nations, including the US, Russia, China, France and the UK to produce nuclear under-sea vessels with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur inaugurating the sub for extensive sea trials on Sunday.

The new trials for Nerpa are taking place as it was hit by a major mishap on November 8 in the Sea of Japan when accidental triggering of the fire suppression system led to release of highly toxic gas, killing 20 crew members and civilian technical staff. It resumed sea trials on July 10 following extensive repairs.

Nerpa is the latest nuclear submarine in the Russian Navy’s armada. Though ‘INS Arihant’ has some features like the Russian sub, but according to NATO sources the Akula-class vessel is one of the most potent undersea weapons in the world, far superior than the Chinese subs.

After the sea trials, Indian Navy men would be trained on Nerpa, which can come in handy for personnel posted on board the ‘Arihant’.

“The (Nerpa) sub is back at the in Bolshoi Kamen (port) in the Maritime Territory, and it is getting ready for the second stage of the scheduled trials,” the shipyard official said.

Some special equipment for performance checking and adjustment work will be installed on board the submarine, before it begins the second and final stage of pre-delivery trials.

Source: PTI

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After spending over a decade cloaked under an obscure project name, the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) India’s first nuclear submarine finally gets a name: Arihant (destroyer of enemies), pulled out of a list with options like Astra.  But more importantly, the Arihant propels India into an exclusive league of only five other nations who have designed and built their own nuclear-powered submarines. It also marks the first step towards the acquisition of the third leg of the nuclear triad— a secure underwater platform for launching nuclear weapons.

Based on the design of a Charlie-1 submarine which India leased from the former Soviet Union between 1987-’91, the submarine is currently housed in a completely-enclosed dry-dock called the Shipbuilding Centre (SBC) in Visakhapatnam. The launch, where the long, narrow dry dock is to be flooded with water from the harbor and the submarine floated out, is only the first step.

The Arihant is to be towed out of the SBC into an enclosed pier for its harbor trials. The trials will prove its nuclear power plant and auxiliary systems before it heads out into the Bay of Bengal for sea trials and weapon trials of the 12 K-15 ballistic missiles it is armed with. It will take the submarine between two and three years before commissioning.

In the meantime, the navy will get its first nuclear submarine, the Chakra, an Akula-2 class nuclear powered attack submarine currently undergoing sea trials in the Pacific Ocean off Vladivostok. The Chakra is to be commissioned later this year before sailing to Visakhapatnam. The submarine (known s the Nerpa in Russian service) is being acquired on a ten-year lease from Russia under a secret agreement signed in January 2004. India paid $ 650 million for the completion and lease of the submarine which is being acquired to rapidly train crews to man the fleet of three nuclear submarines which are to be inducted by 2015. Hull sections of two more ATVs have been completed by L&T at its Hazira facility and are to be transported to the SBC for assembling soon after the Arihant vacates dock space.