Cochin Shipyard Limited has emerged as the lowest bidder for the Indian Navy’s tender to procure six Next Generation Missile Vessels (NGMV). The tender is tentatively valued at Rs 10,000 crores.
Next Generation Missile Vessels are a planned class of anti-surface warfare corvettes for the Indian Navy. Under this programme the Indian Navy intends to acquire six advanced missile corvettes. Ships in this class will be armed with anti-ship or land attack missiles like Brahmos or Nirbhay.
On 2 January 2015 the Indian Ministry of Defence (MOD) issued a Request For Information (RFI) under Buy Indian and Make Indian category for six new missile corvettes by initiating the Next Generation Missile Vessels (NGMVs) programme. Vendors who chose to respond to the RFI must meet “minimum qualifying criteria” mainly, shipyard should have already built “vessel(s) of similar specifications”. An RfP worth $2.2 billions was filed by government of India to various Indian shipyards seeking for various warships including six missile boats.
The RFI suggests that ships will be about 2,000-2,500 tonnes each. The new ships will have a complement of 11 officers, 2 trainee officers and 80 sailors. The range will be at least 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 km; 3,200 mi) (1,000 nmi, 1,900 km, 1,200 mi at full speed) and speed performance will be 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) (max speed of 35 knots, 65 km/h, 40 mph). The ships will carry eight surface-to-surface missiles, a full-fledged surface-to-air missile (SAM) system with point defence capabilities and a 15 km (9.3 mi) range MR gun system. The ships will also have radar and electro-optically (EO) guided close-in weapon systems (CIWS) with 360-degree anti-missile defence.
The next-generation missile vessels will be India’s greatest success in export. The definition of Frigate and Destroyer changes from country to country. NGMV could be a deadly force multiplier for countries like even UAE who operates near Iranian, African waters! South China Sea countries could be interested! For India, this could become the cheapest missile boats armed with Brahmos which can be produced in large numbers. India and Russia are planning to export Brahmos to several counties in a large number. NGMV comes as package for those looking for a power-packed Brahmos system. A very interesting development for India.
Source: Wikipedia
