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Friday, December 6, 2019

How Nylon Necklaces Were Developed For Conducting OP TRIDENT & OP PYTHON in December 1971

During summertime in 1970, a group of group of 40 Indian Navy (IN) officers and 18 non-commissioned men—after learning the Russian language over a four-month period, were sent to the headquarters of the Soviet Navy’s Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok for an eight-month technical training course for mastering the operational and serviceability aspects of the 249-tonne Project 205 ‘Moskit’ FAC-M. After the crews returned in April 1971, the IN secretly commissioned its eight newly-acquired FAC-Ms (costing Rs.40 crore in total) in the 25 Missile Boat ‘Killer Squadron whose deliveries had commenced in November 1970. These FAC-Ms were delivered from Vladivostok by merchant vessels to Kolkata’s Kidderpore docks since the Bombay Port Trust (BPT) at that time had no heavylift unloading capability and the BPT’s in-house crane ‘Shravan’ had a maximum lift capacity of 90 tonnes. The handling agents at Kolkata were Chinoy-Chablani who had experience of heavylifts, having done the unloading of all the USSR-supplied machinery of the Bhilai Steel Plant. The IN next intended to tow the eight FAC-Ms from Kolkata with the help of the training vessel INS Cauvery.
Each of the FAC-Ms, designed by Almaz Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering and built by the Shipyard No.602 in Vladivostok, came fitted with three 4,000hp M-503G diesel engines that could attain over 35 Knots at full power in good sea state for short ranges. Vice Admiral Krishnan, who had steered the procurement of these FAC-Ms since 1969 1969 as Vice Chief of the Naval Staff in his book, ‘No Way But Surrender’, stated: “To me, the acquisition of these missile boats had become an obsession. The thyen Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Admiral Adhar Kumar Chatterji, was a forward-looking man and it was easy to convince him that we must, under every circumstance, buy at least six boats”, and the project for the eight FAC-Ms and TP for storing and preparing their liquid-fuelled P-15 Termit missiles was codenamed ‘Alpha Kilo’ after Admiral Chatterji.
Back in Mumbai, Vice Admiral Surendra Nath Kohli, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the IN’s Western Naval Command, began constructing shore-based facilities at INS Angre next to the Naval Dockyard, where the FAC-Ms were berthed for commissioning. The Technical Position (TP) for the Raduga P-15 Termit anti-ship guided-missile’s testing and stowage was set up in advance under USSR-trained Cmde B G Madholar at Mankhurd in suburban Mumbai, from where the P-15s were transported to The Naval Dockyard at Lion’s Gate after preparation by young electrical officers trained in Vladivostok like Lt Pramod Bhasin and B V M Rao. Later the TP shifted to Karanjia and became known as INS Agnibahu. This in turn greatly facilitated the Western Command’s efforts to plan, simulate and exercise missile attacks on a harbour (like Karachi).
In November 1970 after a very successful training cruise to the Australian ports of Fremantle and Bunbury to take part in Capt Cook’s Centenary celebrations, INS Cauvery and its complement of trainee Sub Lieutenants under Cdr H M L Saxena as Commanding and Senior Officer, and INS Tir under Cdr Hiranandani with trainee cadets cleared Customs at Port Blair. INS Tir’s Executive Officer (XO) was Lt Cdr S K Chand and Lt Cdr Ranjit B Rai was INS Cauvery’s XO and both were ordered to proceed to Kolkata to tow two newly-arrived Project 205 FAC-Ms to Mumbai. Meanwhile, a change of command took place and Cdr Inder Kumar Erry took over command of INS Cauvery and it proceeded towards Diamond Harbour. In Kolkata the FAC-Ms were taken in stern wire-rope tow configuration and the two towing vessels (Cauvery and Tir) cleared Diamond Harbour, and proceeded to Vishakhapatnam for the three days-plus passage at a cruising speed of about 8 Knots. The wire-rope catenary (length when the wire-rope dips/sinks into the water) was increased as the weather and sea state had deteriorated and the Chief Bosun mate and duty crew kept wetting the nips through the aft towing-rings and also on the bow-rings of the FAC-Ms. To pass food, mainly Parathas and Sabzi, to the skeleton crew on the FAC-Ms, both the towing vessels had to stop cruising and pass food by sea-boats. The wire-ropes parted twice and another berthing hawser was used and some seamanship of splicing was re-studied and attempted from the Seamanship Volume-1 of the Royal Navy. All in all, it was a tortuous tow from Kolkata to Vizag.
The arrival and entry into Vizag in December 1970 was uneventful and the Supply Officer Lt Cdr A J B Singh put in a demand for the supply of extra wire-towing hawsers and Naval Dockyard at Vizag was approached to see the ship’s Chief Bosun Mate who supervised the splicing, while some seamen were taken to ND(V) for training. The COs of both the towing vessels went to call on the Chief of Staff of the IN’s Eastern Naval Command, Commodore M S Grewal, and related to him the ordeal of towing and stated that they were all skeptical of going round the Gulf of Mannaar south of Dondra Point (south of Sri Lanka) where the seas can be challenging. Commodore Grewal then recalled that some marketing officials from Garware Ropes Ltd had come to his office to introduce nylon berthing hawsers (which were then being used only by Chowgule Shipping), and he immediately rang up the Admiral Superintendent of Vizag Naval Dockyard (ASD-ND) to see if some towing-trials could be conducted on the Cauvery and Tir.
This is when young naval constructors came on board and noticed that the towing ring on the FAC-Ms was a tight fit for the nylon hawsers and noticed the lifting brackets welded to the FAC-Ms. They next conferred with Soviet Navy specialists (part of the warranty team then based in India) and decided to fit such brackets all around the FAC-Ms at regular intervals to make a nylon rope into a ‘necklace’ and spliced it to extend the hawser to become a tow-rope for the towing vessel to easily warp the ropes around the quarter-deck bollards. It was ingenious and easy to handle and it worked wonders at sea, and the drill for towing two FAC-Ms by one ship was what was perfected for the towing of the FAC-Ms all the way to Karachi during the 1971 war. It was the trials executed in December 1970 that was the harbinger. Later, all the remaining FAC-Ms were towed from Kolkata to Mumbai in early 1971 using nylon hawsers. Thus, it was luck and providence and ingenuity of the young naval architects of the IN that the ‘necklace’ was the starting point to plan the naval attacks on Karachi in December 1971. Since then, both IN naval architects/young officers as well as Garware-Wall Ropes Ltd have made several innovations befitting a rising Navy.
Planned under the leadership of CNS, Admiral Sardarilal Mathradas Nanda and masterminded by then Fleet Operations Officer of the Western Naval Command, Cdr Gulaab Mohanlal Hiranandi, OP TRIDENT and OP PYTHON involved the subcontinent’s anti-ship guided-missile warfare engagements. OP TRIDENT on the night of December 4 was conducted by the Project 205 ‘Moskit’ FAC-Ms INS Nipat, INS Nirghat and INS Veer. Out of 11 (seven P-15U and four P-15T) Termits fired, only one malfunctioned, giving a 91% success rate. This task group was led by the Commanding Officer of the 25th Squadron, Commander Babru Bhan Yadav who was embarked on INS Nipat. In OP PYTHON, conducted on the night of December 8, the Project 205 Moskit FAC-M INS Vinash, fired four Termits at Karachi in a six-minute action. One Termit hit an oil tank, destroying it. The British ship Harmattan was sunk, while the Panamanian ship Gulfstar was set on fire. In addition, the Pakistan Navy fleet tanker, PNS Dacca, was badly damaged and only survived because the commanding officer, Capt S Q Raza, ordered the release of steam in the pipes that prevented the fire reaching the tanks.
The 2.5-tonne Raduga P-15 cruised at an altitude of about 150 to 300 metres (500 to 1,000 feet) under the direction of a gyroscopic stabilisation system and a barometric altimeter. Speed was about Mach 0.95 and range was about 40km (25 miles). It performed its terminal attack with an active radar seeker, striking with a 4G15 513kg (1,000 lb) conventional shaped-charge warhead. The Termit was powered by an Isayev P-15 liquid rocket rated at 1.213-0.554 tonnes thrust, using toxic AK-20K/TG-02 propellant based on the Luftwaffe’s Wasserfall fuel. This highly toxic and corrosive fuel presented serious handling problems in fuelling up and defuelling the missile, the propellant mix comprising AK-20K/F oxidiser (80% nitric acid, 20% N2O4 with fluorine or iodine additives) and TG02 fuel (50% xylidine and 50% triethylamine). The pre-programmed midcourse cruise altitudes varied between 25, 50 and 250 metres. Mid-course guidance used an inertial autopilot, with two terminal seekers available.
The WB Explained

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Prasunda,

In the previous thread you have said that the 6000+ km slbm is only in design stage at present. You also said that all composite stages for the A6 as well as this slbm are currently being ground tested, with testing of these systems to begin within three years. Is'nt this too optimistic an estimate for the 6000+ km slbm, given that even the K-4 is not ready as of now ?

Satyaki

AMIT BISWAS said...

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/11/26/india-pays-russia-12-billion-in-technology-transfer-fees-for-t-90s-tanks/


What kind of deal is this..beyond understanding

Ashish Gautam said...

Oh great so u too do RV sessions. Great. How can i learn it?? Can we see in future using RV??
Awesome article sir... Nylon ropes played very important role in both the ops... Hope in next op we have better equipment in hand of much more firepower...
1) btw in case of op pok recapture what will be level of naval engagement?? Coz this time am very sure that China will definitely put it's nose in between as this op will fully jeopardize it's CPEC... So how r we gonna manage it?? Both naval side as well as our possible engagement with China...?
2) some reports (not sure real or fake) says that Pakistan may target reliance refinery in gujrat, porbandar base, other areas in creek how we gonna defend them in an offensive defence manner??
3) azmat class FAC new challange?? How to counter?? Can't we speed up our 1500-3000 tonne class small destroyer project??
4) why have we not yet succeeded in designing mk41 or mk57 type VLS for our ships by which we can carry missiles in large no.s even on kolkata or Vishakapatnam class ships?? Btw I know brahmos's length is also big issue...🙄

Anonymous said...

Such low cost assets being used with skill and brilliant tactics leading to such massive damamges as in OP Trident ands OP Python, is rare. There were 400+ of these missile boats builts and used in several dozens of Navies. But never reached the results as shown in these 2 operations by Indian Navy. Truely remarkable!!!

But this shows that even with sub-optimal equipment, its the daring audacity and brilliant tactical planning can lead to fantastic results.

IT'S THE MAN BEHIND THE MACHINE THAT IS THE KEY.

Kane

Ashish Gautam said...

https://twitter.com/KesariDhwaj/status/1202978164974112769?s=19
A good reply to bandalbaaz for his latest bandalbaazi package😜

Sumit sen said...

Dada if these type of vessels were so deadly back then, why don't we make such boats with stealth profile now? Which missile boats are we using now? And which class of boats will enter our navy in future?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SATYAKI: Concurrent developmental activities are the norm & it takes up to six years at the very least to complete the test-firing process, starting from tests of different stegas & culminating in the complete multi-stage firing trials.

To AMIT BISWAS: Will explain it in detail next week in a new thread. It is all about military-industrial details of the type neither understood not explained by the ‘desi patrakaars’. And that’s precisely why even the ‘netas’ continue to insist that licenced-production of military hardware promotes self-reliance!

To ANUP: The laws of nature dictate that evil can only be contained, but never eliminated.

To SUMIT SEN: All your questions were answered way back here:

https://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/2019/07/case-for-combining-indian-navys-ngmv.html

To ASHISH GAUTAM: You can make a start WRT RV-learning by watching these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ryc196s0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4uS_7q-hnE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thq8sVv0lps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P4PORYeVDQ

1) There won’t be naval engagements since any PoK-related AirLand military campaign will be limited to the Chhamb-Sialkot sector & will not spill over into areas where the IB exists. 2) By investing in cruise missile defence networks. 3) Such FAC-Ms can easily be countered by airborne platforms like P-8I & MiG-29UPGs armed with air-launched AGM-84L & Kh-35 anti-ship cruise missiles. 4) Because the guided-missiles selected by the IN come from different OEMs & hence there’s no systems commonality.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASHISH GAUTAM: Here’s the IA-released RFI for 8 x 8 ICVs:

https://indianarmy.nic.in/writereaddata/RFI/687/RFI%20WH%20AFV%20.pdf

Actually, both are engaging in ‘bandalbaazi’ because they don’t understand the nature of the future battlefield & consequently they can’t figure out the character of future AirLand wars. And both of these are in turn heavily dependent on geography, which most Indians are unaware of. This is what needs to be kept in mind:

The International Border (IB) between India and Pakistan spans 2,175km. In addition, the Working Boundary (WB) spans 202km, the Line of Control (LoC) spans 797km, and the Line of Actual Contact—which India calls the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL)—from map-grid reference NJ-9842 till Indra Kol—spans 108km. The LoC runs from a place called Sangam close to Chhamb all the way up north to NJ-9842 in Ladakh, following which the AGPL takes over. The WB from Malu to the Punjab belt running through Ramgarh, Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts lies in Jammu Division between Boundary Pillar 19 and Sangam i.e. between Jammu and Sialkot, which was part of the erstwhile princely state of J & K. It is this stretch that is known in India as the International Boundary (IB), while Pakistan refers to it as the WB, since it maintains that the border agreement (the so-called standstill agreement) was inked between the princely state of J & K and Pakistan, and not between India & Pakistan.

Since launching AirLand military campaigns across the IB under a nuclear overhang is completely out of the question, military hostilities will be limited to only areas across the WB & LoC. This is why in such areas, the IA has since 2004 built 7 new cantonments & has equipped the formations there with Brigades equipped with MBTs & ICVs even though they are known as ‘Pivot’ formations, meaning they don’t have the support of the IA’s Strike Corps or Armoured Divisions that continue to remain deep inside India’s hinterland & will take at least 2 weeks to reach their designated breakout areas close to the WB. Consequently, if an AirLand offensive is to be launched by the IA at short notice along the WB, then the Pivot formations will have to move out first into enemy territory over agricultural terrain & rural areas & will have to continue advancing at high speeds by fighting high-tempo battles. The IA, for such scenarios, has planned for its AirLand campaigns to advance as far west as Mangla. Hence, such advancing MECHANISED formations will not have the time to seize & hold on to territory already traversed, & this job will instead be fulfilled by second-echelon follow-on MOTORISED forces equipped for quickly neutralising individual entrenched enemy pockets of resistance. And that’s exactly why such follow-on forces will need to be transported by lighter 8 x 8 ICVs that have enough integral firepower (like 30mm cannons & bunker-bursting medium-range/short-range guided missiles (not exactly ATGMs) for engaging in combined-arms operations—something which the French expeditionary forces had achieved against the Iraqi Army back in early 1991 as part of OP Desert Storm.

Cont’d below…

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

have uploaded above the slides showing the density of defensive infrastructure built by the PA, which are manned by the Pakistan Rangers in peacetime all along the WB. They all depict an elaborate network of communications trenches that are protected by earthern berms from where the PA can fire ATGMs during wartime. Hence, the only way to neutralise such structures in detail is to invest in superior firepower & superior combat engineering capabilities & that’s why the IA not only wants wheeled 8 x 8 ICVs, but also a large number of Rudra helicopter-gunships for providing immediate air-support as well as domestically-developed tank trawls that are reqd for breaching the extensive minefields that will be laid by the PA along the WB, especially in the Chicken’s Neck area.

In this day & age, when airborne platforms like LUH/RSH helicopters & MALE-UAVs & ground-based LORROS-type sensors are available for terrain recce, ground vehicles for conducting scout/recce missions are not reqd anymore.