By RIA Novosti,
St. Petersburg : The Indian Navy’s diesel-electric submarine INS Sindhuvijay will set sail for India Aug 5 after an extensive overhaul at a shipyard in northern Russia, the company said Tuesday.
The 877EKM Kilo-class submarine had been undergoing a refit at the Zvezdochka shipyard in Severodvinsk since 2005.
The overhaul was delayed for six months due to the under-performance of its new SS-N-27 Club-S cruise missiles.
In six consecutive pre-delivery test firings in 2007, the Club missiles failed to find their targets and India refused to accept the delivery until all the problems were fixed.
The Club-S subsonic cruise missile is designed for launch from a 533 mm torpedo tube, or a vertical launch tube. It has a range of 160 nautical miles (about 220 km). It uses an ARGS-54 active radar seeker and Glonass satellite and inertial guidance.
The new trials were successfully completed in mid-July.
The Sindhuvijay is the fourth submarine of the Indian Navy to have been refitted at the Zvezdochka shipyard.
The $80 million upgrading programme also involved a complete overhaul of the submarine, including its hull structure, as well as improved control systems, sonars, electronic warfare systems, and an integrated weapon control system.
Russia’s Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines have gained a reputation as extremely quiet vessels and have been in the military hardware of China, India, Iran, Poland, Romania and Algeria.