Off late there has been mounting speculation about the electronic warfare (EW) suites on board the Indian Navy’s (IN) principal surface combatants. This analysis is therefore being presented as a photo-essay to fully explain the principal elements of the respective EW suites now operational with the IN. The IN’s tryst with integrated shipborne EW suites began in the early 1980s when the first three Project 16 Godavari-class guided-missile frigates (FFG) were equipped with the mast-mounted Nettuno 2000 suite supplied by Italy’s Elettronica Spa. The suite comprised ESM and ECM sections, and an offboard countermeasures dispenser, which in India’s case was the PK-10. The ESM section (photo 1) also incorporated an ELINT sub-section (using four monopulse multi-beam DF antenna arrays) and together the section provided 100% intercept probability of radar emitters, and also performed environment synthesis. The section’s automation levels ensured immediate emission identification (based on a comprehensive threat library). Real-time pre-processing was achieved with an advanced multi-microprocessor using customised algorithms. The ESM section could undertake instantaneous and accurate pulse-by-pulse measurements, and achieve frequency and intra-pulse modulation using a digital frequency measurement module. The ECM section (photo 2), using two transmitters, employed coherent jamming techniques to counter pulse-coded threats and achieved high-ERP by using the high-power transmitters and twin stabilised directional antennae (port and starboard). Completing the circuit was the PK-10 decoy dispenser (photo 3).By the late 1990s, the Defence Research & Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Hyderabad-based Defence R & D laboratory (DRDL), under the auspices of Project Sangraha, had succeeded in developing the Ajanta family of combined ESM/ELINT systems (comprising the Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 variants), while the Bangalore-based Advanced Systems Integration and Evaluation Organisation (ASIEO) had developed a high-power radar reflector antenna designed specifically to jam the active radars of inbound anti-ship cruise missiles. Two such antennae are mounted port and starboard in the main mast just below the topmast-mounted Ajanta. When integrated with a bigger ECM system (housed inside the main mast) and offboard countermeasures dispensers like the Russia-supplied PK-10 or Elbit Systems’ Desceaver), the ECM section came to be known as Ellora. The twin high-power radar reflector antennae can be clearly seen on board the Project 15 Delhi-class guided-missile destroyer (DDG) just above the Orekh illuminating radars (as seen on photos 4 & 5), and on the main masts of the Project 16A FFG (photo 6, on INS Betwa). The Project 25 and Project 25A guided-missile corvettes and all five Kashin II-class DDGs (photo 7) are equipped with the Ajanta ESM/ELINT intercept system integrated with PK-10 countermeasures dispensers and Nettuno ECM-4000 system, while each of the three Project 17 Shivalik-class FFGs and three Project 15A Kolkata-class DDGs will each have on board the Ajanta Mk3 ESM/ELINT section, while the ECM section will comprise the twin high-power radar reflector antennae, as well as Elettronica Spa’s planar phased-array ECM section (see photos 8 & 9). This section is also housed within the main masts of the three Project 15 DDGs--Prasun K. Sengupta
23 comments:
god damn it.. why would ELLORA be fitted on a malaysian navy ship?? Common man, be logical
im judging based on image name
helllooo, why does betwa, ranjit andrajput have a malaysian flag buddy
????
u trying to con us with some malaysian ship?
To Anons@11.40AM & 11.42AM: Are yaar, helllooo, it is naval tradition that whenever a visiting warship visits another country, the warship has to fly the flag of the host country while it is either pierside or at anchorage. Those are all Indian warships taking part at the LIMA maritime exhibition in Malaysia.
prasun, are you absolutely 400% sure that the nettuno systems are in service with IN? coz if they are, it is very enticing info,,,
4000 is i think ur speculation coz there is no neeed for it also its not required coz we have israeli ssttem
hile the Bangalore-based Advanced Systems Integration and Evaluation Organisation (ASIEO) had developed a high-power radar reflector antenna designed specifically to jam the active radars of inbound anti-ship cruise missiles. Two such antennae are mounted port and starboard in the main mast just below the topmast-mounted Ajanta. When integrated with a bigger ECM system (housed inside the main mast) and offboard countermeasures dispensers like the Russia-supplied PK-10 or Elbit Systems’ Desceaver), the ECM section came to be known as Ellora. The twin high-power radar reflector antennae can be clearly seen on board the Project 15 Delhi-class guided-missile destroyer (DDG) just above the Orekh illuminating radars (as seen on photos 4 & 5), and on the main masts of the Project 16A FFG (photo 6, on INS Betwa).
nahin yaar phir maar kha gaye. its not like that,,,, the ellora is next version of ajanta, and it is not combo of imported and indian but fully indian and yes its gots ECM as well
The Nettuno 4100 was first advertised in 1996. I doubt IN will be going for these systems today.
Prasun u r unjustly removing comments i was the anon @ 11:40,41 and 42 and saw nothing wrong with first comment but u have removed it.. u r extremely sensitive and in this direction nobodys gonna come 2 ur blog. pls be more open like ajai n shiv n rather not reply to nasty stuff than delete. deletion is only done when extremely derogatory statements r written. hope u dont mind. n thanx for info on malaysian flag. i thought u r trying to fool us or something
i noe u r new 2 blogging but u have to respect peoples expressions or else u r no different from malaysian govt who blocked rpk's site. Can u deny that 1st comment was extremely provocative / derogatory / repulsive? The guy just gave something in his perspective. U gotta lot to learn from Shiv Saab. He may not have much info as u but he is good at handling a blog. pls dont drive me away frm here.
Hey Prasun, i'm convinced that you are quite well versed with all these technical nuances. But aren't you giving away too much of sensitive info?
To Anon@7:29PM: Relax bro. As long as we all engage in civilised discourse and use persuasive arguments and agree to disagree without getting personal and overbearing, I'm sure we all could happily co-exist in this blog and exchange 'jhappis & puppies'. But there's always a red line, and a certain threshold of tolerance for any human being in terms of enduring vulgar or abrasive indignations & slander. I'm sure you feel what I'm implying. When blogging my motto was, is and will always be 'no offense given & none taken, and with malice towards none'.
To Anon@7:32PM: I'm always open to new or opposing perspectives, new angles, new or alternate explanations. But not a 'holier than thou' attitude without adequate justification. If for instance someone claims that it is like this instead of like that without even establishing his/her credibility or identity, then on what basis am I to accept such an attitude? If for instance someone accuses me of getting it wrong on the Rohini/TRS-17 radar issue, then the right way to do it is to identify oneself and make a brief statement on why his/her professional views are to be taken as the Holy Gospel. Only then will I respond with my evidence and reproduce in this blog scanned copies of the business cards of those officials from both the DRDO and the Polish companies to prove beyond doubt who my sources of information are. But regretably, the opposing party refuses to emerge from the shadows to prove his/her point to everyone, and instead persists on having a slug-fest without even explaining why I should totally believe him/her, and not providing irrefutable proof of his/her superior intellect (like a business card). Now, by nature I cannot condone such attitudes simply because I'm running a blog here, not an outsourced espionage agency.
To Anon@10:29PM: That is a matter of perception. But kindly rest assured that 'sensitive' info does not automatically translate into 'classified' info. Because those photos I uploaded were of the warships that took part in international expos where everyone had access to them both at pierside and on-board and unrestricted photography was allowed. Only the warships' CICs were out of bounds for photographers, but visual access was allowed. During the numerous defence & aerospace expos that are organised throughout the world such hardware-related exchange of 'technological/industrial information is openly conducted. Such things cannot and will never be kept as secrets. What is a secret and is subject to second-guessing is the warfighter's operational art, be in on land, at sea or in the air.
anon@10:29:00 PM - you are such a fool in my opinion. If they are classified how would prasun know in the first place? U think he's a high ranking officer in India's defence establishments? Or a RAW or IB officer? If some ordinary guy / blogger like prasun knows about it its no longer 'classified'.
Prasun as i told u should just ignore comments that u dont like. it is not compulsory for you to respond to each n every comment posted here. if you feel its profitable responding, respond, or else just ignore it, simple as that. In that respect I really respect SHiv Aroor. He may not have the access and coverage to defence related stuff as you do but even if I write "fuck off shiv" as a comment I can assure you he wont delete it. In fact even ajai rarely deletes comments, he dont like 4 letter words but other than that no problems. If you take offence from what those anons leave u means their mission is accomplished -n by deleting they know they succesfully offended u. if u just ignore their comments they may continue another 1 or 2 times and theyll get fed-up and leave. or perhaps repent. thank about it.
Prasun does it mean when Nimitz came to India sometime ago it flew Indian flag? You gotta be kidding.
To Anon@2:36AM: Your opinions are duly noted and deeply appreciated. Rock on!
To Anon@2:40AM: No I shit you not mate. It is an age-old maritime tradition. Go to any public library and check out any published material on naval/maritime tradions--both ancient and contemporary--Whenever ANY warship enters India's territorial waters on a goodwill visit (be it the Nimitz or Ronald Reagan, etc), the Indian tricolour must be raised and flown. It does not mean the warship is then Indian-flagged, because the flag of the country of origin of the warship is raised in the main flag-mast on the ship's bow. And that was the reason the Malaysian flag was seen on board the those Indian Navy warships all the while they were on a goodwill visit to Malaysia. If you also check the photos of those foreign warships that took part in past Indian Navy-hosted International Fleet Reviews, you will clearly notice the Indian tricolour fluttering on ALL those visiting warships while they were at anchorage.
to prasun
i want to no that what kind of SAM MISSILES rajput,talwar class has to defend against anti ship missiles
and how these missiles compared to barak missile
To Anon@9:27AM: The three Kashin II-class DDGs that are due to receive the BrahMos anti-ship cruise missiles are also due to be fitted with the Barak-1. The Project 1135.6 Talwar-class FFGs have twin Kashtan-M close-in weapon systems on board. Two years ago there were some problems encountered by the Kashtan-M's fire-control electronics (duer to the high humidity levels prevailing in the high seas around the subcontinent) but were subsequently rectified jointly by the Navy's WESEE & Rosoboronservice. But you must note this: ALL firing trials conducted thus far of the Kashtan-M and Barak-1 have been aginst the inbound P-18/P-20 termit class of anti-ship cruise missiles. It remains to be seen how effective these close-in weapon systems will be against supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles like the BrahMos, or Club-S/M.
dear prasun, ur welcome to visit lrde and see how wrong u were on the rohini issue. it was taken very badly by several ppl who wrked on the project and toiled nite and day for the same. points of contact shud be dr cleetus (ex drtr, lrde). all other details are already available on shivs blog. no point in repeating the same. fyi, the rohini is a masterpiece of indian radar engineering. the key codeveloped elements such as its planar array are now replaced by indian one and its got much improved electronics. keep watching and u will see many more radar designs from drdo coming out in the next fwe years. and its the fruit of hard work not purchase. only wsh that stupid mmr prjct had been better managed we had ability but we made 2 many mistakes in coordination in d&d phase which delayed it
To ANON@1:24PM: I think you misunderstood me earlier through my previous comments in Shiv's blog. I will be the first to acknowledge that even with any ToT agreement with an industrial partner, there remains a whole lot of engineering development activity that one has to undertake indigenously and singlehandedly, specially customising it to suit the very demanding QRs of the end-user and I believe it is here that the DRDO/LRDE has played a pivotal role in not only leading the effort, but also acting as Project Director and convincing the local Indian OEMs (both PSUs and private sector) that such projects are indeed viable and can be great successes. In fact, when i was talking last April with some LRDE officials and GRSE officials during the DSA 2008 exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, they gave me a comprehensive briefing on the Revathi radar and how happy the Indian Navy has been thus far with its performance, which was far better than initially predicted. So kindly believe me when I say that I have never underestimated the path-breaking efforts of the DRDO and India's defence electronics industry as a whole.
Regarding the MMR project, have no worries as things will eventually be sorted out. But for your information, I must say that the problem was never within the DRDO at all. The DRDO would always live up to its promises PROVIDED the Ministry of Defence extended wholehearted support in terms of project financing and acting as a pro-active enabler to encourage the defence PSUs and private sector to form task-specific consortiums with an irreversible roadmap aimed at attaining core technology competencies. It is due to the absence of this approach--largely due to the ill-informed the mandarins at MoD--that the DRDO is saddled not only with scientific technology development, but also prototype development and engineering development, which should be the job of the industry, not the DRDO. To me this is the main problem that becomes the DRDO's main handicap, when the DRDO's charter clearly states that it is only required to acquire and master the core scientific technological competencies, and not industrial engineering/production competencies. I wish you all the very best in all your future endeavours, and have a great weekend.
To Anon@1:24PM: A simple visual glance at the sheer numbers of LRUs of the NO-11M BARS radar and comparing it with the rather compact configuration of the MMR itself proves that the overall approach to R & D on the MMR was not conceptually wrong. And with present-day readily available modular AESA front-end antennae, the MMR definitely has a long life ahead, rest assured. It is only by adopting such an approach that the end-users, the IAF and Navy, can rest assured that they will retain 'full operational sovereignty' over their deployed weapon systems. So don't give up all hopes for the MMR as yet. Viable technological solutions could spring up anytime.
prasun, you are mistaken. there was no TOT for the Rohini at all period. u continue to think there was there was none. there were only common elements developed by both countries for family of radars for which both country would do what it wanted to in the future. these were primarily rlated to planar arry antenna for which dr c and dr r and dr vr were prjct leaders and that is what has occurred. indias radars also have complete locally designed tx/rx channels plus new psp which r superior to what pit developed for their version. basically at birth itself both design dffered. now rohini is in fact superior to the orgnal design coz it replaces the original codvelped systems with all new local ones. the revathis new antenna showed super results in the nft results and is multimde too. w/o going in2 2 many details the rohini is far better than original 3 d car. so again pls stop perpetuating this theory that india gt tot for the radar or somesuch thing. u shud understand the effort put into the design by india which has hade huge impact for pit too coz they developed long range radar using same basic concept of antenna design. we're going for aesa instead based on our reqrments btw. also, all the stuff of india gettng tot for sv-2000 was aslo wrong..its a local design too and its PD is now leading 2 more teams..and the poland gus took our antenna tech after competitive bdding, it won out on both cost & kpi such as tx power handling & gain
@ MMR all i will say is history is not knd to missed chnces
hal shud never have been given the prject it was a mistake and sharma and others never liked the lca so that plus lack of r&d focus @ hal wasted many yrs @ mmr
now hal is focused on r&d but its too late
well lets hope for best for mmr but its very mismanged prject thanks to constant lack of focus on its imprtance @ HAL initially
regards
Prasun,
Your claim that the P25/25A corvettes and all five Kashin II-class DDGs (photo 7) are equipped with the Ajanta ESM/ELINT intercept system integrated with PK-10 countermeasures dispensers and Nettuno ECM-4000 system is not entirely correct. Not all the SNF's have the Ajanta Ew suite. Similarly, the P25/25A do NOT use the PK10 launcher. Please do some research and find out what they use.
Are you absolutely certain of this: "The three Project 15A Kolkata-class DDGs will each have on board the Ajanta Mk3 ESM/ELINT section, while the ECM section will comprise the twin high-power radar reflector antennae, as well as Elettronica Spa’s planar phased-array ECM section (see photos 8 & 9)"???
Do check again.
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