Indian Scorpene submarines soon equipped with AIP anaerobic propulsion

On the same day of delivery of the 5th and penultimate Indian submarine of the Kalvari class, the INS Vagir, to the Indian Navy, the Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL), belonging to the Indian agency of DRDO armament, and the French naval group Naval Group, designer of the Scorpene submarine on which the Kalvari class was designed, have signed a framework agreement for the integration of an anaerobic propulsion system (AIP for Air Independent Propulsion) of local invoice aboard the INS Kalvari, the first vessel of the eponymous class which entered service in 2017. The agreement, signed today in Mumbai, will make it possible to integrate the new Indian propulsion aboard the ship, under the control and with certification from the French naval group.

In fact, the Kalvari will be the first submarine in the Scorpene family to be equipped with AIP propulsion. This will offer the ship significantly increased diving autonomy, therefore improving discretion and combat effectiveness. However, the implications of this agreement, based precisely on technology developed in India and not imported, are very important, and go far beyond the P-75 program to which the Kalvari belongs. Indeed, the success of this procedure will not only make it possible to transform the 6 submarines of the class towards this type of propulsion, but it will also change the data of the P-75i program which specifically provides for the local construction of 6 new submarines. equipped with imported AIP technology, and which today is in difficulty due to its costs and excessive constraints in the specifications established by the Indian authorities.

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