KALININGRAD, September 18 (Itar-Tass) — A frigate built at the Yantar shipyard in the Russian Baltic exclave region of Kaliningrad for the Indian Naval Forces has gone on mooring trials, Sergei Mikhailov, the plant’s press secretary told Itar-Tass.
INS Trikand /The Bow/ is the last ship in a triad of frigates built under Project 11356 and it belongs to the Talwar class of naval ships under the Indian navy’s classification.
The mooring trials program covers a period through to mid-January 2013. Testing will be held in the water area assigned to the shipyard and will include the examination and adjusting of the ship’s functioning in various sets of standard conditions.
Upon the completion of mooring trials, the INS Trikand will get over to running trials in the Baltic Sea.
“The handover of the ship to the Indian Navy is scheduled for the summer of 2013,” Press Secretary Mikhailov said.
The first frigate in the triad, the INS Teg /the Sabre/, was entered in the tables of equipment of the Indian navy April 27, 2012.
The second frigate, the INS Tarkash /The Quiver/ completed the state sea run testing recently and entered the phase of turnover testing. Under the manufacturing program, its official handover to the customer is scheduled for November.
Ships of the Talwar class have been designed by the Northern Design Bureau for conducting combat operations independently and for acting as escort ships within ship units.
Talwar frigates have the combat capacity for tracking down and destroying the enemy submarines, conducting warfare against surface ships, aircraft and submarines, supporting ground-based troops, and providing for landfall actions.
The new frigates are equipped with the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile complexes.