Navy Appends First Anti-submarine Rocket to the Arsenal

In an important development on Tuesday the Indian Navy included the first lot of 20 anti-submarine missiles to the armory. The missiles have been designed by the Ammunition Factory, Khadki (AFK). The slot was handed over to the Indian Navy at a grand function yesterday. Remarkably, this is the first Indian indigenous, anti-submarine rocket.

When contacted, the AFK officials told that, the two variants of the rocket that have the striking range of 1.5 km and 6 km respectively have been developed. Moreover, Practice Rockets and High explosive Rockets are the two categories into which the new inclusions have been classified. The Navy needs 3,000 such pieces in all.

The factory at Khadki has a capacity of producing 1,000 per annum. B. N. Singh, senior General Manager of AFK handed over the first set of 20 practice rockets to Rear Admiral S Kulshrestha, Director General Naval Armament Inspection, Delhi.

Addressing the occasion B.N. Singh said, “The Ammunition Factory Khadki, under the Ordnance Factory Board of Ministry of Defence, has indigenously developed an anti-submarine rocket with the Indian Navy to meet their tactical requirement. The Ministry of Defence had given the mandate to OFB to make indigenous efforts for developing new products for defence forces. To accelerate the process of in-house development of ammunition stores, the OFB set up an ordnance development centre at the AFK.”

The work of the production of these missiles began nearly four years back. This set of anti-submarine missiles can be launched from the ship and can target and destroy anything coming in a depth of 3 [...]