Posted on 03/17/2010 11:27:24 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Russia has confirmed its readiness to transfer its Nerpa nuclear-powered attack submarine for a 10 year-lease to India, The Times of India reported on Wednesday citing defense ministry sources.
According to the paper, Russia and India quietly firmed up the 10-year lease of the K-152 Nerpa submarine during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi last week.
With the final lease and training agreements now in place, India is dispatching a 50-member submarine crew, including 8-10 officers, to Russia to train on the Akula-II class nuclear submarine, the paper said.
"The Indian naval team will be leaving within 15 days. They will first undergo intensive training on the Nerpa and then bring it to India on the 10-year lease,'' a defense ministry source told the paper on Tuesday.
Akula II class vessels are considered the quietest and deadliest of all Russian nuclear-powered attack submarines.
The lease follows an agreement inked between New Delhi and Moscow in January 2004, with India funding part of the Nerpa's construction at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard in the Russian Far East with an initial $650 million, the paper said.
The Nerpa was scheduled to be inducted in the Indian Navy as INS Chakra by mid-2008 but technical problems delayed the process. After that, just as it began its sea trials in November 2008, 20 sailors and technical workers were killed on it due to a toxic gas leak when the automatic fire extinguishing system malfunctioned. After repairs, the Nerpa is now fully operational, the paper said
(Excerpt) Read more at en.rian.ru ...
Akula II class vessels are considered the quietest and deadliest of all Russian nuclear-powered attack submarines.
Things like this just upset your whole sense of the order of things.
Twenty years ago if anyone had suggested that a Nuclear Power would lease one of its most advanced nuclear submarines to another nation you would have said that that person was totally out to lunch.
Not only is Russia giving over control of a very powerful war ship to another country but it is necessarily surrendering most if not all of the design specs of that vessel.
I don’t even think Russia and India are allies.
Russia needs a strong deterrent to keep China checked. India plays that role well.
The US needs a strong check against China’s ascendency. India plays that role well, again.
The whole mess is cranking up so much potential energy, World War 3 is going to make the two others seem like mere footnotes, if anyone survives it, that is.
As an Australian bang in the middle of where all of this is going to play out, it gives me the jitters.
There is no news. India was always a Soviet client through the Cold War. The reason was US support for their enemy Pakistan.
It is also not the first time Russians giving their best to India. They leased another Soviet nuclear sub back to 80s.
The whole mess is cranking up so much potential energy, World War 3 is going to make the two others seem like mere footnotes, if anyone survives it, that is.
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The next war will be fought with nuclear weapons. The one after that will be fought with stones and sticks.
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Also as a former bubble-head; I don’t think I’d want to dive a ‘rent a boat’.
Russian submarines are notoriously unreliable. And apparently each new submarine build of the Akula class has been substantially modified from the previous one.
China and Russia are allies against U.S.
India wants to be a great power....they will befriend whoever will advance their technology.
Australia is going to end up as a resource colony of either India or China or both. And it will probably benefit Australia’s economy to be a resource colony.
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