“The submarine is now fully ready to carry out its tasks,” a senior executive at the Amur Shipyard, where the submarine was built, told RIA Novosti. “It will be handed over before the end of the year.”
When Russia makes the delivery, it will make India only the sixth operator of nuclear submarines in the world. Earlier this month, it launched the first of its own nuclear submarines.
According to an agency source, the Nerpa performed missile and torpedo-firing exercises in mid-December, but the delivery and acceptance team was not satisfied with the results. It was therefore decided to repeat the tests on 25 December.
The contract, worth 26 billion rupees ($650 million), envisages a 10-year lease of the Russian nuclear-powered vessel to India.
The agency source said that the Indian Navy would rechristen the submarine the Chakra, the name used for the first nuclear submarine leased by the Soviet Union to India for three years back in 1988.
The Nerpa was to have been commissioned in the Indian Navy as early as 2008, but the transfer was put on hold after an accident in which 20 people died when the automatic fire extinguishing system was accidentally set off. Later, the transfer was repeatedly postponed, as the ship’s combat systems were not ready.
The Nerpa (Project 971I “Shchuka-B” or “Akula” according to its NATO classification) is a third-generation submarine equipped with torpedoes, torpedo rockets and Granat cruise missiles with a range of 3,200 km. Due to restrictions set by international treaties on missile technology supervision and non-proliferation, however, the submarine leased to India cannot carry long-range missiles; therefore, the vessel has been equipped with Club-S missiles with a 300-km range instead.
Nerpa’s displacement is 8,140 tonnes when surfaced and 12,770 tonnes when submerged. Its maximum speed is 30 knots, maximum depth 600 m and endurance 100 days, with a crew of 73 people. A total of 15 submarines of this project have been built since 1984.
In 1988, the USSR leased submarine K-43 Chakra (Project 670 “Skat”) to India for three years. In 1991, the leasing period expired, and Soviet leadership refused to extend the lease contract due to what experts believe was pressure from the United States.
Twenty people, mostly civilians, were killed when a fire-suppressant gas was released on the Nerpa during shakedown trials, in one of Russia’s worst naval accidents.
