INS Sindhughosh collides with fishing boat

According to “The Times of India” Russian made Kilo-class submarine INS Sindhughosh (S55) collided with a fishing boat off the western coast late on Thursday night. Submarine was taking part in naval exercise called Tropex (Theatre Readiness Operational Level Exercise) in the Arabian Sea and was cruising at periscope depth at the time of accident.

INS Sindhughosh (S55) was practicing special operation delivery in which divers swim out of its torpedo tubes with a Gemini boat to carry out a covert land operation. It was very dark when it all happened. There was no warning of any kind according to “The Times of India”. After the collison sub surfaced and made its way to the naval dockyard at Mumbai, where its damaged periscope will be repaired.

My question is how the hell did it happen? Did sonar suddenly brake down or the captain of the ship did not scan the surrounding for any surface vessels?

Kilos are some of the most quiet subs and it really is hard for me to believe they didn’t hear that ship.

Was it a human error or equipment malfunction? There will probably be an investigation on the matter. I will keep you updated .

This is not the first accident involving this sub.  On 7 January 2008 INS Sindhughosh collided with a foreign merchant vessel - MV Leeds Castle - while trying to surface in the seas north of Mumbai.

On 14 August 2013 it sustained minor damage in a fire which caused explosions and the sinking of INS Sindhurakshak.

On 17 January 2014 it run aground due to the low tide, while returning into Naval Dockyard.

Bad luck?

New Virginia sub named

New Virginia-class attack submarine(SSN-795), will bear the name USS Hyman G. Rickover. Submarine is named in honor of U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the man responsible for developing USS Nautilus (SSN 571), the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine.

USS Hyman G. Rickover will be block IV submarine. This means that the sub will be cheaper than the previous block III units. The cost for Block IV is about $1.78 billion, compared to $2.6 billion for the first Block III boat. What is more block IV boats will have improvements to allow the boats to spend less time in the yard — from four major maintenance periods to three. This will allow an extra deployment out of the design.

Virginia-class submarines are taking over working mule role from Los Angeles-class subs. Thanks to it enhanced stealth, sophisticated surveillance capabilities, and special warfare enhancements Virginias are capable of attacking targets with Tomahawk cruise missiles, conduct covert long-term surveillance of land areas, littoral waters or other sea-based forces. They are also able to conduct anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare; mine delivery and minefield mapping as well as delivering special-forces and providing support.

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Russian subs exercise in the North Pole.

Russian submarine forces practice in the North Pole. According to the North Fleet captain Vadim Serga exercise focuses “on hazard and threat detection, on missile launching and navigation maneuvers, ice reconnaissance, submerging and emerging from ice, using torpedoes to undermine ice and many other issues”. He also added that “crew were given theoretical as well as practical exercises” and “younger crewmen to become better versed in Arctic warfare”. Source article also claims that among “the units which took part in the exercises were the crews of several Borei-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines”.

I care to comment on that a little bit. First of all “several” Borei-class subs. Really? Like how many of those Boreis are there? There are only three Boreis, two of which are assigned to Pacific fleet and one to Northern fleet. I seriously doubt that all three are taking part in the exercise. Even if they all are, three can hardly be called “several”. What is more captain Serga uses "crew", which is singular and may suggest that there is only one crew practicing.

Second of all it seems to me that Russians are quietly preparing for a fight under the ice cap. Why? This, as history shows, is a typical Russian strategy. In the WWII they did exactly the same.  Under false pretenses of spreading freedom in Europe they claimed a big part of it just for themselves and fenced off with the iron curtain. 

Russian will of course deny all that, like they deny fighting in Ukraine. That’s what they do. Lie and deceit. Meanwhile Russian subs will scour Arctic waters to refresh their knowledge, test equipment and train crews to be ready to fight.

This cat and mouse game has been going on since the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War. Russian subs have been playing the game with whoever has been in the opposition, Americans, British and the rest of the nuclear sub world.

I personally think that Arctic, in case of war, will be a very important battlefield and one of the bloodiest and most radioactive. Will see. Time will show.

Now we can only watch Cold War cat and mouse game happening under the ice cap.

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