NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy’s latest indigenous guided stealth missile destroyer, Mormugao would be be commissioned by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai on December 18. Mormugao was built at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDSL) as part of the Project 15B destroyers or the Visakhapatnam-class. On November 24, the MDSL delivered the ship to the Indian Navy. The event marks the formal induction of the two of the four Visakhapatnam-class destroyers.
“The ships under this project will have 75 percent indigenous content and this includes weapons and sensors also,” according to sources. Not only the indigenous content has gone up with the subsequent projects, it has also led to speed up into the construction period. The 15B is the third such indigenous project to manufacture modern destroyers with Project 15 (Delhi Class) having 42 percent indigenous content which was raised to 57 percent in the Project 15A (Kolkata Class).
Mormugao is packed with sophisticated ‘state of the art’ weapons and sensors such as Surface to Surface Missile and Surface to Air Missiles. The ship is fitted with a modern Surveillance Radar which provides target data to the gunnery weapon systems of the ship.