Article Posted on : - Jul 01, 2016

Shishumar Class Submarine. Photo: Indian Navy.

NEW DELHI (PTI): India has signed an over Rs 262 crore deal with Germany's ThyssenkKrupp Marine Systems to retrofit anti-ship American Harpoon missiles on two Shishumar Class submarines.

The retrofitting of the new weapon suite will be carried out on INS Shankush and INS Shalki at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai and is backed by a training package to support and operate the system.

"It is a key milestone in our long-standing commitment towards India. We have the capacity to integrate any weapon system that is selected by the Indian Navy, onto our submarines," Gurnad Sodhi, Managing Director of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems' operations in India, said.

The company, which is also eyeing the over Rs 60,000 crore P75 (I) project under which six conventional submarines are to be built in India, said it has successfully carried out such integration on similar boats for other navies across the world.

Emphasising on the company's commitment towards India, Sodhi said ThyssenKrupp is also ready to integrate any weapon system, including 'Brahmos' on to the latest 214 Class Submarines for the upcoming project P75 (I) project.

"We fully support the 'Make and Made in India' policy which would encompass inter-alia Transfer of Technology (ToT), training and meeting all offset obligations. We are awaiting the government's decision on the Strategic Partner chapter of the new DPP 2016, after which we will begin our negotiations with an Indian shipyard for the P75(I)", he added.

Cooperation between Indian Navy and ThyssenKrupp dates back to more than three decades. The existing HDW Class 209/1500 submarines have been performing well, without any inherent problems and the Indian navy has been satisfied with their performance, despite their vintage, the company said in a statement.

The US had in 2014 decided to sell anti-ship Harpoon missiles to India costing some USD 200 million to enhance India's defence capability and strengthen Indo-US strategic ties.

The entire package under the foreign military sale route includes a dozen odd UGM-84L Harpoon Block II Encapsulated Missiles, 10 UTM-84L Harpoon Encapsulated Training missiles, and two Encapsulated Harpoon certification training vehicles.