Article Posted on : - Jul 28, 2010

The Royal Navy submarine 'HMS Talent' (top) will join Indian Navy's Shishumar’ class sub for the joint drill.

NEW DELHI (PTI): An Indian and a British submarine will test each other's capabilities at a three-day wargame in the Arabian Sea, even as the two sides try out a new tabletop naval exercise in Mumbai, both as part of the annual Konkan series this month-end.

The Royal Navy submarine ‘HMS Talent’, a Trafalgar class vessel, will match its warfare skills with Indian Navy’s ‘Shishumar’ class submarine from July 28 to 30 off the west coast, a Navy press release said here.

At the same time, the British and Indian navies will conduct their annual 'Konkan 2010' bilateral exercise in the form of a tabletop wargame in Mumbai from July 26, it said.

This will be the seventh edition of the 'Konkan' series of exercises and the tabletop wargame will be held on a tactical simulator located at Maritime Warfare Centre of the Western Naval Command.

The tabletop exercise will be a wargame without actual participation of ships, but with Planning Staff of both countries attending it.

The aim of the tabletop exercise is to exchange operational planning concepts, Maritime Domain Awareness procedures, and to test these plans through simulations of a maritime scenario at sea.

Experiences from this tabletop game would be utilised to refine concepts for future 'Konkan' series of exercises involving ships, submarines and aircraft.

The nine-member British team will be headed by Commodore James Morse, the Commander of United Kingdom Task Group, and the 11-member Indian side by Captain M A Hampiholi, Commanding Officer of INS Talwar.

The first Konkan exercise was conducted in April 2004 at Chennai, followed by exercises in 2006, 2008 and 2009 in India. Two tabletop wargames were also held.

Konkan 2007 was a tabletop exercise conducted at the Royal Navy's Maritime Warfare Centre at Portsmouth in United Kingdom.

In 2009, Konkan was conducted off the southern coast of the UK during the deployment of Indian warships to the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean.

The Konkan series of exercises are a part of continuing and growing constructive engagement process between the two navies, the release said.