Another feather in Indian navy’s cap

NEW DELHI: INS Jalashwa, Indian Navy’s second largest ship and country’s most visible military acquisition from the United States, has joined the Eastern Fleet in Visakhapatnam.

Second in size and displacement in the naval fleet to country’s only aircraft carrier INS Viraat, the latest addition is a Landing Platform Dock (LPD), which can carry almost 1,000 soldiers, half-a-dozen helicopters and smaller boats.

Commanded by Captain BS Ahluwalia, a helicopter pilot, the ship is manned by a crew of about 27 officers and 380 sailors. It is 175 meters in length and 32 metres width, and it is capable of doing speeds of 20 knots.

The ship adds to the navy’s ‘expeditionary’ capabilities, and would provide design and conceptual inputs for future ships that India plans to build in its class.

India’s only military systems acquired in the past several decades from the US has been a few ANTPQ-37 fire fighting radars, which are with the Army.

Jalashwa (Sanskrit for Hippopotamus) is the first acquisition of Indian Navy from the US. It was commissioned into the Indian Navy at Norfolk on June 22.