Hindustan Shipyard lays keel for the first Fleet Support Ship for the Indian Navy
Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), a public-sector shipyard under the Ministry of Defence, laid the keel of the first vessel under the Fleet Support Ship project for the Indian Navy on November 15, 2024. Vice Admiral B Siva Kumar, Controller of Warship Production & Acquisition, presided over the ceremony in the presence of the Chairman and Managing Director of HSL and other senior officials from the Indian Navy and HSL.
The Indian Ministry of Defence signed a ₹19,000 crore ($2.26 billion) contract with Hindustan Shipyard on August 25, 2023, to acquire five fleet support ships for the Indian Navy. The Cabinet Committee on Security approved the acquisition of these ships during its meeting on August 16, 2023.
HSL held the steel-cutting ceremony for the first vessel on April 10, 2024 at Visakhapatnam. The first ship is scheduled to be delivered to the Indian Navy in August 2027, with subsequent ships delivered every 10-12 months. HSL signed a contract with L&T’s Precision Engineering Systems vertical for part construction of two FSS on July 9, 2024, the concurrent construction of ships at HSL and L&T’s shipyard at Kattupalli will help them meet the challenging delivery timeline. A similar strategy had been adopted by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers for constructing ASW Shallow Water Craft and Sandhayak class research vessel.
The FSS is designed indigenously by HSL’s in-house design bureau with Kochi-based Smart Engineering and Design Solutions (SEDS) as the prime consultant. The Combat Management System, Electronic Warfare system, and other key sensors will be supplied by Bharat Electronic Ltd (BEL) which received an order worth ₹1,075 crore ($130 million) from HSL on August 25, 2023.
The Fleet Support Ship will be the largest vessel in the Indian Navy at a displacement of 44,700 tonnes, coming in at 200 tonnes more than INS Vikramaditya (44,500 tonnes). It will have a length of 222.8m, a beam of 31.5m, and a draught of 9.5m. It will be able to sail up to 12,000 nautical miles at 16 knots while supporting a wide range of operations at sea.