''Kora''-class corvettes, also known as Project 25A, are guided missile

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloo ...

s, in active service with the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy (IN) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Navy, maritime and Amphibious warfare, amphibious branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of the Naval Staff (India), Chief ...

and the National Coast Guard of Mauritius.Indian Naval Ships-Corvettes-Khukri Class
Four vessels were built at

Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, abbreviated as GRSE, is one of India's leading Defense industry, defence shipyards, located in Kolkata. It builds and repairs merchant shipping, commercial and warship, naval vessels. GRSE also expor ...

(GRSE) and outfitted at

Mazagon Dock Limited Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) (IAST: ''Majhagānv Dawk Shipbuilders Limiṭeḍ''), formerly called Mazagon Dock Limited, is a company with shipyards situated in Mazagaon, Mumbai. It manufactures warships and submarines for the Indian ...

(MDL).

Design

The primary role of the ''Kora'' class is as surface combatants, representing a modernized version of the prior . They are armed with four quad-launchers for 3M-24 anti-ship missiles (Russian: Kh-35 Uran, NATO: SS-N-25 Switchblade) as opposed to the two dual launchers for

P-15 Termit The P-15 ''Termit'' (; ) is an anti-ship missile developed by the Soviet Union's Raduga design bureau in the 1950s. Its GRAU designation was 4K40, its NATO reporting name was ''Styx'' or SS-N-2. China acquired the design in 1958 and created at ...

ASMs (NATO: SS-N-2D Styx) of its predecessor. The 3M-24E missile is guided by homing active radar and can carry a warhead to a range of at Mach 0.9 speed. They are powered by two SEMT Pielstick/Kirloskar 18 PA6V 280 diesel engines. A

HAL Chetak HAL may refer to: Aviation * Halali Airport (IATA airport code: HAL) Halali, Oshikoto, Namibia * Hawaiian Airlines (ICAO airline code: HAL) * HAL Airport, Bengaluru, India * Hindustan Aeronautics Limited an Indian aerospace manufacturer of figh ...

HAL Dhruv The HAL Dhruv () is a utility helicopter designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in November 1984. The helicopter first flew in 1992; its development was prolonged due to multiple factors including the Indian Army's requ ...

helicopter can operate from the vessels. The vessels are also supplied with Strela-2M

ManPADS Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS or MPADS) are portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. They are guided weapons and are a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters and also used against low-flying cruise missi ...

(NATO: SA-N-5 Grail), which have a range of and a speed of Mach 1.75. is equipped with two Igla surface-to-air missile launchers (NATO: SA-18 Grouse). The first two corvettes of the subclass are armed with a AK-176 dual-purpose gun and two AK-630 CIWS. The AK-176 can fire at the rate of 120 rounds-per-minute (RPM) to a range of , while the

AK-630 The AK-630 is a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian fully automatic naval, rotary cannon, close-in weapon system. The "630" designation refers to the weapon's six gun barrels and their 30 mm caliber. The system is mounted in an enclosed automatic ...

can fire at 3,000RPM to a range of . and are fitted with a Otobreda super rapid gun firing 120 RPM. The sensor suite includes a MR-352 Pozitiv-E (Cross Dome) air or surface search radar, Bharat 1245 navigation radar and BEL Rani navigation radar. The MR-352 radar can track targets within a range of . Fire control is provided by Garpun-Bal and MR-123 radars. The Garpun-Bal radar combines active and passive channels and in the active target designation mode, it operates in X-band (I/J-band) and can handle up to 150 targets at ranges between , although it is possible to obtain ranges of more than in wave-guide propagation conditions. The corvettes are fitted with the Ajanta P Mk II Electronic Support Measures system. There are four PK-10 chaff launchers and two towed torpedo decoys to deceive incoming anti-ship missiles and

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

es. PK-10 is a 10 tube barrage chaff launcher that can fire 80 rounds at a time. The ''Kora'' class is powered by two diesel engines driving two controllable pitch propellers through two shafts. Each engine is rated at . Four diesel alternators rated at 350 kW are provided for power generation. The propulsion system provides a top speed of , an average speed of and a maximum range of . Each ship cost in 2001 approximately . A simpler version exported to Mauritius in 2014 cost approximately .

History

The ''Kora''-class corvettes were designed by India's Naval design bureau under Project 25A, as a replacement for the Russian-designed Petya II-class corvettes of the

. The first two were ordered in April 1990 and latter two in October 1994. The class was to be outfitted with the Trishul SAM, but following the cancellation of the Trishul project, a shoulder-launched SAM was adopted. undertook a goodwill visit to

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

in mid-2001. The corvette participated in the Republic of Singapore Navy Day celebrations followed by the International Maritime Defence Exhibition (IMDEX) Asia 2001. The participation of INS ''Kora'' in the International Maritime Defence Exhibition was a showcase of the Indian shipbuilding industry and its indigenous efforts.

Export

In 2012, it was reported that

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

had ordered 2 vessels based on this class from the Garden Reach Shipbuilders.

Ships of this class

Gallery

In popular culture

and were featured in the

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

film Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyo, where they are seen accompanying the Rajput-class

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

References

{{Ship classes of the Indian Navy Corvette classes Ships built in India