Russian frigate built for India to be ready for sea trials in Feb-March

BANGALORE, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- The first of the three frigate
that are being built in Russia's Kaliningrad for the Indian navy will be
ready for sea trials in February-March, 2010, Sivathanu Pillai, the
executive director of the Russian-Indian venture BrahMos Aerospace, told
journalists.
According to Pillai, one of the three ships is completely ready, while
the second one will be ready in February-March. In his words, test
launches of BrahMos supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles might be
performed both in the Baltic and in India when the first ship is delivered
from Russia. The issue, he said, will be decided by the Russian navy
command.
Russia signed a 1.6-bilion-U.S. dollar contract to build three Project
11356 frigates for the Indian navy on July 14, 2007 in New Delhi.
It is the second such contract between Russia and India. The first one
worth one billion U.S. dollars was signed in November 1997. Under the
contract, Russia built three Krivak-class frigates - INS Talwar, INS
Trishul and INS Tabar - for India, and delivered them all in late 2004.
The frigates built under the new contract are of the same class but
are armed with new Russian-Indian BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missiles.
The first ship, INS Teg, floated out in December, 2009, the second
one, INS Tarkash - in June 2010.
The Project 11356 class, also known as Tawlar class, is a new class of
frigates designed and built by Russia for the Indian navy. The Talwar
class guided missile frigates are modified Krivak III class frigates. The
Talwar class has a displacement of 4,000 tons and speed of 30 knots and is
capable of accomplishing a wide scale of missions, primarily, finding and
eliminating enemy submarines and large surface ships.