Indian warships sail for Africa

Four Indian warships INS Mysore, Tabar, Ganga and Aditya have set sail on a goodwill visit to several maritime nations of Africa and South Indian Ocean.

The warships will be exercising with the navies/coast guard of Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Seychelles and Mauritius besides making port calls at Reunion and Mozambique. The visit will also include the biennial naval exercise IBSAMAR between the navies of India, Brazil and South Africa.

“The professional skills and experiences exchanged during these interactions would go a long way in enhancing co-operation and understanding the nuances of naval operations as well as disaster management and combating maritime threats of terrorism and piracy,” said the Indian Navy in a statement, adding, “Such interactions have been hugely successful in the past as is evident from the growing scale of complexity of the exercises each year. Having initially involved only basic operations, the current interaction will feature advanced aspects of naval warfare, including anti-air, anti-surface and anti-submarine operations.”

The visiting ships are part of the Indian Navy’s Western Fleet under the Western Naval Command and are based at Mumbai. The Task Group is headed by Rear Admiral RK Pattanaik, the Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet, who is ‘flying his flag on the guided missile destroyer, INS Mysore’.

The navy said, “The destroyer INS Mysore and the frigates INS Tabar and INS Ganga are equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and sensors, while the replenishment ship INS Aditya is capable of sustaining the warships for prolonged durations at sea,” adding further, “The visit also seeks to demonstrate the Indian Navy’s ‘blue water’ capability to deploy, operate and sustain a maritime Task Force well away from home for an extended duration.”