April 29, 2010: India has launched the first of a class of locally designed and built ASW (Anti-submarine warfare) corvettes. The 3,100 ton P28s are 110 meters (341 feet) long and have a top speed of about 55 kilometers an hour. The engines and other machinery are mounted to reduce noise, making the ships harder for submarines to detect. Topside, the design also makes the ship more difficult to detect with radar or heat sensing devices.

Armament consists of a76mm gun, a 16 cell Barak anti-aircraft/missile launcher, an eight cell Klub-B anti-ship missile launcher, 30mm anti-missile autocannon, four torpedo tubes and two RBU-6000 anti-submarine rocket launchers. An ASW helicopter is also carried, along with sonar and radars (navigation and anti-aircraft). If the design resembles your standard heavily armed Russian warship, that's because India has bought many of these, and liked them.

Three more P28s are under construction. The one just launched took five years to build and won't enter service for another two years. The other three will follow at one year intervals. These corvettes will take some of the ASW workload off larger frigates and destroyers.