Transition to Eminence

Book excerpt: This volume of the navy's history covers the period from 1976 to 1990. It examines the navy's success in keeping abreast of advances in technology in step with progressive self-reliance. In a decade and a half of innovation, the navy equipped its indigenously built frigates, corvettes, and other vessels with combinations of the latest available weapons and equipment from the Soviet Union, from Europe, and from indigenous sources. A tiny "ship design cell," which in 1965 was designing yard craft, was by 1990 designing an aircraft carrier, submarines, and missile destroyers. The new acquisitions from the Soviet Union ranged from missile destroyers, conventional submarines, and long-range reconnaissance aircraft, to minesweepers. All these high-tech inductions needed to be operated and manned by better-educated and better-trained personnel. New maintenance, repair, and refit facilities had to be created. The increase in the volume of spares and the diversity of sources compelled modernization of the logistics system. This volume analyzes how these problems were tackled.