Navy seeks stealth upgrade: Navy leaders have asked private companies in India to help them build new stealth technology. This step comes under the IDEX Winners-2025 challenge. The Navy wants help to lower the radar cross-section of new ships so that threats near the water’s surface cannot find them.
During a meeting at Navy Headquarters, industry teams were given a very tough job. They were asked to figure out how to make huge warships that weigh between 6,000 and 9,000 tons look almost invisible on radar. The Navy did not share the exact details because they are secret. But the goal is very simple. The Navy wants materials and ship shapes that hide the ship from “grazing-angle” threats, which means radars that look from a very low level between 0° and +5°.
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Why Low-Flying Missiles are a Big Danger?
The Navy worries most about sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. Missiles like the YJ-18 fly very close to the water, only about 5 to 15 metres above the sea, during the final attack. Because they come in so low, they are hard for radars to pick up.
For many years, navies tried to beat radar by using angled surfaces on ships. These angles push radar waves up or down. That trick works when the enemy radar sits high in the sky. But low radar angles are different. When a radar signal comes in from near the sea surface, the ocean acts like a mirror. Many simple parts of a warship like guns, walls and deck tools can make strong reflections. These reflections bounce right back to the enemy and show the ship as a big bright spot on the radar.
The Navy has now asked experts to design ships that remove these reflections. They want ships that look like nothing but water to a missile seeker during the last few kilometres of its flight. This is the only way to stop a missile from locking onto the ship, defence.in.
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Need for New Ideas
The Indian Navy already has ships like the Talwar class, Delhi class and the new Nilgiri class. These ships lower radar reflections from far away. But they were not designed to hide from modern seekers that work in the last moments before a hit.
New threats also come from satellites and drones that watch the sea from above. This means the old idea of hiding a ship completely does not work anymore. Now the most important thing is making sure that when a missile turns on its radar in the final minute, it cannot find the ship at all.
This new IDEX challenge shows that the Navy is working on “Next Generation” warships like the Project 17B frigates and the Next Generation Destroyers. To meet the Navy’s needs, Indian companies will have to make fresh ideas. They may use special materials that soak up radar waves instead of bouncing them. They may design systems that cancel radar signals before they hit the ship. They may even change the whole layout of the deck so that nothing sticks out and sends back a reflection.
