Rajnath visits US Navy testing facility as India plans something similar
Rajnath Singh arrived in Washington on August 22 on a four-day visit that is being closely watched as India is negotiating deals worth billions of dollars with the US
New Delhi: Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday visited a modern US Navy testing facility for ships and submarines at Memphis in Tennessee at a time when India is looking at setting up a similar facility for locally produced platforms, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
Singh visited the William B Morgan large cavitation channel (LCC) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Memphis, where senior officials briefed him on one of the world’s largest and most technically advanced high-speed, variable-pressure water tunnel facilities.
He was accompanied by senior navy and DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) officials.
“The discussions intend to support the ongoing proposal for establishment of a similar facility for indigenous design and development in India,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
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The LCC is part of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, one of the US Navy’s preeminent research and development facilities that specialises in critical ship and submarine design.
Operational since 1991, it provides significant cost savings for testing large-scale models of advanced ship and submarine system designs and full-scale torpedoes in a controlled environment, according to the US Navy.
It permits the US Navy to measure submarine and surface ship power, efficiency, and propeller noise by using models in a controlled but realistic environment. The facility has commercial use too.
Singh was greeted by deputy under secretary of the US Navy for Policy Anne Gebhards and Naval Surface Warfare Center and Undersea Warfare Center Commander Rear Admiral Todd Evans.
“Witnessed the pathbreaking experiments at the facility. India and the US look forward to work together and benefit from each other’s experiences,” Singh wrote on X.
Singh’s Memphis visit came on the back of meetings with US national security advisor Jake Sullivan and secretary of defence Lloyd Austin in Washington.
These talks spanned an array of critical areas, including the impact of global developments on geopolitics, pressing regional security dynamics, broadening cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, and deepening defence industrial collaboration.
Singh arrived in Washington on August 22 on a four-day visit that is being closely watched as India is negotiating deals worth billions of dollars with the US, including the purchase of the General Atomics MQ-9B remotely piloted aircraft systems and the joint production of GE F414 engines in the country.
Also Read: Rajnath Singh meets US defence industry captains, pushes India as export hub
Earlier, Singh also interacted with captains of several American defence companies in Washington, including General Atomics and GE, and outlined the emerging co-development and co-production opportunities in India while enumerating reforms initiated by the government to make the country an attractive destination for foreign original equipment manufacturers and an alternative export hub.
In 2023, India and the US concluded a new roadmap for defence industrial cooperation with the goal of fast-tracking technology cooperation and co-production in critical areas, including air combat and land mobility systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, munitions, and the undersea domain.
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