Varunastra — India’s All-New Torpedo

Adreesh Ghoshal
2 min readJan 14, 2020

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The Varunastra is a heavy-weight torpedo that will very soon be carried by all of the Indian Navy’s latest submarines. It was first conceptualized in 2007, but took a while to develop, and was finally handed over to the Indian Navy by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in June 2019.

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The Varunastra was developed by the Naval Science and Technology Laboratory the naval arm of the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

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According to news reports, the Indian Navy will receive a second tranch of the Varunastra in April 2019 — exclusively for use on the Scorpene-class, the INS Sindhughosh (Kilo-class) and the Arihant-class submarines.

Developing the Varunastra took massive leaps forward in key areas of technology. The battery that powers the electric motor, for example, is almost two and a half times more powerful than ones used in current Indian Navy torpedos.

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Another huge first is the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) for target homing in case the torpedo is aimed against a submarine using torpedo decoys. The DRDO believes that Varunastra is the first torpedo in the world to use GPS-based targeting.

Once deployed, the Varunastra can travel at speeds of up to 70 kmph (40 knots), making it the third-fastest torpedo in the world.

There’s more here if you’re interested in reading the full tech specs

Jai Hind.

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Adreesh Ghoshal

Automobile Engineer. Content Writer. Biker. Defense Enthusiast. Indian.