INS Amba (A54) was the only submarine tender

Submarine tender

A submarine tender is a type of ship that supplies and supports submarines.Submarines are small compared to most oceangoing vessels, and generally do not have the ability to carry large amounts of food, fuel, torpedoes, and other supplies, nor to carry a full array of maintenance equipment and...

 ship in service with the Indian Navy

Indian Navy

The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the armed forces of India. The President of India serves as the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff , usually a four-star officer in the rank of Admiral, commands the Navy...

. It is a modified Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

  design built to Indian specifications in Nikolayev (the present-day Mykolaiv

Mykolaiv

Mykolaiv , also known as Nikolayev , is a city in southern Ukraine, administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv is the main ship building center of the Black Sea, and, arguably, the whole Eastern Europe.-Name of city:...

 in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

) in 1968. Deviations from the standard Ugra design include four 76 mm guns instead of the 57 mm ones mounted on Soviet units.

The Amba was acquired in order to support the Indian Navy's then growing fleet of s. Of the eight submarines of that type commissioned during the late 1960s and early 1970s, only two (the and ) remain in service today. It is unclear if the Amba is used with the newer and submarines that have since entered service.

On 26 May 2001 a fire broke out in the laundry section of the Amba during a routine refit at the Cochin Shipyard

Cochin Shipyard

Cochin Shipyard Limited is the largest ship building and maintenance facility in India. It is part of a line of maritime related facilities in the port-city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, India....

, suffocating two washermen.

Amba was decommissioned from service in July 2006.

External links

• Official Indian Navy website
• IndianSubmariner article
• Information at Bharat Rakshak
• 2 die in ship fire - The Hindu
  The Hindu
  The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
  
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