The Commodore Commanding Submarines (East) is an operational appointment in the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

. The COMCOS (E) is the commander of the all submarines and allied units of Eastern Naval Command. Based in

Visakhapatnam , image_alt = , image_caption = From top, left to right: Visakhapatnam aerial view, Vizag seaport, Simhachalam Temple, Aerial view of Rushikonda Beach, Beach road, Novotel Visakhapatnam, INS Kursura submarine museu ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to t ...

, the COMCOS is also the

Commanding Officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latit ...

of the

submarine base A submarine base is a military base that shelters submarines and their personnel. Examples of present-day submarine bases include HMNB Clyde, Île Longue (the base for France's Force océanique stratégique), Naval Submarine Base Kings Ba ...

INS Virbahu. Currently, there are two COMCOS in the Indian Navy, COMCOS (East) and COMCOS (West). The COMCOS (E) is a one star officer holding the rank of Commodore. The current COMCOS (E) is Commodore K. Venkatraman, VSM who took over on 20 February 2020.

History

The submarine arm of the

was formed with the commissioning of in December 1967. Three other submarines – , and were acquired from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and the 8th Submarine squadron was formed. The

INS Virbahu was commissioned on 19 May 1971 as the shore support base for submarines. The Commanding Officer of ''Virbahu'' functioned as the Captain of the submarine squadron and the class Authority for all submarines. In the early 1970s, four Vela-class submarines were acquired. The submarines, , , and were commissioned between 1973 and 1974. With this, the 9th submarine squadron was formed and was based on the west coast, in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

. In the 1980s, the

Sindhughosh-class submarine ''Sindhughosh''-class submarines are diesel-electric submarines in active service with the Indian Navy. Their names are in Sanskrit, but in their Roman-alphabet forms sometimes a final short ''-a'' is dropped. The ''Sindhughosh'' submarines, ...

s - , , and were commissioned. They constituted the 11th submarine squadron. In 1986, two Shishumar-class submarines and were inducted, forming the 10th submarine squadron. Four more Sindhughosh-class submarines were to be commissioned constituting the 12th submarine squadron. Since multiple submarine squadrons (SS) had been formed - the 8th and 11th SS in Visakhapatnam and 9th, 10th and 12th SS in Mumbai, the need to group them on each coast was felt. In April 1988, the post of Commodore Submarines East (COMSUB (E)) was created. The COMSUB (E) also commanded the submarine base INS Virbahu, apart from the submarine squadrons. In December 1996, the appointment of COMSUB was re-designated ''Commodore Commanding Submarines'' (COMCOS).

Organisation

Today, under the COMCOS (E) are INS Virbahu, the 11th submarine squadron and the 14th submarine squadron, the Submarine Maintenance Unit, the NRW and the SSS. The COMCOS (E) is also the

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latit ...

of INS Virbahu.

List of COMCOS

Notes

References

Bibliography