Overview
India received six Project 1258E inshore minesweepers in 1983–84.
Developed for Indian Navy, Mahe-class Project 1258E minesweeper belongs to the Mine warfare vessels family and is associated with Cold War and Post-Cold War. Its documented designations include Minesweeper and Mine countermeasures vessel, while its intended roles include Minesweeping, Mine hunting, and Mine countermeasures.
Development and construction
This branch preserves export-built vessels and transferred Soviet hulls as distinct cases while linking them to the parent Soviet design family.
The documented program for Mahe-class Project 1258E minesweeper lists 6 planned, 6 ordered, 6 laid down, 6 completed, and 0 cancelled. These figures provide the clearest available measure of the class's planned and completed scale.
Design characteristics and intended role
The surviving classification data associates Mahe-class Project 1258E minesweeper with Soviet export mine-warfare design, Mechanical sweep, and Influence sweep. Read together with the recorded roles of Minesweeping, Mine hunting, and Mine countermeasures, these attributes show the operational problem the design was intended to address without implying specifications that the sources do not establish.
The class record identifies Indian Navy as the principal design or service authority. Where individual ships changed navy, name, or pennant, those later identities are retained on the ship pages rather than treated as separate vessels.
Service history and class roster
Mahe, Malvan, Mangrol, Malpe, Mulki, and Magdala served as M83 through M88 before retirement.
The class roster currently links 6 ships. Named members include Magdala, Mahe, Malpe, Malvan, Mangrol, and Mulki. The linked ships are associated with Indian Navy.
Historical significance
The record documents the international spread and later national service of Soviet postwar mine-warfare designs without duplicating transferred ships.
Mahe-class Project 1258E minesweeper is most useful when read as both a design and a group of individual careers. The class page establishes the shared technical and operational context; the linked ship pages preserve differences in construction, service identity, deployment, transfer, preservation, and fate where those details are documented.
Ships in this class
Showing 6 recorded class members.
Sources and further reading
- Inshore minesweepers — Project 1258 ↗RussianShips.info · accessed 2026-09-20
- MAHE inshore minesweepers (1983-1984) ↗Navypedia mirror · accessed 2026-09-20