What is the Boeing P-8I in the Indian Navy used for?

Description and Purpose
The P-8I is a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft capable of broad-area, maritime and littoral operations. The P-8I is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon that Boeing is developing for the U.S. Navy.

This military derivative of the Next-Generation 737-800 combines superior performance and reliability with an advanced mission system that ensures maximum interoperability in the future battle space.

Customer
The Indian Navy is the first international customer for the P-8. Boeing signed a contract Jan. 1, 2009, to deliver eight long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft to the Indian Navy. Boeing has delivered four P-8I aircraft to the Indian Navy and will deliver the remaining four by 2015.

General Characteristics

The P-8I was procured from the US for the following duties.

• Long range patrolling of the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.
• To carry out anti-submarine warfare
• To carry out anti-ship warfare

Some of the special feaures of this plane are (info by Quora )

• The P-8I has the ability to fly at an altitude of 50 m and attack submarines using torpedoes. It detects them by dropping sonobouys.
• It can carry out 6 hour missions at a distance of over 2200 km from base.
• It can carry 4 harpoon missiles for attacking enemy warships.
• It has an internal weapons bay which allows it to carry around 8 Mk54 torpedoes to attack submarines.
• Its turbofan engines are very silent compared to turboprop powered aircraft. This ensures that submarines cant detect its presence above them.
• It has a Magnet Anomaly Detector boom at the rear which is useful in detecting submarines in shallow water by measuring the disturbance in the earth’s magnetic field caused by the movement of a large metallic submarine.
• Many critical US components have been replaced by Indian ones