Revision as of 18:28, 12 August 2013

India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant

INS Vikrant (of 2013)

India launches first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant

AFP | Aug 12, 2013 [1]

Rajat Pandit , TNN | Aug 12, 2013 The Times of India

KOCHI: India launched its first indigenously-built aircraft carrier in Aug 2013, a landmark moment in the $5 billion project that seeks to project the country's power and check the rising influence of China.

Timeline

India is steadily, albeit slowly, building a powerful three-dimensional blue-water Navy for the future at a projected cost upwards of Rs 3 lakh crore between 2013 and 2030.

The 260-metre-long INS Vikrant itself will take till 2020 to become battle-worthy.

The 40,000-tonne carrier will have to undergo extensive weapon and aviation trials, which will include supersonic fighters taking off from its angled ski-jump and landing back on the flight deck with the help of "arrestor" wires, before being declared fully-operational.

When the INS Vikrant comes into full service in 2018 (or 2020 acc , India will become the fifth nation to have designed and built its own aircraft carrier, pushing ahead of China to join an elite club that includes Britain, France, Russia and the United States, which are the only countries that can build carriers of this size. China did induct a carrier, the 65,000-tonne Liaoning, in September 2013, but it was purchased in a half-ready state from Ukraine in 1998.

INS Vikrant will not be ready to go to war anytime before 2020 even if it's handed over to the Navy in 2018, as is now scheduled.

The ship, which will be fitted with weaponry and machinery and then tested over between 2013 and 2014, is a major advance for a country competing for influence in Asia, analysts say.

A power projection platform?

"The need for a strong and vigilant Navy to defend our mainland, island territories, off-shore assets, EEZ and maintaining our sea lanes of communication needs no emphasis," said defence minister A K Antony, at the "launch" ceremony of INS Vikrant at the Cochin Shipyard

"It is going to be deployed in the Indian Ocean region where the world's commercial and economic interests coalesce. India's capability is very much with China in mind," Rahul Bedi, a defence expert with IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, said.

[India needs to safeguard it primary area of geo-political interest stretching from Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait and beyond as well as effectively counter the expanding Chinese Navy's hunt for "strategic space" in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).]

"All these [advanced naval ships] are power projection platforms, to project India's power as an extension of its diplomacy," Bedi added.

Military hardware: Successes and failures

New Delhi is spending tens of billions of dollars upgrading its mainly Soviet-era military hardware to bolster its defences.

The Indian navy is currently working on 39 ships and has begun planning to make another two aircraft carriers, Bedi said.

The Navy, which is "committed" to supporting "indigenization" as a "strategic core competency", has its plans well chalked-out. "Out of the 47 warships and submarines currently on order, 46 are being built in Indian shipyards," said Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi.

Successes in its long-range missile and naval programmes have been tempered by expensive failures in developing its own aircraft and other land-based weaponry, leaving the country highly dependent on imports.

INS Vikrant is two years behind schedule after problems in sourcing specialised steel from Russia, delays with crucial equipment and even a road accident in which vital diesel generators were damaged.

INS Viraat: 1987

India has one aircraft carrier in operation - a c.1960, 28,000-tonne, British vessel acquired by India in 1987 and renamed INS Viraat - but it will be phased out in the coming years.

INS Vikramaditya

The Navy is all gung-ho about the induction of the 44,570-tonne INS Vikramaditya, the Admiral Gorshkov carrier now undergoing sea trials after the $2.33 billion refit in Russia, by the year-end.

India's ally Russia is also set to hand over a third aircraft carrier - INS Vikramaditya – in 2013 after a bitter row over the refurbished Soviet-era warship caused by rising costs and delays.

The INS Vikrant, which means "courageous" or "bold" in Hindi, is a 40,000-tonne vessel which will carry Russian-built MiG-29 fighter jets and other light aircraft.

While its hull, design and some of its machinery is domestically made, most of its weaponry will be imported as well as its propulsion system, which was sourced from GE in the United States.

Vikrant will not alter the balance of power with China

"Its primary role will only be to defend our naval fleet and it will not be used for ground attacks," retired rear admiral K. Raja Menon told AFP.

"It's a defence carrier so it will attack platforms that are coming to attack our (naval) fleet ...without air defence our fleet just cannot survive," Menon said.

C Uday Bhaskar, a retired naval officer and former director of the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi, said the ship would "enhance India's credibility" - but it "would not alter the balance of power with China".

"China's nuclear expertise and ship-building capabilities are of a higher order," he said.

Overall, India lags far behind China in defence capabilities, analysts say, making the success in beating its regional rival in the race to develop a domestically-produced aircraft carrier significant.

China's first carrier, the Liaoning, which was purchased from the Ukraine, went into service in September 2013. Beijing is reportedly planning to construct or acquire a bigger ship in the future.