Indian Navy Discussions and Updates

[dragonfire]

Also, the design is a conventional, as opposed to nuclear-powered carrier. As such, it would give India no additional expertise or knowledge in terms of designing a nuclear-powered vessel of their own.

Yeah i was assuming the kitty hawk class was nuc-powered but no it was enterprise which was the first one - oops

I still think we need one more carrier to be operational by 2020 (4 total in nos)

And we are already building an IAC and post which planning to build one more IAC in the Cochin Shipyard and the Mazgon Docks is already busy with the Project 15B destroyers the Project 17A frigates and the Project28A corvettes as well as the scorpene subs, besides which both the Garden Reach as well as the Goa Shipyards are ill equipped to build a big carrier and the ATVs are being built in Vishakapattanam

So simply out India is already running on capacity with its domestic shipbuilding capabilitites so if we want a 4th carrier we have to look outwards for the same, Russia is busy planning its own needs all efforts would be in tht direction, so new carriers also look hard to get from external sources - so only logical choice would be to buy a used carrier and currently the only carriers looked like kitty hawk and kennedy - hence my suggestions albeit with certain wrong expectations

 

[Todjaeger]

Yeah i was assuming the kitty hawk class was nuc-powered but no it was enterprise which was the first one - oops

I still think we need one more carrier to be operational by 2020 (4 total in nos)

And we are already building an IAC and post which planning to build one more IAC in the Cochin Shipyard and the Mazgon Docks is already busy with the Project 15B destroyers the Project 17A frigates and the Project28A corvettes as well as the scorpene subs, besides which both the Garden Reach as well as the Goa Shipyards are ill equipped to build a big carrier and the ATVs are being built in Vishakapattanam

So simply out India is already running on capacity with its domestic shipbuilding capabilitites so if we want a 4th carrier we have to look outwards for the same, Russia is busy planning its own needs all efforts would be in tht direction, so new carriers also look hard to get from external sources - so only logical choice would be to buy a used carrier and currently the only carriers looked like kitty hawk and kennedy - hence my suggestions albeit with certain wrong expectations

Honestly, I am less certain that having 4 carriers by 2020 makes sense for India. While yes, having 4 in total should mean that 3 are available for ops at any one time, it also means that there is an increased need for suitable escort vessels. Does, or rather will, India have sufficient resources to provide for 3 separate CBGs operating simultaneously, by 2020? If not, then IMO it makes more sense to stick with having 3, which should allow two operational at any one time, and then if there is sufficient need (and resources) grow the fleet to include a 4th carrier and third CBG.

However, if it is felt that a 4th carrier does indeed need to be built/purchased, then perhaps India should talk to France and/or the UK, as they are looking to commission carriers roughly within that time frame. OTOH, having EU, Russian and Indian-sourced CVs could make maintenance and upkeep (and interoperability) problematic.

-Cheers

 

[dragonfire]

However, if it is felt that a 4th carrier does indeed need to be built/purchased, then perhaps India should talk to France and/or the UK, as they are looking to commission carriers roughly within that time frame.

Since the UK is ordered the construction of the new class -Queen Elizabeth class carriers and French will be busy building their new carrier (dont know class or name but read somewhere it would be a conventional powered unlike the Chrles De Gaulle) or have they put it on backburner. I was assuming that since Italy, Spain, Russia, UK, France, US and even China would be making their own carriers we wouldnt be able to order from them as such, besides a new carrier would be in the range of 5 + Billion dollars - Varyag was acquired by China for some 20 million or its cost came (including tugging + port duties etc) to only 50 Million. So it would have made some sense econmically to buy a recently de-commisioned carrier and to refit - India is good at tht as such, the HMS Hermes was acquired after 28 yrs of service and i think we will use it till atleast 2015 which would mean 28 yrs service as an India carrier (INS Viraat) while we used INS Vikrant for 36 yrs wheras she was laid down a good 18 yrs prior to commisioning as an Indian Navy vessel

 

[Feanor]

I don't know what the Russian carrier program will look like given the current financial crisis, so those shipbuilding facilities may end up unoccupied after all.

 

[dragonfire]

I don't know what the Russian carrier program will look like given the current financial crisis, so those shipbuilding facilities may end up unoccupied after all.

It was during this recent crisis tht a go-ahead was given for 3 carriers by Prime Minister Putin, given tht funds are getting allocated for the same internaly i doubt if russian will go on the backfoot reg carrier developement, even if this goes on a back foot then its still advantage India as hopefully any skilled professionals working on the gorshkov might not be pulled for the carrier projects as such snigger snigger

 

[swerve]

Since the UK is ordered the construction of the new class -Queen Elizabeth class carriers and French will be busy building their new carrier (dont know class or name but read somewhere it would be a conventional powered unlike the Chrles De Gaulle) or have they put it on backburner. I was assuming that since Italy, Spain, Russia, UK, France, US and even China would be making their own carriers we wouldnt be able to order from them as such, besides a new carrier would be in the range of 5 + Billion dollars

Queen Elizabeth & Prince of Wales are budgeted at £1.9 billion each, i.e. $3 billion.

France has postponed a decision on a new carrier.

Spain is not building any new carriers at the moment. It is building an LHD with secondary STOVL aircraft capability.

Italy is not buiding any carriers. It recently built one (Cavour - 27000 tons), but she is now in service. Fincantieri (which is providing design consultancy for the IAC) would probably love to build a new carrier for India, & could provide a scaled-up Cavour with arrestor gear quite easily, & for a lot less than $5 billion. It would look just like the IAC.

Cavour cost 1.4 billion Euros, including design, & air defence (Aster 15) & command suites. A larger but more austere ship could probably be built for little more.

 

[StevoJH]

Queen Elizabeth & Prince of Wales are budgeted at £1.9 billion each, i.e. $3 billion.

France has postponed a decision on a new carrier.

Spain is not building any new carriers at the moment. It is building an LHD with secondary STOVL aircraft capability.

Italy is not buiding any carriers. It recently built one (Cavour - 27000 tons), but she is now in service. Fincantieri (which is providing design consultancy for the IAC) would probably love to build a new carrier for India, & could provide a scaled-up Cavour with arrestor gear quite easily, & for a lot less than $5 billion. It would look just like the IAC.

Cavour cost 1.4 billion Euros, including design, & air defence (Aster 15) & command suites. A larger but more austere ship could probably be built for little more.

Just to Nitpick a bit, ignoring JCI (which must be just about finished) Spain is currently building another pair of those LHD's for the RAN.

 

[dragonfire]

Italy is not buiding any carriers. It recently built one (Cavour - 27000 tons), but she is now in service. Fincantieri (which is providing design consultancy for the IAC) would probably love to build a new carrier for India, & could provide a scaled-up Cavour with arrestor gear quite easily, & for a lot less than $5 billion. It would look just like the IAC.

Cavour cost 1.4 billion Euros, including design, & air defence (Aster 15) & command suites. A larger but more austere ship could probably be built for little more.

That is magnificent - if India wanted to order a new carrier the Italians could build it for them and the existing IAC design is primarily italian as such (India outsources a lot of design work to Italians as such, cars too) and if its a bigger version of the Cavour then it would still have the ski jump - which is also in the IACs as well as in the Gorshkov, it could be in the same class as in the second IAC being planned with 60-70 ton displacement only if i were the MODefense

 

[AegisFC]

India has plans for 3 carriers, there have been suggestions that India should have 4 carriers to effectively have 3 active carrier groups. I suggest India acquire a retired CVG from US either the USS John F Kennedy which was retired in 2007 or perhaps the USS Kitty Hawk which is scheduled to retire end of this month.

The Kennedy was in bad shape since her SLEP was canceled in the 90's. She failed numerous inspections and in her last 5 or so years of service was barely sea worthy. Her flight deck was completely decertified to launch or recover aircraft. IF the US were to sell a carrier (and they won't) it wouldn't be the Kennedy.

If India wishes to purchase the USS Kitty Hawk to 'study' it, I think the US would cheerfully sell her, and then proceed to laugh all the way to the bank as the saying goes...

Won't happen. There are too many internal design similarities between it and the Nimitz class. It is one of the reasons given why they didn't want to turn any of the already decommed super carriers into museums and also why the America SINKEX was so secret.

 

[nero]

Richelieu

PA2 (Porte-Avions 2) is the best option , india should buy the PA2 (Porte-Avions 2) aircraft-carrier from france off the shelf

they will complement the scorpene SSks very well

as far as i know they are most likely to be armed with two 8 cell SYLVER launchers carrying the MBDA Aster 15 surface to air missiles & Giat 20F2 20 mm cannons

a 70,000 tonne displacement carrier with 20 rafales on board will pack quite a punch

 

[nevidimka]

PA2 (Porte-Avions 2) is the best option , india should buy the PA2 (Porte-Avions 2) aircraft-carrier from france off the shelf

they will complement the scorpene SSks very well

as far as i know they are most likely to be armed with two 8 cell SYLVER launchers carrying the MBDA Aster 15 surface to air missiles & Giat 20F2 20 mm cannons

a 70,000 tonne displacement carrier with 20 rafales on board will pack quite a punch

if India gets that spanking new French carrier off the drawing block, and get it nuke powered, it would make Indian Navy a force to be reckoned with, a true blue navy. But its not necessary to have rafales flying from it, as I think the MiG 29 is more than capable of launching using catapults. but I doubt it would happen. There will be a backlash in France for letting another country to have the jewel of their navy while they have to cancel their plans.

and regarding the IAC, why does Indis build 2 different tonnage carriers? why not go with the 60 k+ tonnage carrier from the 1st in its class? These things are not cheap, hence if they are spending big, why not make sure there are no regrets later on?

 

[SkolZkiy]

It was during this recent crisis tht a go-ahead was given for 3 carriers by Prime Minister Putin, given tht funds are getting allocated for the same internaly i doubt if russian will go on the backfoot reg carrier developement, even if this goes on a back foot then its still advantage India as hopefully any skilled professionals working on the gorshkov might not be pulled for the carrier projects as such snigger snigger

Have any sources on that? I haven't heard about that. I've read only about plans for beginning designation but not building.

 

[dragonfire]

and regarding the IAC, why does Indis build 2 different tonnage carriers? why not go with the 60 k+ tonnage carrier from the 1st in its class? These things are not cheap, hence if they are spending big, why not make sure there are no regrets later on?

I am assuming that since India did not have prior experience in carrier construction when the project started it was initiated as an Air Defense ship and am sure the intention was to patrol and defend India's Exclusive Martime Zone as well other assets in the area and once the project started (might I add surprisingly lesser inputs from russians on this one unlike the the ATV project - Italians on the other hand have partnered in the design work) the construction gave further confidence to the govt to go for a second albeit bigger carrier to be domestically build, even now they are going cautious on it. The govt of india is scheduled give the order in 2010 after "a certain stage of progression on the current construction"

 

[aaaditya]

3 to 4 medium sized carriers (30000 to 40000 tons),i believe would be perfect for the indian navy force projection needs,especially considering that china hopes to acquire iits own carriers,however even a single super carrier(50000+ tons) would be an overkill and considerably expensive,as it will imply a lot of change to the infrastructure,none of the indian bases have berthing capability for such a huge vessel,and as of now only cochin shipyards limited can accomodate vessels of 100000+ tons india,incidentally this shipyard will build the remaining carriers,however in the long run l and t and ruia shipbuilders would build shipyards capable of berthing such large vessels ,but then these are purely commercial ventures as of now and would not be directly under the control of the indian navy.

i would suggest a fleet of 3 to 4 carriers of 30000 to 40000 ton displacement preferably with nuclear propulsion like the french charles de gaulle.

 

[Bang-Bang]

3 to 4 medium sized carriers (30000 to 40000 tons),i believe would be perfect for the indian navy force projection needs,especially considering that china hopes to acquire iits own carriers,however even a single super carrier(50000+ tons) would be an overkill and considerably expensive,as it will imply a lot of change to the infrastructure,none of the indian bases have berthing capability for such a huge vessel,and as of now only cochin shipyards limited can accomodate vessels of 100000+ tons india,incidentally this shipyard will build the remaining carriers,however in the long run l and t and ruia shipbuilders would build shipyards capable of berthing such large vessels ,but then these are purely commercial ventures as of now and would not be directly under the control of the indian navy.

i would suggest a fleet of 3 to 4 carriers of 30000 to 40000 ton displacement preferably with nuclear propulsion like the french charles de gaulle.

i disgree with you adi , 3-4 medium A/C will not suit IN . They must need one Large A/C . Because if you will take 3-4 medium sized carriers you will have to built alot more escorts for them , i think IN cant manage that . instead of 2 medium sized carriers , they must build one 80,000+ tons carriers . Which carry up to 30+ Aircrafts .

 

[gf0012-aust]

i disgree with you adi , 3-4 medium A/C will not suit IN . They must need one Large A/C . Because if you will take 3-4 medium sized carriers you will have to built alot more escorts for them , i think IN cant manage that . instead of 2 medium sized carriers , they must build one 80,000+ tons carriers . Which carry up to 30+ Aircrafts .

Not sure where you get your numbers from - but an 80,000 tonne carrier would be carrying something in the region of 70+ aircraft (It's between the Midway and Forrestal Class in size)

Also, there is no point in only having one major asset - if you do it will be offline for at least 1 year in every 3-4-5 years for heavy maint.

You get better redundancy with multiples - and you can always merge task forces - which is what the USN had done a number of times.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Not sure where you get your numbers from - but an 80,000 tonne carrier would be carrying something in the region of 70+ aircraft (It's between the Midway and Forrestal Class in size)

Also, there is no point in only having one major asset - if you do it will be offline for at least 1 year in every 3-4-5 years for heavy maint.

The USN started building supercarriers (Forrestal class, ~80,000 tonnes) so they could operate all year round in the very rough northern waters off the Soviet Union. As long as India isn't planning on fighting a major naval battle off the Kerguelen Islands in the south of the Indian Ocean then medium sized carriers would be adequate platforms.

For operations inside the Indian Ocean conventional power is the best option as it doesn't limit the ship's endurance too much when they are so 'close' to home (2-3,000km at the most) and of course costs so much less. The complexity and risk of building nuclear power alongside building a carrier for a Navy that doesn't need to fight on the far side of the world would be a huge waste and program delaying mistake.

Since the Indian Navy has the tradition of naming their carriers with a word starting with V would they call a carrier Vishnu? Certainly I would imagine an INS Vijay would join the Vikrant, Viraat and Vikramaditya.

 

[tphuang]

The USN started building supercarriers (Forrestal class, ~80,000 tonnes) so they could operate all year round in the very rough northern waters off the Soviet Union. As long as India isn't planning on fighting a major naval battle off the Kerguelen Islands in the south of the Indian Ocean then medium sized carriers would be adequate platforms.

For operations inside the Indian Ocean conventional power is the best option as it doesn't limit the ship's endurance too much when they are so 'close' to home (2-3,000km at the most) and of course costs so much less. The complexity and risk of building nuclear power alongside building a carrier for a Navy that doesn't need to fight on the far side of the world would be a huge waste and program delaying mistake.

Since the Indian Navy has the tradition of naming their carriers with a word starting with V would they call a carrier Vishnu? Certainly I would imagine an INS Vijay would join the Vikrant, Viraat and Vikramaditya.

totally agree, medium sized carriers is absolutely appropriate for what they are doing. At least for the medium term, India's goal is dominate the Indian Ocean region. 45,000 tonne class shipe is certainly adequate for this, although I think they'd eventually look for something in the Queen Elizabeth class.

 

[dragonfire]

i disgree with you adi , 3-4 medium A/C will not suit IN . They must need one Large A/C . Because if you will take 3-4 medium sized carriers you will have to built alot more escorts for them , i think IN cant manage that . instead of 2 medium sized carriers , they must build one 80,000+ tons carriers . Which carry up to 30+ Aircrafts .

The IN has so far been a single carrier navy and it has been assesed that only one carrier (esp old ones) limit the operational availability of a carrier round the clock. Carriers are designed keeping in mind long service periods (the recently retired carrier and the one being retired this month-USN- wll have serrved approx 40 yrs each) which also requires these carriers to be continously updated (atleast once in 5-8 yrs apprx) with new and improved systems(the Viraat was recently upgraded with a SAM system - i think barack) apart from which they will need refits as well as regular maintenance and repair work - which for a hughe ship would mean a longer time.

Big or small IN would need more than one carrier to have a carrier operating round the clock

 

[dragonfire]

As long as India isn't planning on fighting a major naval battle off the Kerguelen Islands in the south of the Indian Ocean then medium sized carriers would be adequate platforms.
For operations inside the Indian Ocean conventional power is the best option as it doesn't limit the ship's endurance too much when they are so 'close' to home (2-3,000km at the most) and of course costs so much less.

Since the Indian Navy has the tradition of naming their carriers with a word starting with V would they call a carrier Vishnu? Certainly I would imagine an INS Vijay would join the Vikrant, Viraat and Vikramaditya.

The IN stated doctrine is to be a Blue Water Navy and for this purpose it's philosophy has been that of long range missions - it has in the last 5 yrs made so many port calls (am not even including the sailing ship which visited about 80 countries - i think - in its circumnavigation trip) and displayed its flag - these goodwill missions are also to display the INs prowess. During the the Tsunami the Indian Navy was the first navy to reach Indonesia with relief supplies (5450 kms) The IN is now near Somalian waters (approx 3200 kms) India has a listening post in madagascar (about 5500 KMs). India needs a navy which can dominate the Indian Ocean as the primary naval power. It will also need access to the gulf of aden and the gulf of oman as well as the persian gulf as this area is of vital economic and security concerns to India (tens of millions of Indians work and send home much valued forex - foriegn remittances are actualy India's largest source of forex - even bigger than IT and ITES industry, also India has large investments in oil exploration and releated areas)