India's New Carrier Almost Ready

      From Aviation Week:

India, looking to boost its naval presence in the Indian Ocean, is one step closer to putting its first indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) into the water—as soon as August.

The first sea trials are likely to follow 10 months later, says a senior government official. Still, the IAC, named INS Vikrant after India's first carrier, will not see deployment for another five years.

The carrier is being constructed at the Cochin shipyard and the vessel “will be floated out on Aug. 12 and taken to the repair dock to carry out remaining work,” says Commo. K. Subramaniam, chairman and managing director of Cochin Shipyard Ltd. Hull work will be completed by June 2014, he adds.

The carrier is expected to be handed over to the navy for induction by January 2018.

The 45,000-ton IAC is estimated to cost $5 billion.

Cochin shipyard personnel have been working with the navy on the vessel for more than six years. The contract for the construction of the aircraft carrier was signed in 2007, and the keel was laid in February 2009, Subramaniam says.

The IAC was originally slated to enter service in 2014. Through last year, Indian officials insisted it could be 

commissioned in 2017. But a number of factors led to construction delays, including lack of adequate and appropriate steel from Russia and technical issues in the gearbox and other systems, a defense ministry official says.

India's other aircraft carrier, the 45,000-ton, 284-meter-long (932-ft.) INS Vikramaditya, formerly the Russian Kiev-class Admiral Gorshkov, is undergoing trials and will soon join the current sole carrier, the INS Virat.

Increasing India's naval force in the Indian Ocean is crucial, especially to combat sea piracy, says Ajay Lele, a defense pundit at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses.

     India is finally launching their first homebuilt aircraft carrier, with a second planned. This is a continuation of the arms race throughout South and East Asia. Still, it is good to see the Indians making advances, only question is which side will they be on when the shooting starts.

India Plans To Build 2nd Indigenous Carrier

    From Aviation Week:

India plans to build another indigenous aircraft carrier in addition to the INS Vikrant, which is expected to join the country’s navy in 2016.

“The indigenous aircraft carrier [IAC] program is planned to be [a] continuing process over the next decade-plus, with the Indian navy’s medium-term aim being to have at least two fully operational and combat worthy carriers available at any 

given time,” says Chief of Naval Staff Adm. Nirmal Verma.

The second planned IAC could weigh about 65,000 tons and is likely to be christened INS Vishal.

Vikrant is under construction at the public-sector Cochin Shipyard in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The keel-laying for Vikrant, which will weigh about 45,000 tons, took place in February 2009.

Verma says the Indian navy has articulated a development plan up to 2027 that is “capability-based rather than threat-based.”


     This comes after the converted-Kiev sailed for sea trials. I think with this, and other plans, we are seeing a new power bloc appear in Asia. Either way India will be quite interesting to watch over the next few years.


Photo Credit: Russia Today 

Giving Back Diego Garcia: Are You Out Of Your Bloody Mind?

     Aol Defense reports that the U.S. is in negoitations with the U.K. and Mauritius concerning returning Diego Garcia to the natives. Diego Garcia is home to a naval support facility, which includes 9 pre-positioned supply ships, along with numerous satellite monitoring and communication facilities. Read the article here:

During an era when the Pentagon has declared a pivot from Europe and the Atlantic to Asia and the Pacific, the prospect of handing over so many installations located in such a strategic spot -- or having them more accessible to a foreign government such as Mauritius -- must worry Pentagon officials.


So we asked a senior Pentagon official. Here's what he said: "Without commenting on discussions between other countries, the US military is the most flexible and agile in the world. We're nimble enough to deal with any scenario, especially as we move toward a rotational posture in much of the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, it's always preferable to have more options than fewer."

So one gets the impression the risk isn't considered very great, at least not yet.

But a change in status must have some implications, especially for operational security.

Under its current status as a British possession ceded to the United States, operational security is excellent for the simple reason that almost no one lives on the island unless they work for the U.S., Britain or an allied government. And the island is distant from almost anywhere else. Mauritius, at least publicly, says it wants the people who lived on the island to be able to return, something the British government has argued would not be feasible for security reasons, and because there really isn't much of an economy. A coconut plantation that was the island's mainstay has fallen largely to ruin.

Here's what the British Guardian newspaper, which has covered Diego Garcia much more closely and critically than most publications, said today about the talks:

"After meeting David Cameron in Downing Street, the Mauritian prime minister, Navinchandra Ramgoolam, told the Guardian that the aim of talks with the UK and US was to reassert Mauritian sovereignty over the islands."

"If Mauritius achieves its longstanding aim – supported, it says, in international law – it will mean the end of the British Indian Ocean territory. The territory was established in 1965 when Britain expelled the islanders and allowed the US to set up a large base in a deal that included cutting the cost of Polaris missiles for the UK's nuclear submarines."

It is not clear that the bases would have to be ceded to Mauritius or be closed. In fact, the Guardian said that Ramgoolam is coming here soon and is "likely to reassure the US that its base would remain on the island under Mauritian sovereignty." Whether the U.S. and its allies would have the same unfettered access and, perhaps most important, control of the island remains unanswered.

     The problem with giving Diego Garcia back to the natives is th fact that there are no real natives, or rather "islanders". The only islanders to inhabit Diego Garcia outside of stranded mariners, were marooned lepers, and the slaves (and their descendants) of a coconut plantation formerly located on the island. From 1968 to 1973 the "natives", were relocated to Mauritius, the Seychelles so as to make way for the U.S. Navy. Another problem is the fact that the U.K. purchased Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos archipelago for 3 million pounds from Mauritius.

     That only covers the political/social issues with giving back Diego Garcia. If the U.S. were to give up it's military facilities on Diego Garcia, we would lose an invaluable base with access to the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Gulf, through which 17% of the U.S.'s, and most Asia's oil flows. Currently, the Navy has 9 pre-positioned ships in the anchorage at Diego Garcia, with enough supplies to supply a marine air-ground task force for 30 days, and also a base from which all types of U.S. fighters and bombers can operate from. In fact aircraft operating from Diego Garcia have provided air support for Operations Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom.    

     To give up Diego Garcia because of a bunch of political rhetoric, would be a military disaster as we would lose the ability to deploy aircraft from the island, and an anchorage capable of handling anything in the U.S. Navy. Unfortunately, with the current president, it just might happen. God help us if it does.

Photo Credit: USAF

INS Vikramaditya Sails For Her First Sea Trial

     India's new carrier the INS Vikramaditya finally sailed for her firstrt sea trial on June 8th RIA Novosti reports. The Vikramaditya has been undergoing an overhaul in Sevmash shipyard since 2005 and has been experiencing many delays, as hes scheduled delivery date was in 2008, and now is this coming December.

Read the article here:

 INS Vikramaditya, formerly the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, has set sail for sea trials before delivery to the Indian navy. After a delay of four years, one of Russia’s largest military contracts is planned to be completed by the end of 2012, adding a nice sum to the Russia’s arms export revenues.

Twenty years ago

The warship was docked in spring 1992 and later moved to the Sevmash shipyard in the city of Severodvinsk in northern Russia, where it was modernized for the Indian navy as the Vikramaditya.

The sea trials began late at night on June 7, giving India hope that INS Vikramaditya, named after a legendary Indian emperor famed for his wisdom, valor and magnanimity, will be delivered to the Indian navy on schedule on December 4, 2012.

The Soviet-made ocean-going warship will get a new lease on life in the Indian navy, where it will replace the Vikrant-class aircraft carrier INS Viraat, which was commissioned in 1959 as the Royal Navy's HMS Hermes and transferred to India in 1987.

The Admiral Gorshkov, originally named the Baku, was a Kiev-class air-capable warship laid down in 1978. The first Soviet air-capable cruisers, traditionally named after the capitals of Soviet republics, were more like anti-submarine ships than aircraft carriers. They were equipped with helicopters and the Yak-23 Forger vertical take off/landing fighter planes, which had a limited strike capability. These warships were also armed with heavy anti-ship missiles.

The Soviet Union’s first real aircraft carrier was the Admiral Kuznetsov, which was laid down in 1983 and became fully operational in 1995, after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Only option

The 1990s were a bad period for large Russian warships. The Admiral Gorshkov spent it idling, while its “younger brothers,” including the Varyag, were sold to foreign navies.

Preparations for selling the Admiral Gorshkov to India began in 1994. But India wanted a modern warship, not a rundown behemoth, and so the first agreements were hammered out only by 2000. The warship, which was ordered to go to Severodvinsk a year before that, was officially sold on January 20, 2004 and renamed INS Vikramaditya.

The partners also coordinated the financial aspects of the contract, which were later reviewed several times as upgrade costs grew.

Russia planned to spend approximately $1 billion on the aircraft carrier’s modernization. The refurbished warship was to have a catapult for assisted takeoff and a new air group consisting of 12 MiG-29K single seaters and 4 MiG-29KUB two seaters ($740 million), the Ka-27 Helix anti-submarine helicopters and the Ka-31 Helix helicopters fitted with electronic warfare radars.

At that time, the MiG-29K multirole fighter existed only as a prototype modification of the old Soviet-era carrier based aircraft. India actually commissioned the construction of a new plane, given that all its equipment was completely new. Russia now delivers these planes not only to India under new contracts worth about $1.5 billion, but also to the Russian navy.

The aircraft was the least difficult part of the contract. Under the initial contract, the Admiral Gorshkov was to be delivered to India in 2008, but it soon turned out that the cost of modernization and the amount of work involved had been seriously underestimated.

The situation was complicated by the lack of personnel. Russian shipyards are still short of skilled personnel, which is one reason why the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea had to postpone the delivery of the Project 1135.6 frigates to India for at least a year.

While the sides haggled over additional agreements, India stopped financing the modernization of the Admiral Gorshkov. Progress was made on the cost issue only in late 2008, after President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to New Delhi.

The contract was recalculated at $2.35 billion, although Russia insisted on getting $3 billion or more, which incensed the Indian parliament and media.

INS Vikramaditya is to be delivered to India in December 2012, but it seems that problems with the warship will never end. Prosecutors are currently investigating a company that worked on the carrier without a license.

Once the Indian Navy takes delivery of the Vikramaditya she will probably be used to secure Indian energy intersts in the South China Sea, as China has begun bullying Indian vessels there. Still, it will something to keep an eye as India continues to modernize her military.

Photo Credit: Alert 5

Aircraft Carriers: The Newest Trend In Deterrence

     The photo above is a picture of the USS Texas, which is literally the last dreadnought, and a distant cousin of today's aircraft carriers.
     When the dreadnought era began with the launching of the HMS Dreadnought, a massive arms race began with countries all over the world racing to build dreadnoughts, to either deter other countries from attacking them or to intimidate surrounding countries. The same goes for aircraft carriers to some extent, if you don't have an aircraft carrier(s) you are at risk of having distant territories taken (Britain & the Falklands) or being bullied by another country.
     However, aircraft carriers today are not as all-powerful as they were through the late 1940s to the mid 1960s before modern anti-ship missiles like the AS-4 "Kitchen" came into service. New threats to aircraft carriers continue to arise, such as anti-ship ballistic missiles like the DF-21D and ever quieter submarines (a similar situation was the advent of naval aviation and the threat to battleships). To further aggravate the problem is that navies like the U.S. Navy build ever larger carriers like the Gerald R. Ford-class, which concentrates the Navy's air power in 11 or so locations that every country with a space program knows.
     I am not saying aircraft carriers are obsolete, far from it. I am saying carriers are an integral part of a country's national security, but instead of large size and limited quantity, they must be of small size (30,000 to 70,000 tons), and a larger quantity (12-20 for the U.S.). Aircraft carriers that would be examples of this would be the Queen Elizabeth-class and the USS America (LHA-6), both of which are relatively small compared to American super carriers (72,000 & 45,000 long tons compared to 100,000+ long ton Nimitz-class carriers).
     With aircraft carriers continuing to increase in size, and new threats constantly appearing, it will be in the next 25 years that the aircraft carrier really and truly comes of age as a new Cold War begins in the Pacific Ocean, and the aircraft carrier shows what it can really do.
   


Photo Credit: Daniel Schwen

Thursday Must Reads

1. Michael Peck over at the Danger Room wrote an interesting article on some of the mistakes Pharaoh made when attacking the Israelites.

2. Pakistan tested a new short range, nuclear capable, ballistic missile on Tuesday, the missile is named the "Nasr" or "Victory".

With Love, from Islamabad

Well maybe not that much, but apparently on February 10th, Pakistan test launched a nuclear capable cruise missile, the equivalent of an early model BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. Pakistan claims that the missile designated the HATF-7 Babur, has a range of around 600km (373mi), enough to reach a good deal of India. At the same time Defense News reports that Pakistan is stepping up production of nuclear materials and increasing its nuclear arsenal, and building at least two new nuclear reactors. What ever Pakistan is doing with its nukes, India will most likely assume the worst, and go on a military buying spree, increasing the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft purchase, maybe buy the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye for a new Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft, improve India's missile defense systems, just naming a few.