India's first domestically built aircraft carrier entered service on September 2. According to the Global Network, on September 2, the Indian government held a service ceremony for India's first domestic aircraft carrier "Vikrant" at the Cochin Naval Base. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the aircraft carrier service ceremony and boarded the aircraft carrier to review the Indian Navy's honor guard.
After the commissioning of India's first domestic aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, it will become the flagship of the Indian Navy's Western Fleet. It became the second aircraft carrier in active service in the Indian Navy after the Viclamatia.
Fortunately, this time the service time was only slightly delayed by half a month as planned. India previously announced that its first domestically produced aircraft carrier would officially enter service on August 15, but it has now been postponed to September 2, which is a tight fit for India's often delayed weapons program.
However, the total construction time of this aircraft carrier is too long, counting the design, the construction time is as long as 23 years. It was designed at the end of the 90s, and it was not easy to enter service in 2022.
The aircraft carrier "Vikrant" is a multifunctional medium aircraft carrier with a displacement of 43,000 tons and is designed to carry 26 carrier-based fighter jets and 10 helicopters. At present, India only has MiG-29K carrier-based aircraft imported from Russia. Performance is average. Therefore, India is struggling to choose between the French Rafale M and the American F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and wants to choose the most suitable one.
Fortunately, India has become one of the few countries in the world with the technology to build a medium-sized aircraft carrier independently. Even the special steel for aircraft carriers is also made by India itself. After being pit by Russia several times, India was determined to produce its own steel for aircraft carriers. India built its own 5-meter giant rolling mill, and the Indian Essar Steel Group independently produced high-yield special steels similar to the HY80 and HY-100 series in the United States for the flight deck and hull armor of the "Vikrant".
Although India claims that the "Vikrant" is the first "domestically produced" aircraft carrier that India has "independently developed" and "independently built", everyone has carefully observed and found that India has built its own shell, and its main subsystems are foreign. The hull design and main engine of the "Vikrant" and the internal structure were all designed by Italy. Outsourced to the Italian Fincantini Group, the "Vikrant" is very similar to the Italian aircraft carrier "Cavour" and can be regarded as the "Cavour" amplification.
The "Vikrant" power system is the same level as the Japanese "Izumo", both using two LM2500+ gas turbines, with a single shaft horsepower of 40,000 horsepower and a total shaft horsepower of 160,000 horsepower, purchased by India from general dynamics in the United States, while the auxiliary engine and transmission system are German.
The phased array radar of the aircraft carrier "Vikrant" is Israel's four-sided EL/M-2248 MF-STAR multi-function phased array radar, which is also the main radar of the Indian Navy's Kolkata-class guided missile destroyers and Visakhapatnam-class guided missile destroyers.
The Barak anti-aircraft missile system for aircraft carrier self-defense was provided by Israel. Finland is responsible for the entire power plant of the aircraft carrier, including the generator set and power distribution. Russia provided India with MiG-29K carrier-based aircraft, and the United States provided India with SH-60 Seahawk anti-submarine helicopters.
In short, India's technology integration ability is very strong and admirable to the world.
The operational command room of the "Vikrant" was also exposed, and it seems that the command and control system of the "Vikrant" adopts the military system of The Windows XP architecture. In fact, the application of this system is very common, and many warships in the US and European navies are currently used.
The "Vikrant" aircraft carrier is simply a typical example of slow work, designed from 1999, laid keel in 2009, and launched in 2013 (at this time, the Liaoning had just been in service for a year). For some unspeakable reasons, India's first aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, has been "launched" five times.
The aircraft carrier "Vikrant" first went to sea on August 8, 2021, and entered service on September 2, 2022, so the overall construction cycle is 23 years.
In addition, when India's first domestic aircraft carrier "Vikrant" was commissioned, the ship still lacked a large number of weapons and equipment, such as the Barak anti-aircraft missile, etc., the most obvious is that the phased array radar on the island was not installed, and a large hole in the radar base was sealed with a piece of iron. If you want to have combat effectiveness, you still need to wait for several years.
In any case, this is also the third time in 50 years that India has entered the era of a dual-carrier navy. After the commissioning of the HMS Vikrant, the Indian Navy will become a country with a dual-carrier navy for the third time (previously India in 1987 and 2013).
After World War II, in Asia, India absolutely ranked first in terms of aircraft carrier use experience and actual combat experience. India was also the first Asian navy to have a dual aircraft carrier after World War II, and it has had two aircraft carriers three times.
In 2014, in a CCTV interview program, the bureau also admitted that the Indian Navy's experience in using aircraft carriers, especially in actual combat, was richer than that of the Chinese Navy. India is also currently the most experienced country in Asia after World War II.
In the Third Indo-Pakistani War, which broke out in 1971, the Indian Navy's aircraft carrier HMS Vikrant played a huge role, using 30 Seahawk fighter-bombers and 12 Tradewind anti-submarine attack aircraft, with a total of thousands of missions over a 28-day combat period. The successful maritime blockade of Pakistan has resulted in full control of air and sea supremacy along the Coast of Pakistan. During the war, the aircraft carrier Viclant sank a total of 8 warships of the Pakistani Navy and 42 of the Pakistani merchant ships.
Regarding the carrier-based aircraft of the "Vikrant", it is currently in transition to the Russian-made MiG-29K. The Indian military passed a resolution in July 2020 to spend nearly $1 billion to continue to purchase 21 MiG-29K carrier-based aircraft from Russia for the transition.
India is currently working on options for the next generation of new carrier-based fighters. The Indian Navy conducted tests of super hornets and gusts at the Hanseatic Naval Base in southwestern Goa earlier this year. One of them is the land-based ski-jump takeoff test, which is a new generation of carrier-based aircraft equipped with domestic aircraft carriers that are undergoing sea trials.
The Indian Navy has ordered 45 Russian-made MiG-29K carrier-based aircraft in two batches, and India has also conducted carrier-based aircraft modification tests on domestically produced Tejas fighters. But at present, India is not satisfied with the MiG-29K and the Tejas carrier-based aircraft. Now you need to choose between the F-18E/F and the gust. Which carrier-based aircraft, you say, is best for the Indian Navy?