On September 2, 2022, India officially announced that India's first domestic aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, was officially commissioned, and an aircraft carrier that had been built for more than 13 years was finally about to make a big show. Modi attended the grand aircraft carrier service ceremony. Under the lens of the media, he personally opened the "curtain", representing the departure of the Vikrant. Let's take a look at the Vikrant, which cost 17.5 billion yuan, is 262 meters long, 62 meters wide, has a draft of about 8 meters, is equivalent to the height of 14 floors, has a full load displacement of about 43,000 tons, and can be equipped with 30 various types of carrier-based aircraft, obviously a medium-sized aircraft carrier with a displacement of 30,000 to 60,000 tons.
Foreigners once thought that the Indian Vikrant might exceed the Fujian tonnage that China was building, but now it seems impossible, because the Fujian captain is about 320 meters, 73 meters wide, and the drainage is 80,000 tons, almost twice that of the Vikrant drainage. USS Vikrant is the largest tonnage warship built in Indian history. Therefore, the people of India have high hopes. Modi and india's Ministry of Defence gave the Vikrant high marks: India has become one of the few countries in the world with the most advanced defense technology, with 75% of its components produced in China. Looking around the world, only the United States, China, Russia, Britain, and France can produce side-by-side aircraft carriers. Now, India has joined in, which is indeed something that India is proud of. From going to Britain and Russia to buy aircraft carriers to independent production, this is a huge leap forward in defense technology.
However, some professionals point out that India is in too much of a hurry. The main radar of the Vikrant was not installed in advance of service. The Vikrant originally wanted to install the Israeli EL/M-2248 active phased array radar on the top of the ship, and the el/M-2248 was the ship's main radar, which undertook the main detection task. El/M- The Israeli active phased array radar 2248iai elta developed, about 7 tons, is a multifunctional active electronically scanned array naval radar system dedicated to warships, consisting of four active arrays, no dead angle detection, can track air, ground and marine targets, and provide fire control recommendations. The el/m-2248 uses multi-beam technology, pulsed Doppler technology and electronic countermeasure technology to extract target information from a large number of jamming clutters, track hundreds of targets, track high-altitude fighters over 250 kilometers, track missiles 25 kilometers away, and find ships 450 kilometers away. However, as can be seen from the latest photos, the Vikrant after service did not have el/m-2248 active phased array radar installed, and the installation position was covered with iron plates. In accordance with normal procedures, ships should be fitted with all equipment, including radar systems, prior to delivery.
No wonder there are media outlets that Vikrant is injured. The aircraft carrier was not equipped with a main radar, which meant that the aircraft carrier had lost the ability to detect sea, land and air, and had no combat effectiveness, and in the future, after waiting for the Israeli el/m-2248 radar and technicians to be ready, the Vikrant would return to the shipyard for installation, and more than half a year had passed. The Vikrant also has the problem of the shortcomings of the carrier-based aircraft, all outsourced, 30 aircraft of various types, 12 Russian MiGs and 29 k as the main carrier-based aircraft, India plans to choose one of the two fighters from the French Rafale and the American Super Hornet as a carrier-based aircraft.
Vikrant is equipped with 10 Russian Ka-31 AWACS helicopters and American MR-60 anti-submarine helicopters, and only a few Tejas light fighters developed by India itself on the aircraft carrier. While India has repeatedly emphasized the use of its own military helicopters, when to develop them remains a big question mark. Vikrant also uses four U.S. GE LMs powered by 2500 gas turbines, but Hindustan Airlines allows GE to produce four LMs with a total power of 80 MW, a speed of 28 knots, a speed of 18 knots, and an endurance of 7800 nautical miles. While 75 percent of the USS Vikrant is domestically built, the vast majority of key equipment comes from other countries, such as the United States, Russia, Israel, Italy and the United Kingdom. Some devices are pulled into service before they are installed, which is really urgent. The reason why India is eager to enter the service of the Ravelant aircraft carrier is because India is too short of aircraft carriers.
Previously, India had two aircraft carriers, the Virat aircraft carrier and the vikramaditya aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier HMS Virat was built in the UK in 1944 and launched in 1953. It was retired from the Indian Navy in March 2017 because it was too old. Before the "Vikrant" aircraft carrier was commissioned, India had only one service aircraft carrier - Vikramaditya, which was built by the former Soviet Union and launched in 1982, and now has a full 40 years, the life of the aircraft carrier is generally about 30 to 50 years, and the Vikramaditya is also very old, so India urgently needs a new aircraft carrier to replace it.