Tests of the first aircraft carrier built in India have been completed. Vikrant will dramatically expand the capabilities of the Indian Navy. Can Russia build such a ship itself, how did our country participate in the Indian program to create an aircraft carrier fleet – and what can we learn from this experience?
Vikrant means "Brave" in Sanskrit. This ship is the fruit of extensive international cooperation, in which such antagonistic countries as, for example, Russia, the USA and Italy participated. The ship has a total displacement of 45 thousand tons and a standard displacement of 40 thousand. It is smaller than the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov. The ship has a springboard to ensure the take-off of aircraft and an aerial finisher for their landing, which gives it the opportunity to ensure the use of full-fledged fighters with horizontal take-off and landing, not "verticals".
The basic aircraft for this ship are MiG–29K fighters and Ka-31 and HAL Dhurv long-range radar detection helicopters of Indian design and production. It is possible to deploy American Sikorsky MH-60R helicopters on the ship.
In the future, the Indians plan to replace the MiG-29K with more modern Western-made aircraft. The approximate composition of the air group is 35-36 aircraft, of which 26 will be MiGs, and the rest will be helicopters, the number of which may depend on their type. The ship has a powerful air defense system, including the Barak anti-aircraft missile system and anti-aircraft artillery.
Indian Experience
Although this is the first aircraft carrier built in India, it is for the Indian Navy that the aircraft carrier theme is familiar – this is the fourth aircraft carrier that is in service, or in the case of the Vikrant, will be in service with the Indian Navy. The first Indian aircraft carriers were the last "Vikrant" (an old ship with the same name) and "Viraat" – both British-built and both at the end of their service life were carriers of British attack aircraft "Harrier" with vertical or short takeoff.
Of these ships, the first Vikrant even managed to fight in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, albeit limited. In 2013, the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya entered service with the Indian Navy, obtained by restructuring in Russia from the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov of the Russian Navy (formerly Baku). So the Indian Navy has a lot of experience in the aircraft carrier theme.
Indian naval aviation also has a lot of experience. Indian deck pilots have good training and a large raid. Unlike their Russian colleagues, all their simulators are regularly used, and the planes are provided with covered hangars on the ground.
The Vikrant is slightly smaller than the Vikramaditya, its deck is slightly shorter but wider. When designing it, the Indians were helped by Italian designers from the Fincantery company, and it is possible to place aircraft on the deck of this ship more conveniently than on the Vikramaditya, which, due to its origin (rebuilt from another ship's architecture), has a much less convenient deck.
The speed of the ship, however, is lower than that of its Soviet-Russian counterpart – only 28 knots. This is, of course, a disadvantage, since for carrier battles one of the important tactical possibilities is maneuvering at top speed to get out from under an enemy airstrike. An extra five or six knots would not hurt here, but at the same time the ship would have to be very much overcomplicated compared to what happened in the end.
Vikrant was created for a painfully long time, which is probably normal for a country like India, which does not have such experience, but has a lot of organizational problems in complex production. The first ideas about building their own aircraft carrier began to go back in the late 1980s.
The contract for the ship was signed in 2004, and the laying was made in 2008. In 2013, the hull without superstructure and side sponsons was launched – and the completion afloat began. And now, 18 years after the order, the ship is ready. This is reminiscent of Chinese experiments, which also took decades, it's just that India's entire accumulation of experience was on a single project. But they did, in the end. Our country played an important role in the creation of this ship.
"Russian trace"
In Russia, the thesis that "Russia is a continental power" is popular, and yet there is such a thing as a domestic aircraft carrier design school in the world. If we leave the EU out of consideration, then China (two in service, one in construction), India (two), Russia (one) and Thailand (one) have aircraft carriers in Eurasia. Of these, only the Chinese "Fujian", which is built rather in the American "tradition", and the Thai "Shakri Narubet" are not related to our country. The rest are either built in the USSR and Russia ("Kuznetsov", "Liaoning", "Vikramaditya"), or belong to the domestic design school ("Shandong", partly "Vikrant").
Its distinctive features are a springboard for take–off, an entire deck, a hangar for about the entire air group (in the west, part of the aircraft goes to deck-based), powerful defensive weapons, including missile. Vikrant also has all this. But it's not just that.
The ship was created with the active participation of the Nevsky Design Bureau (St. Petersburg), which participated in the creation of the aviation and technical complex.
And we must admit that the NPKB did its job well, firstly, and retained some competencies in working on aircraft carriers, secondly. Moreover, the study of the construction of such a ship according to the basic dimensions was carried out on the slipway "A" of the Baltic Plant in St. Petersburg. The study showed that it is possible to build an aircraft carrier with the Vikrant hull on this slipway, it is normally "going" on it, and drawings from this study can even be found on the Internet.
The Baltic Plant does not use the modern technology of building a ship from blocks, they are built there in a construction way, as in the old days. But the Vikrant was built the same way. On the slipway of the Baltic Plant, it is impossible to mount side expansion sponsons on the hull of the ship, on which the deck and the superstructure "island" stand. But the Vikrant was launched without them and then completed afloat. Interestingly, the Vikrant has not only a "Russian trace", but also a hint as to how small light aircraft carriers could be built here. What does Russia lack to build the same ship?
The main power plant (GEU). If, in general, Vikrant has the most in common with domestic shipbuilding traditions, then the GEU there is purely American and built according to American principles.
If the USSR and Russia all aircraft carriers had boiler turbine installations, where steam from the boilers turns steam turbines (the Ulyanovsk was not built immediately had to be nuclear), then the Vikrant has a gas turbine power plant from American turbines, two of which work on one shaft with a propeller. Such a scheme is incomparably simpler than a boiler turbine, and much more efficient, but there is nothing to do, turbines of the required power and gearboxes for them are not produced in Russia. And this is what separates us from its light aircraft carrier, similar to the Indian one.
There is another consideration. "Vikrant" is small. Strong storms are not uncommon in our northern seas, and the only way to effectively overcome pitching is to increase the size of the ship. At the same time, the "A" slipway at the "Baltic Plant" of the hull with dimensions significantly larger than that of the "Vikrant" will not allow building, there is no place.
However, presumably, there are some solutions with the shape of the underwater part of the hull that would allow you to "cheat fate" and still build a similar in terms of tactical and technical characteristics, but a more seaworthy ship. Of course, they need to be checked, but with a high degree of probability, Russia is separated from its light aircraft carrier only by the need to have turbines of 40-45 thousand horsepower of maximum power and corresponding gearboxes. We even have a catapult where to produce, and there are personnel for this. By the way, it is possible to build a boiler turbine plant right now, without any expensive and complex research, there, at the Baltic Plant.
Wings over the sea
India has become the fourth country in the world, after the United States, China and the United Kingdom, with two aircraft carriers in service. Taking into account the fact that there are more than enough ships in India's surface forces to form aircraft carrier groups, India is able to send two full-fledged aircraft carrier strike groups into battle. At the same time, the Indian Navy, which in their approaches largely copy the Soviet Navy (Admiral S.G. Gorshkov was even once called the "father of the Indian Navy", and the Indian author), the main striking force away from the coast will probably be ships with guided missile weapons, and not carrier-based aircraft, like the Americans.
But that doesn't make aircraft carriers any less important.
Aerial reconnaissance for hundreds of kilometers in any direction, the fight against enemy aerial reconnaissance, the destruction of enemy aircraft over the sea, at a great distance from their ships, the destruction of single weakly armed surface targets, missile and bomb strikes on the shore where there are no nearby airfields, air defense of the amphibious assault and air strikes in its interests. Vikrant has just doubled all these capabilities of the Indian Navy. And these capabilities are given to the armed forces only by aircraft carriers, countries without aircraft carriers do not have them at all. Russia can only be glad that our country has gained considerable experience on this project, which may one day be useful to our fleet.
Alexander Timokhin
