INS Vikramaditya (ex-Admiral Gorshkov) aircraft carrier

Vikramaditya to be handed over to India mid 2013 – shipbuilding company official

KALININGRAD, November 10 (Itar-Tass) —— The Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (formerly Russia’s The Admiral Gorshkov) will be handed over to India in the middle of next year, the vice-president of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Sergei Forafonov, told the media in Kaliningrad. He took part in the ceremony of the transfer to the Indian Navy of another frigate (The Tarkash), build at the Baltic shipyards Yantar.

“The negotiations with the Indian side are practically over. The Vikramaditya aircraft carrier will be handed over to the customer in the middle of 2013 after the insulation of boilers has been replaced,” Forafonov said.

He recalled that the insulation of the aircraft carrier’s boilers failed during sea trials.

“It was not designers’ mistake. The insulation materials were used at the request of the Indian side. The partners had not taken into account the factor of vibration and the hull’s deformation while the ship is on the move,” Forafonov said. “As a result, we have the result that we have.”

Forafonov said the boilers would be covered with a different sort of insulation. The Indian partners agreed with that and put their signatures to the specifications of the new coating.

The work will be done at the Baltic shipbuilding plant, which had manufactured the boilers for the aircraft carrier.

“Next year the Vikramaditya will be fully restored and handed over to the Indian side,” Forafonov said, adding that that might happen in June 2013.

Right, not the designers mistake...

The designers accepted the Indian request, and ballsed up its implementation - so they bear responsibility

lol, how is that India's fault?

They couldn't have told the Indian delegation - "Hey, this is not going to work and we are worried" but just shrugged and went along with it?

Reeks of greed and wanting money, worrying about actual problems later.

No what he is saying is the insulation material was proposed by India and that was not something Russian would have wanted to have there but due to health concerns Indians did not go with Asbestos and proposed some other material which was not know to the designer but used it at Indian request.

India also proposed some British and Polish system which also had its failure.

Probably even India didnt anticipate that this would fail nor did the Russians else they would have not have added it in the first place.

Its the risk of the game when you use new technology which may not be proven it may work or it may not , In the hindsight its easier for the Indians to blame the Russians or vice verse.

Austin wrote:“It was not designers’ mistake. The insulation materials were used at the request of the Indian side. The partners had not taken into account the factor of vibration and the hull’s deformation while the ship is on the move,” Forafonov said.

This was said within a day or two of the tests. But the internet generals have decided otherwise...this forum is no different sometimes

TR1 wrote:lol, how is that India's fault?

They couldn't have told the Indian delegation - "Hey, this is not going to work and we are worried" but just shrugged and went along with it?

Reeks of greed and wanting money, worrying about actual problems later.

It's not India's fault - it's our fault; that's exactly the point.
And yes we could have told India "that's not going to work and we are worried". Why not? Russia is the producer and India is the customer - it's Russia's role to inform India if its requests are unreasonable and to propose reasonable alternatives if the Indians have concerns. In this case the Indians had a concern about the asbestos, but the alternative that was proposed - failed. Sure India is a partner as well - but at the end of the day its a Russian ship being paid for by Indian money. If the calculations were done right by the Russians as to the effect the vibration/deformation would have on the new material, this issue could have been solved ahead of time.

I am agreeing with you Python - at the end of the day the actual work is with Sevmash + the boiler manufacturers; the fact that the problem was not detected before all of the boilers were installed, the ship was out @ sea, and a bunch of them failed, is damning that the problem was on the manufacturing side.

The excuse of "India asked for a bad material" sounds absurd.

Apparently they did tell them they had concerns since it hadn't been tested before. But since we don't know what the terms of the technical agreement are it's idle speculation. If it's the shipyards fault they will probably get fined.

TR1 wrote:I am agreeing with you Python - at the end of the day the actual work is with Sevmash + the boiler manufacturers; the fact that the problem was not detected before all of the boilers were installed, the ship was out @ sea, and a bunch of them failed, is damning that the problem was on the manufacturing side.

The excuse of "India asked for a bad material" sounds absurd.

Again Not True

The Russian side proposed Asbestos which was known to work well and are extensively used but its not environmentally friendly so Indian Rejected it.

The Indian Side proposed an Environmentally Friendly Material which was accepted by Russian side , this was not a material that was made in Russia AFAIK but was procured from 3rd party , similarly other systems were procured from 3rd party from UK or Poland also failed.

There was no way for Russian side to know on how these materials or systems procured from UK or Poland would work as it was dependent on Indian request and OEM.

As you why these insulating material were not detected on Shore Trials , as it was mentioned by USC before that at shore the steam turbine can only be tested at maximum 20 % of its capacity to test it 100 % it has to happen on real sea trial.

So it possible these insulating material behaved well on all land test but when tested to 100 % of boiler strength it deformed and failed.

The OEM of these equipment and Indian has to be blamed majorly for it.

By that logic even equipment failure from UK and Poland has to be on Sevmash because sevmash should have known about it.

It cant get more absurd

Well it was explicitly stated that a full mockup of the boilers using the non-asbestos bricks was not tested before the units were installed in the Gorshkov.
That is the responsibility of the contractors - at the end of the day the deadlines and time-schedules are theirs to meet, so it is their duty to make sure the boilers and the 3rd party components work as intended!

The Indian decision to ask for non-asbestos was not good in retrospect- but after Sevmash agreed to this, the responsibility shifts.
I would understand if during the testing/design phase of the boilers, problems were encountered, and Sevmash notified India that because of the materials, realistically more time would be needed to make it work. But with a completed ship! The problem fixing is much harder now than if proper testing was done.
Keep in mind there is a history of post-Soviet, corrupy and greepy plant managers wanting that sweet sweet foreign money without being too responsible about the actual contract details.
I have a hard time giving Sevmash and the boiler folks the benefit of the doubt.

TR1 wrote:The Indian decision to ask for non-asbestos was not good in retrospect- but after Sevmash agreed to this, the responsibility shifts.

No you are mistaken , Sevmash takes the responsibility of integrating 3rd party components but cannot be held responsible for its failure , So if IN says I want Environmental Friendly Material from xyz , and some components from UK and Poland integrated into Vikramaditya.

Then Sevmash as the designer of the Carrier will provide the specification to IN and through IN to the OEM , it is the responsibility of the OEM to make sure that what ever they make is developed according to its specification and also make sure that these 3rd components are integrated properly and then the OEM certifies it.

Sevmash cannot be held responsible if the Insulators over boilers breaks deforms during trials unless Sevmash gave the wrong data to the OEM of these Insulators which manufactured it ,which does not appears to be the case.

Sevmash would have been held responsible if they would have said to the IN buy asbestos from xyz manufacture in Russia and I will integrate , proof test it in trials and certify it.

Faulty 3rd party components is responsibility of the owner and not system integrator.

For eg if you install a Video Driver from Nvdia on Windows and for some reason while playing games your windows crashes and its traced to Video Drivers then you cant hold MS responsible for it as it was bad programming in the Video Driver that killed the OS ,The OS guys just releases the specification , API on how to integrate 3rd party driver into OS but are not responsible for faulty driver so either you get it fixed via NVDIA or go for Microsoft based OS driver if you want to catch MS Neck.

So I hope this is clear now , that is the reason USC president is so confidently blaming India for it because he knows he is right.

Let's use a better analogy:

I am ordering a custom computer from Alienware (high performance rigs).
I ask for an Overclocked top-of-the line card (lets say a Geforce 690)....and I get stability issues (these are common with GPUs) down the line, and ask Alienware to fix them.
The fault is the graphics chip, but I don't call Nvidia for a replacement! I contact Alienware, who put everything together and sold it to ME. They send me a replacement computer or fix it up, at their cost. Now they may contact Nvidia over failing GPUs, but that is a process that I, the consumer, have no part in.

India did not deal with the independent contractors did it? Unless it has a separate plan with the boiler manufacturer (Baltic shipyards I think made them) that is completely separate from the rest of the work by Sevmash, then Sevmash has to be responsible for the problems on the final product that it, not Baltisky, is handing over to India. The problem is not actually by Sevmash's work, hell it may not even be by Baltisky's designs, but by 3rd party components- but that does not excuse Sevmash from the responsibility of oversight on all the major ship components. They can charge Balitsky for poor boiler work, they can deal with it however they like, but they also deal with penalties with failing to deliver a working product to the customer, on time.

Sevmash seems to have (finally, took a long time) to have done fine work on the actual ship, which is their actual workload. But they are the ones who deal directly with India regarding the ship, so problems by those they sub-contracted (yes, even those that India asked for) are Sevmash's problems. The fact that there is info suggesting no full scale testing rigs were set up and fully tested before the ship went to trials, lends credibility to this being a Sevmash-Baltisky cockup on many levels.

I would blame India if they insisted that Sevmash use a specific design with specific materials, and when Sevmash did this, it all gave out.
But AFAIK India indicated it wanted no asbestos- the rest of the design work was adapted by Baltisky.

Honestly I have trouble seeing it any other way.
I just hope this crap gets fixed fast, Chinese fanboys are annoying me as of late.

[quote="TR1"]Let's use a better analogy:

I am ordering a custom computer from Alienware (high performance rigs).
I ask for an Overclocked top-of-the line card (lets say a Geforce 690)....and I get stability issues (these are common with GPUs) down the line, and ask Alienware to fix them.
The fault is the graphics chip, but I don't call Nvidia for a replacement! I contact Alienware, who put everything together and sold it to ME. They send me a replacement computer or fix it up, at their cost. Now they may contact Nvidia over failing GPUs, but that is a process that I, the consumer, have no part in.

Here is the problem Alienware will not integrate Cards that they have not tested it and certified it before .....so your choice with Alienware or any body in this business is limited to what the OEM offers and these could be very top end or medium model but your choice is limited to what Alienware has already tested and certified it.

With the Gorshkov deal , India saw a problem with using Asbestos and India recommended and suggested to buy an environmental friendly insulator , Sevmash did not say go an buy but India did , procured it and then let Sevmash Integrate it , so Sevmash is just a system integrator here and you cant hold it accountable for break up of insulator unless the Insulator is the one recommended by Sevmash tested and certified by them.

The USC guys says they took what India said , which means India takes the onus of what puts inside the ship and the OEM takes the Onus if it breaks up , the system integrator is not responsible except in case where it gave false information on the boiler specs and in turn the OEM made the faulty insulator that did not meet the correct specs of boilers.

Sorry buddy I find your argument very diffcult to buy , the USC head is not going to put his reputation in line by making false statement in public and he is well aware and right when he says the customer is responsible.

I would blame India if they insisted that Sevmash use a specific design with specific materials, and when Sevmash did this, it all gave out.

TR1 i truly don't understand ,therefore what is your point :

"The insulation materials were used at the request of the Indian side . The partners had not taken into account the factor of vibration and the hull’s deformation while the ship is on the move,” Forafonov said. “As a result, we have the result that we have.”

As you can see the question was NOT that Indian side had simply requested to avoid generally asbestos ,leaving open to the developer any other solution for boiler's insulation, but had engaged the developer within a precise system integration requirement by contract ; to the point that Sevmash's delegates not only assert without any problems that THEM ,in selecting this solution, had no taken into account vibration and the hull’s deformation while the ship is into move (suggesting in this way that this specific requirement by part of the Indian side was likely the product of laboratory tests ,naturaly uncapable to reproduce the enormous ,entrophic ,cascade of factors involved in the actual test of the aircraft carrier in motion at very high speed ) ,but had also warned of that risk the partners well in advance.


Vikramaditya unlucky adventure in all those years see several blames imputable to Sevmash, but this specific one is ,surely, not one of them.

Austin wrote:so Sevmash is just a system integrator here and you cant hold it accountable for break up of insulator unless the Insulator is the one recommended by Sevmash tested and certified by them.

The USC guys says they took what India said , which means India takes the onus of what puts inside the ship and the OEM takes the Onus if it breaks up , the system integrator is not responsible except in case where it gave false information on the boiler specs and in turn the OEM made the faulty insulator that did not meet the correct specs of boilers.

Sorry buddy I find your argument very diffcult to buy , the USC head is not going to put his reputation in line by making false statement in public and he is well aware and right when he says the customer is responsible.

Do we know for FACT that India had a seperate contract for the boilers, or was it all under the umbrella of the deal with Sevmash?
That makes the critical difference for me here- if India signed Sevmash to use the propulsion plant it picked (not just the use of one material, but the whole thing) and Sevmash was only an integrator, not a overseer of the whole propulsion sub-contracting,

or if India indicated to Sevmash what it wanted, and Sevmash took over from there.

Mindstorm wrote:

As you can see the question was NOT that Indian side had simply requested to avoid generally asbestos ,leaving open to the developer any other solution for boiler's insulation, but had engaged the developer within a precise system integration requirement by contract ; to the point that Sevmash's delegates not only assert without any problems that THEM ,in selecting this solution, had no taken into account vibration and the hull’s deformation while the ship is into move (suggesting in this way that this specific requirement by part of the Indian side was likely the product of laboratory tests ,naturaly uncapable to reproduce the enormous ,entrophic ,cascade of factors involved in the actual test of the aircraft carrier in motion at very high speed ) ,but had also warned of that risk the partners well in advance.

Hi Mindstorm,

If this is the case, then Sevmash is free from responsibility.
What I would like to see is specific contract details, so far what we have seen is a game of "they said we said"- as well as more details regarding the propulsion testing prior to mounting on the ship.

lots of stuff comming frm us c-17 apache .chinook..p-81 poseidon hopefully javelin nothing wrong we r divercify our vendor..  

lots of stuff comming frm us c-17 apache .chinook..p-81 poseidon hopefully javelin nothing wrong we r divercify our vendor.

Well C-17 at half a billion per plane was very expensive for a medium transport I really don't think you got a good deal there, Apache is a mature battle weapon that is proven, and if you had to buy straight away then it is not a bad choice... but I suspect if they had waited a couple of years they could have gotten the Mi-28M which I think will be a better aircraft in the long term. Chinook is vastly inferior to the Mi-26, the Poseidon currently has no Russian "in production" competition... and Javelin... well India is buying lots of Russian ATGMs too.

I suspect they will develop a new MPA... possibly a combination of UAV and PAK DA based aircraft... if PAK DA is going to be a subsonic flying wing then it has a lot of potential for MPA use... and also a inflight refuelling tanker, AWACS, Jammer/intel/recon, command type.

Can some one explain me this how this can be possible ? How can you make a carrier fail to get painted by AWACS and can they use ESM when its getting jammed .....how do they operate their own radar and catch an aircraft 400 km away.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/navy-to-get-refurbished-vikramaditya-tomorrow/article5353257.ece

Igor Leonav, chief commissioner of Sevmash, who is heading the guarantee team to India, said the carrier controlled 778 flights during trials. There were 88 landings, too, all piloted by Russians. The carrier’s jamming capability was demonstrated when the Sukhoi-33s, Kamovs, MiG-29s and the early warning aircraft A-50 all failed to paint it on their radars, he said. The carrier’s radar, on the contrary, could pick oncoming aircraft from a distance of 350-400 km, said Mr. Leonav.

In an attempt to snoop on the communications and combat signatures of Admiral Gorshkov (INS Vikramaditya) NATO sends a spy aircraft and a ship to Severodvinsk . Later , MIG 29Ks are scrambled to chase away the P3C Orion .









More Pictures here

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ins-vikramaditya-was-spied-upon-by-nato-aircraft-and-ship-last-year/1/325335.html

Well India have a repecteble navy now, and NATO is eager to know all about it. INS Vikramaditya will have an impact on nearby countries and certainly Pakistan wants that information, iam sure they get it from NATO/US.

When Peter the great was on trials in the baltic a swedish Viggen plane crashed in the water nearby after taking photos, nearly colliding with an Il38.

Are there no signs on the p-3c orion to see from what country it is?

Its a weird story i think the pakistanis are begint this. 

Can some one tell me why they dont use Jet Blast Deflector on Vikramaditya during take off ?

Does Vikramaditya have a Jet Blast Deflector

I would say they probably do have blast deflectors, but as nothing else was on the deck there was no need to use it.

PM Narendra Modi dedicates INS Vikramaditya to nation