Indian Navy and Naval Aicraft: News

India needs three aircraft carriers, says Navy Chief
03-12-2019
Indian Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh on Tuesday stressed the need for the country to have three aircraft carriers so that two are operational at all times.

"As Navy Chief I am convinced that
the country neesds three aircraft carriers so that two are operational at all times. We think they should be 65,000 tons with electromagnetic propulsion"

He said while addressing the annual Navy Day press conference.
Navy's plan is to have three aircraft carriers in the fleet  in the long term, said Admiral Karambir Singh.
The statement by the Navy Chief comes at a time when China has been increasingly expanding its footprints in the Indian Ocean.

F/A 18 Super Hornet is compatible with Indian aircraft carrier, ski jump tests soon: Boeing

MANU PUBBY

ET Bureau | Feb 6, 2020, 04.36 PM IST



Lucknow: Making a strong pitch for the F/A 18 Super Hornet fighter jets for an upcoming requirement of the Indian Navy, US defence major Boeing has said that the aircraft will soon be tested on a ski jump to demonstrate that its abilities to operate from Indian platforms.

The Super Hornet, which is by far the most used carrier borne fighter in the world, will be competing with the French Rafale for a requirement of 57 jets for the Navy for its aircraft carrier that is currently under construction at Kochi. The only existing Indian carrier – the INS Vikramaditya – operates the Russian MiG 29 K but the Navy is keen to get a more contemporary jet for future requirements.

While both France and the US have offered their fighters, the key issue is that the western jets are designed to operate from a flat deck with the assistance of a catapult. The Indian ships do not have the catapult and rely on a ski jump for take-off.


To overcome this, Boeing says that it will prove that the Super Hornet can operate from a ski jump by conducting physical tests. Sources said that the tests could be carried out a shore based facility in Maryland in the coming months.

“The F/A-18, on offer to the Indian Navy, is fully compatible with Indian Navy carriers and will boost the growing maritime and defence relationship between the United States and Indian navies,” Boeing says.

France is also pitching the fighter jet as a contender for the Indian Navy’s, pointing to operations against ISIS using the Rafale. French industry has pitched that the jet can be easily integrated onboard the aircraft carrier under construction at Cochin Shipyard Ltd.


Several rounds of talks had taken place with the Indian Navy regarding the requirement of 57 jets but the formal acquisition process is yet to start. While the navy has used Russian MiG 29 K jets till now, it wants to progress to a new aircraft due to several technical problems with the fleet.

Both the F/A 18 and Rafale Marine fighter jets have been operating from aircraft carriers but are rigged for catapult launches. Extensive tests and software analysis have been conducted by the French and US companies to show that they can operate with a meaningful load from ski-jump carriers.

is still unclear how the Indian side will categorise the purchase--as a direct foreign purchase or with an offset clause that mandates a proportion of the manufacturing will have to be domestic.

Tsavo Lion wrote:I doubt the Indians will order any F-18E/Fs- they r bigger than MiG-29Ks; the decks/lifts on IN CVs will be too small to accommodate as many of them/at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F/A-18E/F_Super_Hornet#Specifications_(F/A-18E/F)

GarryB wrote:The Hornet is an older design than the Fulcrum... why are they talking about wanting a newer design?

Russia waits request for delivery MiG-29K fighters for India's Vikrant

Russian Aviaton » Wednesday February 12, 2020 12:39 MSK

Russia has not yet received any requests from India for the delivery of a new batch of MiG-29K deck-based fighters for the Indian-made aircraft carrier Vikrant, a source in the aircraft-building industry told TASS on Wednesday.

Russia earlier provided all the necessary information to the Indian side on a possible contract, the source specified.

As the Indian newspaper, The Financial Express, reported earlier, citing India’s Defense Minister Sripad Naik, the wait for the country’s first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant has been extended "due to issues with the delivery of aviation equipment from Russia."

"Russia is waiting for a request from the Indian Defense Ministry for the delivery of deck-based MiG-29K fighters for the Vikrant. That is why, it is not quite correct to claim that the delivery of the aircraft carrier to the Indian Navy is being delayed because of Russia," the source stressed.

The Indian side has not yet issued even a call to bid in a tender for the supply of deck-based aircraft, although the Indian side made the relevant inquiry back in 2017. On Russia’s behalf, the state arms seller Rosoboronexport will take part in the tender, the source said.

According to India’s plans, the light aircraft carrier Vikrant is due to be delivered to the Indian Navy in March 2021. The warship is expected to carry up to 14 MiG-29K fighters and several helicopters. Russia earlier delivered a batch of MiG-29K/MiG-29KUB fighter aircraft for the Indian aircraft carrier Vikramaditya (the former heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Gorshkov).

Russian 91RE1 & 91RTE2 and the American cancelled RUM-125 (Sea Lance) plus ASROC etc are similar in concept to India's supersonic missile assisted release torpedo or SMART.

However, DRDO says SMART is primarily meant for anti submarine warfare and can target enemy submarines from 650 kms away. Question is from 650 kms away how exactly an accurate DATUM (location) of a hostile submarine is acquired?

The LWT typically has an underwater cruising range of 20km while its acoustic seeker has a range of less than 500 metres

GarryB wrote:These are very potent weapons... their flight through the air can't be detected by the target sub so the first warning the sub gets that it is under attack is the splash of the torpedo into the water less than 2km or so from its position most likely...

The torpedo will have to splash a few meters from the submarine. If it lands 1-2 kms away, the submarine will detect it and will evade it.

So for weapons like 91RE or DRDO's SMART from where will the torpedo get the DATUM from?

GarryB wrote:
The data used to find the subs to launch attacks at can come from sea bed laid sonar arrays in Russian territory and also by ships and subs and aircraft dropping disposable sonobuoys, as well as helicopters and drones with dipping sonar.

I suspect the range of the 91RE missiles was limited to about 50km because the chance of detecting enemy subs at greater distances is pretty low... the missiles themselves are designed to be launched from torpedo tubes, so a longer ranged model should be fairly easy to develop to launch from standard UKSK launch tubes if they wanted to of course.

Isos wrote:If there is a ship nearby that detect the sub at lets say 30km away but is out of ASW ammo it can give the data to a ship that is 300km away that can target it in less than 20 minutes.

India is short on UKSK cells. Its destroyer carry only 16 and they need lot of antiship brahmos and some land attack brahmos letting very little space for ASW.

Isos wrote:They can also create a SOSUS like system of underwater sonars to have 24/7 ability to detect subs and use coastal missile to destroy them. That's much faster than sending a  patrol aircraft.

That would also deny the area to enemy subs launching cruise missiles so that they would need to launch further away. Then it will also pick up the missile launch acting like an early warning system and allowing to send fighter to destroy them. Missile booster make a huge noise easy to pick up.