INS Vikramaditya - ex Gorshkov

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While this carrier is now operational in the Indian Navy . . .

https://youtu.be/8CL8KGSHYZE

https://youtu.be/EGhhwgQtuUg


. . . no discussion about it would be complete without the rocky acquisition and modernization process


29 June 2009
 
Gorshkov Spurs Indian Navy To Look Beyond Russia
Radhakrishna Rao
Freelancer

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/gorshkov-spurs-indian-navy-to-look-beyond-russia-2896.html
 
The simmering controversy over the cost escalation insisted upon by Russia for retrofitting the 44,750-tonne Kiev class aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov has spurred the Indian Navy to look beyond Russia to meet its futuristic requirements. Russia’s demand for an additional US$ 2-billion over and above the US$1.5-billion package deal signed in 2004 for retrofitting this aircraft carrier originally known as Baku has upset the Indian defence establishment. Of the US$ 1.5 billion originally contracted amount, US$974 million was for augmenting the decommissioned Russian aircraft carrier and the rest earmarked for 16 M-29K fighter aircraft to operate from the carrier which would be inducted into the Indian Navy as INS Vikramaditya.

Russia on its part has offered to make available additional M-29K fighters for use onboard India’s homegrown aircraft carrier now under construction at the Cochin Shipyard at Kochi in Kerala. A section of Indian defence analysts are of the view  that Russia, which is the largest supplier of defence hardware to India, is well on the way to palming off  M-29K fighters which are no longer the state of the art aircraft for operations from an aircraft carrier.

As part of the 2004 deal, India had already paid US$ 500 million to Russia to help Sevmash shipyard, the focal point for the retrofitting and modernization of Gorshkov. As commentators point out, Gorshkov repair project had saved the shipyard from running into bankruptcy. In 2007, citing reasons such as under estimation of the work involved in retrofitting and volatility in the global currency market, Russia came out with an additional cost projection of US$ 1.2 billion. Much to the surprise of New Delhi, this was jacked up to US$ 2 billion in February this year.

Negotiations are now on between India and Russia to arrive at a consensus on the increased price tag. If everything goes as planned, the fresh deal providing for the increased cost of Gorshkov retrofitting, is likely to be sealed by August this year. In fact, the ongoing row over Gorshkov retrofitting is the latest instance of “disharmony” in the Indo-Russian defence deal. For many years now, the Indian defence establishment has been forced to put up with the Russian penchant for jacking up costs midway through the execution of the project and then delaying the delivery. Moreover, poor performance of the many Russian supplied weapons and defence hardware and difficulties in getting spares have not gone down well with the end users in India.

In this context, in December 2007, Indian Navy Chief Sureesh Mehta had stated that it was high time that New Delhi stopped putting all its eggs in one basket, thereby implying that India should stop depending totally on Russia and instead expand its defence ties with more reliable partners.

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'The ship is ours': After years of delays and cost overruns that nearly destroyed Indo-Russian ties, INS Vikramaditya begins her long voyage home
By Shiv Aroor
PUBLISHED: 17:10 EST, 16 November 2013 | UPDATED: 21:26 EST, 16 November 2013

Defence Minister AK Antony formally inducted INS Vikramaditya into the Indian Navy on a chilly Saturday morning in faraway Russian waters, marking the end of a tumultuous journey that tested Delhi-Moscow ties due to a nearly five-year delivery delay and numerous cost overruns.

Between 2007 and 2010, the refurbishment programme nearly destroyed Indo-Russia ties when the Russians reported that the scope of work on the erstwhile Admiral Gorshkov had been severely underestimated.

The deal was one of the last big ticket items pushed through by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

While Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi was polite when he said the ship was the result of "exceptional perseverance", Antony remarked, "Now that the ship is ours, I can confide in you. The whole programme very nearly failed."

"The Indians changed a lot of specifications, and asked for many things that had not been contracted initially," Igor Leonov, chief commissioning officer for the Vikramaditya project, said.

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He will be among the 183 people travelling with the aircraft carrier to India next month to 'guarantee' her for the first year.

The Indian side, meanwhile, has had far less experience on the ship than it would have liked.

Of the 19,500 miles covered by INS Vikramaditya during trials, barely 1,700 miles were under the command of Commodore Suraj Berry, who is now the commanding officer of the vessel.

Over 188 days, during the two rounds of sea trials between 2012 and 2013, Indian personnel are said to have been irritated with the manner in which the Russian trial team on board ran the show, speaking largely in their own language, and ticking off mandatory test points on the ship.

Hundreds of Indian officers and sailors have been rotated through Severodvinsk over the last decade in embedded observation teams or specialised training units.

The length of their commitment has meant that most of them brought along their families on two-year stints to the Russian town whose economy is centred around the shipyard that converted 'Admiral Gorshkov' into 'Vikramaditya'.

Many among Vikramaditya's crew belong to Himachal Pradesh, but they have never experienced the unrelenting, almost hostile cold of Severodvinsk, helped heartily by freezing cold winds from the north that bring snow and sleet in abundance.

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2508463/The-ship-After-years-delays-cost-overruns-nearly-destroyed-Indo-Russian-relations-INS-Vikramaditya-begins-long-voyage-home.html#ixzz4V1eRBhkd
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Indian navy says successfully fires surface-to-air missile from aircraft carrier
Source: Xinhua   2017-03-25 08:23:08

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/25/c_136156425.htm

NEW DELHI, Mar. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Indian Navy Friday said that it has successfully conducted the first trial of the recently installed surface-to-air missile (SAM) system from its aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.

The firing was conducted in the Arabian Sea Wednesday as part of the Operational Readiness Inspection of the Western Fleet by Vice Admiral Girish Luthra, an official statement said.

"During the firing carried out in the Arabian Sea, the missile was fired against a live low flying high speed target. The target was successfully engaged and destroyed," it said.

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INS Vikramaditya is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier which entered into service with the Indian Navy in 2013 at a ceremony held at Severodvinsk in Russia. She has been renamed in honour of Vikramaditya, a legendary emperor of Ujjain in western India.

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[Ayoshi]

Steam pipe blast caused fire on INS Vikramaditya | Navy Recognition - 29 April 2019 10:59

A blast in a steam pipe in the engine room of aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya is believed to have led to the fire that claimed the life of a naval officer on Friday at INS Kadamba naval base here. Nine others were injured in the accident. The blast damaged the fuel pipe causing the fire in the engine room.

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As soon as the fire was noticed in the fuel pipe, the fire-fighting crew immediately cut fuel supply, preventing any further damage. The sprinklers in the engine room were also automatically activated and the fire was brought under control. There were 1,300 men on board the carrier when the incident occurred, the sources added.

The fire broke out on Deck 3 of the vessel and damaged two compartments. The vessel has 21 decks and a thorough check has been ordered to prevent such incidents. Six of the nine injured Navy personnel who are being treated at Naval hospital in Karwar are said to be recovering.

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India Really Regrets Buying This Aircraft Carrier from Russia
A total lemon?

by Kyle Mizokami
October 10, 2019

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/india-really-regrets-buying-aircraft-carrier-russia-87051

Key point: The Admiral Gorshkov is a terrible ship, but beggars can't be choosers.

Like a lot of countries, India wants the best weapons it can afford. But ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things it won’t buy from the United States or Europe. That pretty much leaves, well, Russia.

India has been a big buyer of Russian weapons for 50 years. Those haven’t been easy years for New Delhi. India’s defense contracts with Russia have consistently suffered delays and cost overruns. And the resulting hardware doesn’t always work.

Of all India’s Russian procurement woes, none speak more to the dysfunctional relationship between the two countries than the saga of INS Vikramaditya. In the early 2000s, India went shopping for a new aircraft carrier. What followed was a military-industrial nightmare.

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In 2010, the Indian government agreed to more than double the budget for the carrier to $2.2 billion. This was less than the $2.9 billion Sevmash demanded, and much less than Sevmash’s suggested “market price” of $4 billion.

Suddenly, Sevmash magically started working harder—actually, twice as hard—and finished the other half of the upgrades in only three years. Vikramaditya finally entered sea trials in August 2012 and commissioned into the Indian navy in November 2013.

At the commissioning ceremony, Indian Defense Minister AK Anthony expressed relief that the ordeal was over, telling the press that there was a time “when we thought we would never get her.”

Enduring woes

Now that Vikramaditya is finally in service, India’s problems are over, right? Not by a long shot. Incredibly, India has chosen Sevmash to do out-of-warranty work on the ship for the next 20 years.

Keeping Vikramaditya supplied with spare parts will be a major task in itself. Ten Indian contractors helped to build the carrier, but so did more than 200 other contractors in Russia, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Finland, France, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the U.K. Some countries, particularly Japan, were likely unaware they were exporting parts for a foreign weapons system.

The ship’s boilers, which provide Vikramaditya with power and propulsion, are a long-term concern. All eight boilers are new. But yard workers discovered defects in them. During her trip from Russia to India, the flattop suffered a boiler breakdown, which Sevmash chalked up to poor-quality Chinese firebricks.

China denied ever exporting the firebricks.

Finally, Vikramaditya lacks active air defenses. The ship has chaff and flare systems to lure away anti-ship missiles, but she doesn’t have any close-in weapons systems like the American Phalanx.

India could install local versions of the Russian AK-630 gun system, but missiles will have to wait until the ship is in drydock again—and that could be up to three years from now. In the meantime, Vikramaditya will have to rely on the new Indian air-defense destroyer INS Kolkata for protection from aircraft and missiles.

As for Sevmash? After the Vikramaditya fiasco, the yard is strangely upbeat about building more carriers … and has identified Brazil as a possible buyer. “Sevmash wants to build aircraft carriers,” said Sergey Novoselov, the yard’s deputy general director.

This article by Kyle Mizokami originally appeared back in 2014.

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Does China Know Why an Indian Aircraft Carrier Went Ablaze?
No, but they think they do.

August 23, 2019
by Michael Peck

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/does-china-know-why-indian-aircraft-carrier-went-ablaze-75661

The Indian Navy reported that the fire had not seriously damaged the combat capabilities of the vessel, which is India’s only operational carrier. The 45,000-ton Vikramaditya – the ex-Soviet carrier Admiral Gorshkov -- had just completed a deployment in the Arabian Sea, and was preparing to begin joint exercises with the French Navy’s only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, off the Indian coast.

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And China, which is India’s rival, says this is because Indians aren’t competent enough to operate advanced military equipment.

The blaze was extinguished, but not before an Indian Navy lieutenant commander, who led the firefighting effort, was overcome by fumes and later died in hospital, according to Indian media. He had gotten married just a month earlier.

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The cause of the fire has not yet been disclosed. But Chinese media quickly ran a story that suggested the fire was the result of Indian incompetence. Li Jie, a Chinese naval expert, told the state-owned Global Times newspaper “that the fire was more likely to be out of human error rather than mechanical problems. The fire and the extinguishing process suggested that they are unprofessional and unprepared to address such an emergency, he said.”

“India has been actively developing its military in recent years, but ‘its military culture is lax and it has loose regulations,’ which cannot effectively train soldiers to operate advanced military equipment, Li said.”

That criticism comes despite that fact that India has far more experience than China in operating aircraft carriers. India’s first carrier, the Vikrant, a former World War II British carrier, was commissioned in 1961. It performed combat duty in the 1971 India-Pakistan War. China’s first carrier, the Liaoning – the ex-Soviet carrier Varyag – wasn’t commissioned until 2012. It has yet to see action.

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China’s contempt for Indian technical competence also seems misplaced. In 2003, all 70 sailors aboard the Chinese diesel submarine 361 died, probably because an engine malfunction suffocated them. China’s first nuclear-powered missile submarine was so bad that it only sailed once.

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[Ayoshi]

https://www.janes.com/article/93655/indian-navy-s-light-combat-aircraft-prototype-makes-first-carrier-landing

Indian Navy’s Light Combat Aircraft prototype makes first carrier landing
13 January 2020

A prototype of India's indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (Navy) (LCA (N)) Mk 1 successfully carried out its first 'arrested landing' on 11 January on the deck of INS Vikramaditya (ex- Admiral Gorshkov ), the Indian Navy's (IN's) sole aircraft carrier, during a deployment in the Arabian Sea.

The LCA (N) Mk 1 prototype is expected to conduct additional landings on INS Vikramaditya. to “fine-tune” the aircraft’s avionics, assorted on-board systems, and flight computer software. Source: Indian Navy

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https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/12531/indian-navy-mig-29ks-make-low-approaches-to-uss-nimitz-during-malabar-drills

The "Malabar 2017" international naval exercise off of India concludes today, and this year's iteration was like no other in the quarter century history of the multinational drills. At the center of the large force training event were no less than three aircraft carriers from three navies—USS Nimitz from the US, INS Vikramaditya from India, and the JS Izumo from Japan.

In total, 17 ships from the three countries took part in the exercise, which began ten days ago and runs through today. The Bay of Bengal is where most the activity took place.

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Photo c/o USN