SP’S SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT NAVY TO EXERCISE INS VIKRAMADITYA IN 2014

as the Indian Navy works on sailing its newest acquisition back home, it has already decided that the INS Vikramaditya will be part of preliminary internal exercises in the Arabian Sea in 2014, but will be fielded in joint exercises with other countries only from 2015 onwards.

after operating a single aircraft carrier for over 16 years, the Indian Navy is once again technically a two-carrier force with INS Vikramaditya all set to join the INS Viraat in the Western Fleet when it arrives in Indian waters in January. The 44,500-tonne aircraft carrier will operate from Karwar, where the Seabird project is all set to receive her along with her 183-strong russian guarantee squad, that will remain at the base for a period of one year to iron out induction issues that could spring up in the near term.

The two-carrier navy notion, though, is only that right now Ñ a notion. The Vikramaditya won’t be operational as a fighting platform for more than a year. The MiG-29Ks at INS Hansa will begin operating from the shipÕs deck in 2014, and will only be fully operational by early 2015. The INS Viraat, on the other hand, over 50 years old in total service, is on its last legs, though its last refit may see it extended in service till 2017-18. The ship itself is a lower cause for worry, since its embedded fleet of upgraded Sea Harriers are small in number, and availability issues constrain sustained operations. Therefore, it may not be until 2015 that India has a fully functional aircraft carrier force again.

Be that as it may, the INS Vikramaditya will find pride of place in the Western Fleet as the country’s flagship. For $2.35-billion, the Indian Navy may have been forced to wait nearly a decade, but is satisfied with the results, and is looking forward to exploring the capabilities of its newest warship. The army and Navy, which had anticipated a tough decision at November 11Õs meeting of the Defence acquisition Council (DaC), were left disappointed with sensitivities forcing Defence Minister a.K. antony to err on the side of caution. The army was expecting approval for a deal for Israeli-built SPIKE man-portable fireand-forget anti-tank and anti-personnel guided missiles with a tandem-charged HEAT warheads for as many as 356 infantry battalions. The deal with the SPIKeÕs maker, rafael of Israel, is apparently contingent on the findings of an independent committee that has been mandated with looking into the feasibility of concluding deals with the company in the light of continuing CBI investigations into the Barak point defence missile deal. In fact, the DaC meeting on Monday was also supposed to consider a follow-on purchase of over 250 Barak-1 point defence missile systems for warships including the navyÕs sole aircraft carrier INS Viraat. The Navy has been concerned that the Barak system suffers from a shortage of munitions in the Indian fleet and that this could affect the overall capability intended. The LR-SAM or Barak-8/ NG programme, a DrDO-Israel joint development programme intended to provide the navy with a Barak-1 replacement is nowhere close to operational service, though it will be a far more capable and longer range weapon once ready. www.spsnavalforces.com &

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