Build that carrier, quick! - Broadsword by Ajai Shukla - Strategy. Economics. Defence.

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Monday 11 September 2017

Build that carrier, quick!

All of this year, the navy’s INS Vishal proposal has gone back and forth between defence secretary and navy

By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 12th Sept 17

The Duke of Wellington’s description of the Battle of Waterloo – “The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life, by God!” also describes the Sino-Indian stand-off at Doklam that ended last month in a mutual pullback. But we must also consider what might have happened had it come to hostilities, and the frank answer would be: Besides China’s infrastructure and equipment advantages on the land border, India would have been caught short even in the theatre where it enjoys strategic advantage over China – the maritime domain in the Indian Ocean.

All of this year, the navy’s proposal for building a second indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vishal, has gone back and forth between the defence secretary and the navy. The ministry lets it be known that a hurried decision would be unwise, since an aircraft carrier is such a high-value platform that it would block badly needed procurements for the army and air force. Meanwhile, on March 31, underlining how much concern it really has for equipment procurement, the ministry surrendered Rs 7,000 crore of unspent capital funds – more than what it would have paid out last year had a contract been signed for building the carrier.

INS Vishal is set to be one of the military’s most long-drawn procurements, with the navy itself having taken years to identify its precise requirements. After extensive consultations with the US Navy, India’s admirals concluded they required a nuclear powered aircraft carrier of at least 65,000 tonnes, embarking at least 50-55 aircraft and a high-tech electromagnetic catapult to launch aircraft quicker and with greater payloads than the ski-jump that currently equips Indian carriers. At the heart of a carrier battle group, which would include multi-role destroyers and frigates, the Vishal would be able to control swathes of the Indian Ocean or project power across the Indo-Pacific.

While the defence ministry goes back-and-forth over the Vishal, the navy makes do with a single carrier, INS Vikramaditya, which carries just 26 unreliable MiG-29 fighters and 10 helicopters – an insufficient capability to battle a serious foe. The first indigenous carrier, INS Vikrant, which Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) is building with agonizing slowness, will be ready for displays and galas by 2019, but for battle only by 2022-23. Given the eight-year time overrun in building the Vikrant, CSL would surely take more than a decade to build INS Vishal, once the order is placed. And that seems nowhere in sight.

In contrast, China – latecomers to aircraft carriers – is vaulting ahead. Having learnt the ropes on a rebuilt Ukrainian carrier that it renamed Liaoning, the People’s Liberation Army (Navy), or PLA(N), launched a second carrier in April, called the Shandong. Going by the speed with which China churns out warships, the Shandong should enter PLA(N) service in 2020. Chinese analysts say this will be followed by a state-of-the-art carrier, with capabilities similar to INS Vishal. Eventually the PLA(N) would operate 5-6 carriers, while the Indian Navy operates three.

The power balance is shifting not just in platforms but also skills. An aircraft carrier is only as good as the experience and skill of its crewmembers, particularly those that operate its aviation complex. A large number of operating procedures – including space management, split-second launch procedures, deck discipline – make the difference between launching an aircraft every 30 seconds, and a launch interval of three minutes.

This is especially true of “catapult launches”, in which an aircraft is accelerated to take-off speed by a steam catapult under the carrier’s deck. In the 1960s and 1970s, the navy operated the Sea Hawk fighter off the original INS Vikrant – developing catapult-launch skill sets similar to the US Navy today. In 1983, when the “vertical take off and landing” Sea Harrier replaced the Sea Hawk, the navy’s skills at catapult launches began attenuating. The decisions to buy HMS Hermes (later INS Virat) and the Gorshkov (now INS Vikramaditya), both in the ski-jump launch tradition, and the decision to build the new INS Vikrant with a ski-jump, has killed India’s catapult launch tradition altogether. The new INS Vishal will return to the catapult launch tradition, but navy skill sets would have to be built afresh.

Also dogging the INS Vishal is a tired old debate over whether aircraft carriers are an asset or liability in modern warfare. Like most military arguments, its roots lie in the battle for resources. Air forces the world over view the aircraft carrier as a navy intrusion into the aerospace domain. Air forces simplistically describe carriers as enormously expensive, floating airfields that could be sunk by a single torpedo or anti-ship missile. Air forces claim that shore-based fighters, with their ranges extended by mid-air refuelling, can strike maritime targets hundreds of kilometres away. Finally, opponents argue that aircraft carriers require an entire flotilla of warships to escort them, tying up destroyers, frigates, corvettes, submarines and minesweepers in essentially protective duties.

Then, there is submariners’ opposition to aircraft carriers – an internal navy contest for resources, framed as a strategic debate between “sea control” and “sea denial”. The aircraft carrier battle group is the prime instrument of sea control, dominating an area that could be thousands of kilometres away – e.g. shipping lanes in the southern Indian Ocean from/to the Horn of Africa – with its aircraft-based surveillance and strike capability, and the surface and sub-surface strike capability of its accompanying warships. The option of shore-based air support starts becoming less persuasive as the carrier’s operating area moves further into the ocean, but the “sea denial” option – predicated on submarines ambushing surface vessels on predicted routes – retains validity. Proponents of sea denial argue that a submarine fleet costs less than a carrier, spreads risk across a large number of platforms, while still denying the enemy the use of the sea lanes, choke points and harbours that the submarines interdict. What they seldom mention is that submarines cannot hope to achieve three-dimensional control over a large expanse of ocean, far from one’s shores, which is the basic task of a carrier battle group. There is also the question of vulnerability of submarines when they surface to charge batteries or communicate with their controllers.

In any case, the navy is not choosing between aircraft carriers and submarines – it needs significant capabilities in both. It has an expansive, internationalist mandate of protecting the global commons, responding to natural disasters and being a net security provider in the Indian Ocean. This is over and above the national wartime objectives of protecting two coastlines, projecting power across the Indian Ocean, and supporting the land battle through the maritime domain. The debate has been settled in the navy’s long-term maritime capability perspective plan, which specifies three aircraft carriers and a fleet of 24 submarines. It is time to start building these quickly, before the navy is embarrassed in war. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of another Wellington aphorism: “Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must”. 

14 comments:

  1. Why can't capital funds be made unlapseable?

    ReplyDelete
  2. "It has an expansive, internationalist mandate of protecting the global commons"

    :P

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  3. THE NAVY OF TODAY WAS PLANNED IN THE 80 AND 90S THE NAVY OF 30 AND 40 HAS TO BE PLANNED SANCTIONED AND BUILT WITH THE AVAILABLE RESOURCES .AS THE ECONOMY BECOMES 5 TRILLION BY 2025 VAST RESOURCES WILL BE AVAILABLE TO SANCTION A DEFENCE BUDGET OF OVER 80 TO 100 BILLION DOLLARS WITH YEARLY 50 BILLION FOR CAPITAL BUDGET . FUNDS MUST BE INCREMENTLY SANCTIONED AND THREE OR FOUR SHIPYARDS ALLOCATED WORK TO WORK CONCURRENTLY ON THE MODULES OF THE CARRIER .IF SANCTIONED IN 2018 THE CARRIER WILL BE COMMISSIONED IN 2028 AND MUST BE INCREASED TO 75000TO 85000 TONS TO CARRY THE E-4D SENTRY AWACS AIR SEA CARRIER TRANSPORTS AND AWING OF THREE COMBAT SQUADRONS AND TWO ASW SQUNS. A BUDGET OF 6 TO 8 BILLION FOR EMALS, NUCLEAR REACTORS AND HEAVY THREE STOP FIGHTER CATCH WIRES WITH HELP OF AMERICAN FIRMS MUST BE SIGNED SOON AS A MATTER OF FACT THE AMERICAN FORD CLASS WITH IMPROVISATION AND SMALL CURTAILMENT IN LENGTH BREADTH AND DRAFT AT OVER 85000 TONS DISPLACEMENT WITH AMERICAN AESA RADARS AND AEGIS SYSTEMS WILL FULLFILL THE INDIAN DREAM OF SEA CONTROL TRAVELLING 600 TO 800 MILES DAILY AND CAPABLE OF LAUNCHING OVER 250 SORTIES FOR 7 DAYS DAILY AND CONTROLLING 250000 SQ MILES OF SEA AT PLACE AND TIME OF CHOOSING TOGETHER WITH P-15B AND C DESTROYERS P-17A FRIGATES NUCLEAR SSNS AND TRISHUL CLASS FRIGATES FORMING THE SCREEN AROUND THE CARRIER THE INDIAN CARRIER GROUP WILL BE THE MOST HEAVILY ARMED IMPREGGNABLE FORTRESS AT SEA . THE P-18 DESTROYERS WITH S-400 ANTI AIR MISSILES WILL PROVIDE A FORMIDABLE SCREEN AGAINST AIR SURFACE BALLISTIC AND ANTI AIR MISSILES AND LONG RANGE E ANTI SUB SCREEN OF OVER 150 NM WHERE NO TORPEDEO MISSILE CAN REACH .

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope we get IAC-1 operational quickly. Learn from it. Correct the design issues in IAC-2 rather than simply start building it.
    Can IAC-1 fly F-18 or Rafale or is its design limited to carrying MiG-29/Tejas ?
    In the meanwhile let money be used for force multipliers in the form of NMRH, naval drones to back up P-8I and long range standoff weapons.

    So let MoD take its time. There must be valid reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Why not buy the second Queen Elizabeth carrier off the shelf...should cost around 5 Billion dollars....interoperability will get surely get a boost with F35s flying off the deck....Chinese would get a worthy opponent...

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  6. What we really need urgently is some AIP equipped submarines which can deter and counter enemy submarines.Other things which needs on urgent basis are anti submarine helicopters and ATAS sonars. I honestly feel Vishal AC is a not a good idea and will be a sitting duck in event of war. Our under water detection capability is really weak which needs to be improved big time.

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  7. Excellent write up colnel! No need to get caught up in post-doklam hubris of making the chinese blink...militaries are best prepared to win via constant critical analysis and presentation of tough truths.

    But I have to ask...do you ever feel anyone in the MoD actually listens? Does it feel like you're banging your head against a wall?

    ReplyDelete
  8. good song
    'bang your head, wake the dead"
    by
    Quiet Riot

    ReplyDelete
  9. NSR says ---

    India must have a three carrier deployment policy - one in Arabian Sea, one in Indian Ociean, one in Bay of Bengal...

    They must operate this way for a decade or so to get maximum operational experience...

    To accomplish India must build at least two other aircraft carriers, such as, IAC-2 and IAC-3, with some improvements learned from IAC-1..

    India needs to have a carrier in refurbishment, replenishment, repair, etc...

    So Vikramditya, IAC-1, IAC-2, and IAC-3 will meet this requirement...

    After building 6 SSBN and 6 SSN and gaining considerable experience on operating the reactors, then India must consider the NUCLEAR AIRCRAFT CARRIER...

    Even Britain operates non-nuclear carrier...

    So do not waste any time...Start building IAC-2 and IAC-3 with the lessons learned so far...

    ReplyDelete
  10. By the way, Ajai, why single out MiG29 as unreliable?

    USNavy's FA18 series has availability of less than 25% - and an unsolved OBOGS problems for 14 years

    Rafale has an availability rate of less than 48%

    But MiG is unreliable!

    ReplyDelete
  11. An aircraft carrier = one big target. The age of the carrier is gone. Russia isn't building any. UK has put one of the two new ones in reserve. Neither are the French. The US is having second thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Agree with JS Bibra. So much of discussion for what? Is there anything in these that the decision makers do not know? I don't think so. It is simply that their reasons for taking whatever decisions they take, are quite different.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Captain Sanat Bhate14 September 2017 at 21:55

    Lack of time bound decisions and thereby avoiding responsibility is hallmark of our politicians and babus. Leave alone complex systems such as submarines, Aircraft carriers or frontline fighters.... we cannot even make up our minds about development of robust primary infrastructure! Present Government has some way to go before they learn to be efficient in planning and delivering IN TIME but, the successive Congress Governments were criminally negligent (and corrupt) in this field.

    Road - rail - airfield - port - infrstructures along our boders AND on our strategically placed islands need no long drawn evaluations or complex negotiations with foreign vendores or their governments. It was clear to all military minds 30+ years ago these gospel truths but, no one paid attention to their warnings and pleadings.

    Pray Modi Team is more alive to country's needs and future development.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Your article is so convincing that I never stop myself to say something about it. You’re doing a great job Man, Keep it up. One of the best auto wreckers Adelaide services is the White sheep auto wreckers. They are among the top auto body repair shops in Australia. This company offers a full range of auto parts including body panels to bumpers to engines.

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