[avingodb]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The 2+2 Indo-US dialogue

What happened to the 2015 agreement on the sharing of aircraft carrier technology signed when Obama visite during Republic Day?

Is it shelved or given to a specialist committee for out of sight work?

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by skanchan95

The Naval LCA Tejas has made a historic first landing on the deck of INS Vikramaditya at 10:20 AM today.

And now it has successfully taken off also.

Regards
Sutripta

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

And now it has successfully taken off also.

What a nice achievement to see an indigenous developed platform complete a ski jump take off as well as carrier landing with arresting wires. Kudos to those involved really. The learnings will be immense.

That particular set of images tells why the Navy is asking for twin engine fighters. The image shows a Mig29K parked on deck side. It looks so much larger compared to the N-LCA. And even with the twin engine, larger size, the Fulcrum is still just a modest weapons platform for a 21st century carrier battle group.

The LCA also took off with 2 BVRAAMs and 2 CCAAMs from INS Hamsa ski jump emulator recently. But that's a very limited payload! It would just about suffice a CAP role, that too with limited endurance. No way can it be deployed for strike/anti-ship roles IMO. Add the necessary fuel drop tanks and weapons load will reduce further.

I think the Navy should float orders for further more Mig29Ks. The Rafale M is primarily a CATOBAR plane. Mig29K seems like the only realistic option for STOBAR carriers. With the Vikramaditya in commission & the Vikrat expected to be in commission by 2023 (my estimate) - 2 deployable sets of the jets would be required. Perhaps the next generation carrier will be larger with the EM catapult and flat top. I'd peg that at least a decade away & current strength can't wait that long.

[Sutripta]

I thought the single/ twin engine debate revolved around the relative value one put to pilots, and aircraft. And whether one expects long protracted conflicts, or short (albeit sharp) conflicts.

GE was supposed to have delivered engines with more thrust. I don't think they have. Which is why I asked.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

What are the considerations for a twin configuration on a combat aircraft. Does survivability really increase? I always wondered, given how close the engines of a typical twin are. One gets hit, the changes are (seem to me) the other engine gets hit too?

There must be a performance factor to it I assume (speed, thrust, pay load, etc)
Thanks
Jeroen

[Sutripta]

^^^
Q for the decision makers.

[skanchan95]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

What are the considerations for a twin configuration on a combat aircraft. Does survivability really increase? I always wondered, given how close the engines of a typical twin are. One gets hit, the changes are (seem to me) the other engine gets hit too?

There must be a performance factor to it I assume (speed, thrust, pay load, etc)
Thanks
Jeroen

Twin engine jets have better chances of survivability in combat and based on that experience gained from the 1971 war. The IAF's low level ground attack missions were mainly assigned to the Su-7 and the HF-24. During these missions, the single engined Su-7 suffered from high attrition rate, while the twin engined HF-24's attrition rate was relatively lower.

There were many instances where HF-24s were able to recover to base after one engine had been damaged by ground fire. The Su-7s, on the other hand while quite capable of taking punishment, were lost after getting hit in the engine. I remember reading that one occasionally, small arms fire brought a Su-7 down.

The safety of twin engines on a fighter jet was one of the primary reasons why the Jaguar was selected as India's deep penetration strike aircraft and replacement for the HF-24 in the late 70s.

The single engine Naval Tejas is too underpowered to fly as an effective carrier based fighter. It neither has the range nor the payload capability to take off fully armed from a carrier. That is the reason why the Navy wants a twin engine fighter with higher thrust and payload capability.

[Jeroen]

^^^^ Thanks. Might well be true in combat. Mind you, a twin jet loosing one engine looses more than 80% of its performance as the power to weight ratio changes so dramatically on just one engine. So getting home is an issue, not sure how much evasive manoevring most military twin jets are capable of on one engine. but still better than with no engine.

In peace time, both for military and private/commercial planes, single engine planes have proven to be safer and have fewer costly survivable accidents as well.

That is of course due to the nature of the sort of accidents that typically bring aircraft down or cause serious damage.

I never got my full twin rating, but I did a lot of flight training. Flying a twin is identical to a single engine plane. What you need to learn is to fly a twin on one engine. And that usually means pretty poor performance. So, at least in private/commercial aviation flying a twin is all about understanding and being able to deal with a loss of engine. Performance, range suffers badly. I assume it is not that much different for military aircraft.

I have only flown one military jet and that happened to be a twin. The gorgeous Magister Fouga. But you do not want to loose an engine on take off!

Jeroen

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New video of the LCA Naval taking off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mipPEUtazvw

Interesting for me to note it taking off along the flight line that offers the furthest run up time before hitting the ramp. Now logically speaking, it makes sense to use it on a first ever attempt, especially if you want to leave some breathing room. However its also not a strong look on the platform that it needs more room to huff and puff its way off the ramp at dry weight (something I imagine the critics will use to strengthen their long standing gripe about it being underpowered).

Coming back to the twin engine argument - mainly I'd say it revolves around redundancy. Just see how many times the Canadians mention the word in their policy document over the F-18 replacement and the decision at the time to back out of the F-35 purchase.

Sure, losing one engine drastically affects the handling characteristics but we need to remember that on most combat aircraft, both engines are placed so close to the centre line of the jet you're unlikely to need drastically increased control inputs on the side with the busted engine. I mean I can't help but think of Burt Rutans Boomerang (see below). The whole point of its quirky design was to keep both engines as close as possible to negate any handling difficulties arising from engine failure on one


All that being said, if its a combat related failure cause, I feel its unlikely twin engines will really help it limp back to base but I'm thinking the twin engines help more for the unforced errors if that makes sense. The cases where 1 engine might fail due to a component malfunction for example. Having that second engine might make the difference in limping back to base, or in the case of the Navy, the carrier. So yes, I can kinda see the logic the IN has. Any carrier based aircraft will spend a large time over the waters around India on basic patrols for example and given our stats its likely it could experience an engine mishap. Given the difficulty in getting the funding for the jets I suppose its very attractive for it to be recoverable instead of the pilot having to punch out.

However I'm also a believer in the concept of quantity having a quality of its own and if having a cheaper single engine deck based fighter allows us to field more of them, and crucially sooner - I'd take that and whatever attritional loses that might include. I just see the prospect of developing a Naval LCA Mk2 with an uprated engine a far more feasible project for the hapless DRDO & HAL than a clean sheet design of a domestic naval twin especially when the latter is attractively similar on paper for some damned defence mandarin to mandate it as a suitable replacement for additional Rafale orders on the IAF front. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had this bad premonition about the new plans for an Indian naval twin.

[AlphaKilo]

Another beautiful video of N-LCA taking off (Cockpit view, with Head-up display). what is nice to see is the engine thrust at the lower left bottom and a "TOGO" display shortly. Nicely designed HUD. kudos to ADA, DRDO and HAL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQGflpc5mXw

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So it seems CDS Rawat has downplayed the third indigenous carrier Vishal for the time being.

One aircraft carrier will be on the seas next year. You look at when do you really need a third one. If you get a third one, how many years will it take for it to develop? Even if you place the order for 2022 or 2023, it is not coming before 2033. Also, aircraft carrier is not just a carrier, along with it will have to come the aircraft. Where are the aircrafts coming from? Along with that we will need the armada protection for that aircraft carrier. It does not happen overnight. It will be bought if it is required… but you cannot predict what the situation will be 10 years from now. We don’t know what will happen.

Secondly, I would say, please also develop the capacities of your island territories. We have got island territories on our east coast and west coast. We need to develop these territories for extending our reach to the Indian Ocean region while we look at the aircraft carriers.

I've seen tweets elsewhere that he's said the priority would be for subs instead.
If this is the case I'd have to admit that it could be a rare occurrence of prudence winning over in our often haphazard procurement structure. By the time Vikrant gets fully certified and overcomes her initial niggles to go on her first deployment, Vikramaditya is likely to be due a refit. That should keep the ship yard busy in case folks were worried the skills would atrophy.
In the mean time I would say the naval design bureau continues the whole time with their plans for Vishal. This would mean studying all the inevitably niggles from Vikrant, the feedback from it and perhaps taking this time to best incorporate what they've learnt from the Queen Elizabeth class design, if indeed they've made overtures to the Brits for that. Furthermore, we can keep the Cochin shipyard busy building something that would be even more useful for India - LPD/LHD, ie amphibious flat tops or the kind of helicopter carriers many other navies operate. That would give the IN a good high low mix of naval air projection, perhaps allotting something like Apache's to said future amphibs. That project alone should keep the Cochin shipyard busy for the next 20 years by which time Vikramaditya will be on its last legs and it'll come due time to finally implement the Vishal.

I definitely don't buy in to the idea of India needing a nuclear carrier - the only nuclear vessels we really might need are our submarines, beyond that I think within the realms future Indian aircraft carrier task forces will operate, conventionally fuelled ones will do just fine. If we suppose adapted the QE class to a CATOBAR config, perhaps the French would finally double down on the design for their Charles de Gaulle replacement. Who knows, might strengthen our case for the use of the Rafale's naval variant and I'm sure there'd be plenty of synergy in that regard what with 2 major operators then of the Rafale at sea.

Meanwhile the budget focus is firmly towards the sub sea domain where we've been lacking so all in all I'd say if General Rawat's comments hold true, it's an entirely sound pivot in direction being made.

[DrPriyankT]

I am a very big supporter of the power projection cap abilities of an aircraft carrier battle group, however delaying the acquisition of INS Vishal currently makes prudent financial sense currently, looking at the amount of acquisitions we have lined up and our limited resources. 2 aircraft carrier groups in the Indian Navy will help keep us maintain our hard acquired naval aviation skills atleast for the next 30 years and hopefully by that time we would be commissioning new large aircraft carriers by then.

Aircraft carriers cannot go fight wars alone and require costly destroyers, frigates and resupply ships to be sailing with them for power projection and to protect the carrier, whereas a submarine is a lone wolf which can give headaches to all admirals due to their stealthy nature. As a matter of fact, the US navy which is considered to be a premium ASW force has difficulties in hunting stealthy diesel-electric boats, and a single submarine getting one lucky shot can seriously damage a carrier, taking it out of battle.

2 carriers will be sufficient for India to maintain a sizeable advantage over the Pakistanis and give a good fight to Chinese battle groups venturing into the IOR. As a matter of fact, the Chinese still have a lot to learn in terms of carrier aviation, and their current carrier aircraft the J-15 flying shark is a very mediocre carrier based fighter due to its weight which limits the amount of fuel and munitions it can take of with, from the ski jump of their current carriers. A couple of Indian nuclear powered attack submarines can keep the Chinese on their toes in the IOR, and the subs will be ably supported by our excellent P-8 Neptune’s. For us to keep our western neighbors’s fleet anchored in Karachi harbour, just 3-4 submarines are enough.

Submarines are awesome area denial weapons as the mere intelligence of the presence of a submarine in the area of an enemy’s fleet is enough for them to drop being offensive and immediately be on the defence to hunt a submarine.

Once we have a sizeable submarine fleet of about 25-30 attack subs and 6 ballistic missile stuff, can we again start concentrating on carriers.

As rightly mentioned above maintenance of two carriers will keep our shipyards busy and trained and lessons learnt from the two carriers can be incorporated into making our future carriers no nonsense capital ships.

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Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

As a matter of fact, the US navy which is considered to be a premium ASW force has difficulties in hunting stealthy diesel-electric boats, and a single submarine getting one lucky shot can seriously damage a carrier, taking it out of battle.

Sounds like you're referring to the Swedish Gotland class submarine that snuck through the carrier battle group defences to land a hit on the USS Ronald Reagan during NATO exercises. This small air independent propulsion (AIP) equipped so startled and impressed the USN that they promptly leased out a Gotland class boat for a year or two to study it in detail. I guess post Cold War and the peace dividend the submariners in the USN got lax and totally missed the threat posed by the then new silent AIP equipped boats, especially in the littoral domain. I think there's good synergy there because I doubt a lot of our immediate concerns on the Western front would be in blue water but more around the littoral waters near the Pakistani shore and our own shores. In that regard it's paramount we increase both our anti submarine warfare (ASW) capability both above and below water.

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

As a matter of fact, the Chinese still have a lot to learn in terms of carrier aviation, and their current carrier aircraft the J-15 flying shark is a very mediocre carrier based fighter due to its weight which limits the amount of fuel and munitions it can take of with, from the ski jump of their current carriers.

True, carrier ops capability isn't something you learn overnight. And the J-15 is indeed a portly old fighter. That being said, our own Mig29K's also suffer from the same problem that beleaguers all ski jump fighters and that's the trade off you make it terms of a decent weapons load out to fuel stores in order to get airborne. That in turn dictates really how effective they might be as a naval strike platforms. If you only have enough fuel to get airborne you're likely not going to have the legs to go far to prosecute a target in open waters - which means you're restricting the fighters to defensive air cover over the carrier group. Which kinda seems a bit horse and cart to me. But I'm simply an arm chair pundit, I guess the IN reckons it's a trade off it can live with.

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

Submarines are awesome area denial weapons..

Actually on the topic of anti access area denial (A2/2D), I was thinking. If the Chinese reckon it's a good fiscal gambit in the South China Sea (SCS) in terms of their man made islands with landing strips to forward deploy both missiles and air units as a means of projecting out beyond their first island chain - why don't we do something similar in Andaman and Nicobar? The same thought the Chinese are relying on in terms of hindering the US Pacific fleet from having free reign of steaming within sight of Chinese waters, by making the prospect of engaging China in that area too expensive from a manpower and asset standpoint: well, we should be seeking to balance the field in the same manner! Just find some islands placed advantageously and slap some missile batteries and such like. Until I see it, I doubt Chinese maritime strike capability that far out would be limited and they don't yet have any penetrating platforms that can come flying out and around SE Asia towards the Malacca Straits to engage in that manner, not anywhere near as capable as the USAF has with the B2 for example.

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

Once we have a sizeable submarine fleet of about 25-30 attack subs and 6 ballistic missile stuff

Crikey, that's an ambitious number. Personally I think 4 boomers are plenty if you consider a typical rotation cycle of 1 at sea; 1 in refit and 1 undergoing training. That still leaves 1 spare. Plus if the new K12 comes on steam you have enough range where the IN wouldn't necessarily need to have a boomer both near enough in the IOR to second strike Pakistan or one near enough China to launch a strike there. I think you'd end up with a broad enough window in which such a future IN boomer can lurk.

In terms of attack subs, I suppose what we primarily need more of are the conventional subs to make up the numbers we need to cover our interests. I'm not sure what mix we'd be looking at but if we have say 4 Arihant class boomers, I wager you'll have a similar number of SSN's, at most I can see India being able to field 6 of them. All told I don't picture the IN being able to or affording to have 10 nuclear boats in its inventory. I think the rest will be made up by the Kalvari's and the follow on P75I boats. So that's 6 and 6 at the current rate. All told that's 22 boats. I'd reckon padding out the P75 order a bit and maybe stretching that to 4 more to reach a 26 total submersible fleet. That's my estimated ceiling.

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

we would be commissioning new large aircraft carriers by then

I personally think the ceiling for our future flat tops needn't exceed 65000tons say - I really don't envision India needing something bigger than the QE class. While it's fanciful to imagine the IN operating supercarriers I think small and potent is just as tricky for our opponents while allowing us to stretch our rupee the furthest. Then again, I'm an advocate of Admiral Zumwalt's Sea Control Ship concept, ie small carriers instead of big old bruisers like the USN is left with now. I wonder if anyone has any thoughts of perhaps modifying that concept to include amphibs into a sort of gator navy for the IN the manner in which the USMC uses the America class flat tops for their own mini carrier groups (this is mini in the American sense of course)

[DrPriyankT]

I have read about an Indian Navy Kilo Class submarine creating havoc for an aircraft carrier battle group during the malabar exercises, similar to what the gotland class did. I am also of the opinion the future Project 25I boats equipped with AIP will be more than enough to keep the Pakistanis on their toes. And yes I too agree that after the cold war ended, ASW capabilities of many navies have eroded.

Coming to carrier aviation, I have come across literature on the internet, that our carrier borne migs can take off with a respectable payload from our carriers, unlike the J-15's off the Chinese carriers. The biggest issue we have with them is low serviceability.

The indian navy has planned for 24 attack subs (6 scorpenes, 6 foreign design 75I, 6 domestic indigenous diesel electric AIP enabled subs and 6 domestic SSN's) and 6 boomers as per open source literature available online, so in the long run we may hopefully have a big fleet of subs.

I too am in support of smaller carriers as a nation like India cannot currently support the hulks the US Navy has. And IIRC, we have started tendering for amphibious carriers. Also India should taks full strategic advantage of our strategically located island chains. They are truly our unsinkable carriers. A detachment of P8 Neptunes, and a couple of squadrons of Sukhois at Andaman should give us absolute control over the Malacca Straits.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

... Kilo Class submarine creating havoc for an aircraft carrier battle group during the malabar exercises,...Pakistanis on their toes...

PN already operates about 4 AIPs of HDW origin and is getting a few more. They clearly have an operational experience advantage over IN. The Kilo class is indeed one super silent swimmer and makes up for its age (design) quite well.

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

Coming to carrier aviation, I have come across literature on the internet, that our carrier borne migs can take off with a respectable payload from our carriers, unlike the J-15's off the Chinese carriers. The biggest issue we have with them is low serviceability.

In WVR/dogfights it will be hard to fight against the MiG29s. We should also remember that the MiGs and other birds we have are a mix and match of russian airframe, israeli/Domestic electronics, Russian/European/Domestic armament vs. reverse engineered tech. If one can see from the available pics of the J-15s, it can be noticed that it has rounded HUDs displays. The front area visibility and integration is rumoured to be very poor and is also sighted to be the major reason why PLAAN is urgently pushing the local industry to develop a newer and better carrier based fighter. Also, the weight of around 17500 kgs combined with a underpowered engine, it is no match to the far superior MiG29 KUBs. On paper, it might look like a SU-33 reborn but reality is different.

The biggest advantage that IN holds is that its familiarity with the SU-33 upon which this J-15 is based on. IN will/should be able to exploit the weakness of J-15 quite well and if they control the fight to the strengths of the MiG, they will shoot it down before the Sukhoi can run away or reverse the fight. Such a fight will come down to the skills of the men behind the machines.

With the KUB series the serviceability issue should be relatively under control.

I sincerely doubt one such situation will ever happen during our lifetime. We might confront each other but will never fight, is what I believe and sincerely hope too!

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

...a couple of squadrons of Sukhois at Andaman...

Doesn't the Joint command Airbase at Andamans already have Sukhois stationed? And the INS Rajali station is not that far off from the island chains imho! Having one directly on the islands doesn't do any harm either. I thought that is reason why we might expect an announcement of more P-8I purchases during Trump's visit.