[dragracer567]

What we’ve been waiting for - a photo of India’s two operational carriers sailing together! Only a handful of countries apart from India has multiple carriers - US, UK China and Italy (not sure about the last one).

[ads11]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

What we’ve been waiting for - a photo of India’s two operational carriers sailing together! Only a handful of countries apart from India has multiple carriers - US, UK China and Italy (not sure about the last one).

I guess along those lines you could add Japan right? Everyone knows what those "helicopter carrying destroyers" really are!

I've always found Vikrant has a more pleasing profile than the Vikramaditya. The wonky offset, and tall shape of the older carriers island always came across to me as a compromise.

Still good to see. Hopefully in the not so distant future both or all the carriers in the fleet will be off domestic provenance

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by ads11

I guess along those lines you could add Japan right? Everyone knows what those "helicopter carrying destroyers" really are!

Offcourse, at the end of the day, all this is just semantics to get around the Japanese pacifist constitution! Especially since F35Bs are probably the most capable naval aircraft ever apart from perhaps the F35C!

[fhdowntheline]

Nice shots. I really wish India becomes a nation with powerful weapon systems for offense and defence, manned by suitably trained personnel. A true lean mean military force, not just filled with people who are recruited for recruitment's sake and positions/ranks reflecting relics of the past.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Nice shots. I really wish India becomes a nation with powerful weapon systems for offense and defence, manned by suitably trained personnel. A true lean mean military force, not just filled with people who are recruited for recruitment's sake and positions/ranks reflecting relics of the past.

Could you elaborate further on the highlighted phrases of your comment. Would like to understand better what exactly you mean. It would help if you could share data and facts.

Originally Posted by dragracer567

What we’ve been waiting for - a photo of India’s two operational carriers sailing together! Only a handful of countries apart from India has multiple carriers - US, UK China and Italy (not sure about the last one).

Thank you for sharing these photographs. During the brief period that INS Vikramaditya and INS Viraat sailed there were some photo opportunities of both together but I don't think a full fledged exercise was conducted of this scale. Next step would be to conduct a similar exercise but with two wings of 30+ aircraft each! In a few years hopefully we should get there with either the Super Hornet or the Naval Rafale.

Agree with @ads11, INS Vikrant looks more the part than INS Vikramaditya. A carrier should have the smallest island possible to minimize airflow over deck disturbance caused by the island.

Rafales and Su-30MKIs of the IAF conducting 6 hour and 8 hour sorties of hunt & kill {of a carrier group} is another solid sign of capability demonstration for those who need it!:-)

From c.1975 to 1986 we tenaciously clung on to our carefully developed skills at operating a carrier {a small one albeit} on shoe string budgets of an impoverished economy and barely 6 to 8 Seahawks and later 6 to 8 Sea Harriers operational. It wasn't till INS Viraat arrived that we even had a full fledged modern air wing of Sea Harriers and Sea Kings. To get to these photos has been a long journey. We owe a debt of gratitude to grey eagles of the past such as Adm. Ram Tahiliani, Vice Adm. Subhash Chopra, Adm. Arun Prakash, Rear Adm SK Gupta MVC and so many others who toiled to keep our carrier skills alive in face of budget constraints and a unthinking bureaucracy.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Looks like the F-18 is going to be on the table at the Biden-Modi meeting later this month. Given that it is going to be discussed at the very highest level there seems to be a likelihood that F-18 it will be.

Was taken aback by this if I'm honest. I thought it was a given now that the Rafale would be chosen. Perhaps it's a political decision? Another aspect is that the F/A-18 Super Hornets might actually be available on lease immediately from the existing US Navy stocks so the Indian Navy can start operating these right away till the newly manufactured ones arrive - I believe this was widely believed to have been an option earlier as well.

Originally Posted by ads11

The Brits are as budgetarily stretched as the IN when it comes to not having enough money for all the things they want, so there's no knowing how far along they actually progress on these plans. But worth watching if they can reach part of these objectives for the obvious parallels with the INS Vikrant. If anything we're already at the STOBAR stage, but there's no harm in observing some of the work to allow assisted launch capability or the ability to operate MALE platforms to provide persistent AEW or ISR around the deployed CBG.

RN projects to watch include Project Ark Royal - testing the Mojave drone and increasingly larger ones (Project Vixen) for operations off the QE carriers. See https://www.navylookout.com/the-roya...viation-force/

I actually don't understand the logic behind this given that they operate the F35Bs. Is this just to operate heavier drones? Seems like an expensive endeavor!

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you for sharing these photographs. During the brief period that INS Vikramaditya and INS Viraat sailed there were some photo opportunities of both together but I don't think a full fledged exercise was conducted of this scale. Next step would be to conduct a similar exercise but with two wings of 30+ aircraft each! In a few years hopefully we should get there with either the Super Hornet or the Naval Rafale.

Interesting, did the erstwhile Vikrant and Viraat carriers ever exercise together? Given that there was a decade of overlap when these two were operated together!

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Was taken aback by this if I'm honest. I thought it was a given now that the Rafale would be chosen. Perhaps it's a political decision? Another aspect is that the F/A-18 Super Hornets might actually be available on lease immediately from the existing US Navy stocks so the Indian Navy can start operating these right away till the newly manufactured ones arrive - I believe this was widely believed to have been an option earlier as well.

Given that the two aircraft are comparable and equally modern the decision will be down to political factors of give and take on several counts beyond the IN and covering the wider security aspects of the nation. The Americans would see the F/A-18 Super Hornet, a fast jet fighter, to be the holy grail of weapons exports to India. Given that India is {due to our own incompetencies} the world's largest market for fast combat aircraft they are not going to let go of this. This is fast becoming our 1971 moment with the US of A.

Interesting, did the erstwhile Vikrant and Viraat carriers ever exercise together? Given that there was a decade of overlap when these two were operated together!

They overlapped for a few months in 1986-87 after INS Viraat arrived and before INS Vikrant was taken for a long refit to fit the ski jump & other modernizations. They were together again briefly in 1990-1992 but we really did not have enough Sea Harriers to fully equip 2 carriers. Our active on the deck Sea Harrier strength at any point between 1983 and 2015 was rarely more than 15. INS Vikrant sailed in that period I suppose some joint exercises might have taken place, but I have no knowledge of those. In 1992-94 the grand old lady was in dockyard hands again to refit her old and deteriorating propulsion and electrics in a final attempt to infuse some years into this then 50-year old ship. After her refit she did put out to sea once in 1994 but was tied up alongside after that for 3 years in a sort of a reserve state till she was decommissioned in 1997 - the cost of trying to keep her propulsion functioning was no longer economical in cost or effort. Her stem boiler-turbine plant was a standard WW2 design based on 1930s know-how built in those war years at great speed with a design life of 25 years. Similarly, her electrical system was a DC based one completely out of place even in the 1960s let alone 1990s. Only the hull was a good shape thanks to solid British engineering. It is a testimony to the IN's Engineer Branch that they pulled her along for 50 years. *. So, while on paper they overlapped a decade in reality sailing years were few in between and squadron strength was inadequate. Why - budgets again. In 1981 when we signed up for the Sea Harriers they cost $60mm a piece - exactly the same cost as the first Kashin class destroyer! In those days with acute Forex shortages our capacity to buy with $ was limited. I've mentioned this somewhere - when the Soviets discovered what we were paying for a single Sea Harrier they jacked up the price of the subsequent Kashin's 5X literally.

Even today our 2 full wings eludes us. But now budgets are in our grasp. Hope this helps.

*You may ask why not change the propulsion. I think this question was tabled a while ago. A large ships entire propulsion train, especially that of a steam-boiler-turbine type, is set into the foundation of the vessel. Changing that in toto is like saying let's change the foundation of an old building. You might as well build a new ship. Technically it can be done but it does not make sense from a cost-effort point of view. Today's gas turbines do allow a more modern version of the same turbine to be retrofitted in later years but even here replacing, in a design, the Ukrainian GTs of say the Delhi-Kolkata class with GE's LM2500 is a massive redesign effort. It was considered but dropped. Which is why INS Kolkata and INS Visakhapatnam classes stayed with the Ukrainian plants.

PS: Dates and figures are from memory so some slight error might have crept in. Apologies for that

[ads11]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

I actually don't understand the logic behind this given that they operate the F35Bs. Is this just to operate heavier drones? Seems like an expensive endeavor!

I think short answer is yes, the plan is realistically to be able to field some of the heavier drones. I think a large part is driven by the political thinking that UAVs will largely become a major part of carrier wings moving forward and it's trying to get ahead of that. Part of me thinks there's a large amount of herd effect here with people jumping on the UAV bandwagon en masse.

Here's a video that the algorithm threw up (Google clearly scanning my post history) that does a decent job in explaining what this plan is concisely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM7xTL65quo

Was taken aback by this if I'm honest. I thought it was a given now that the Rafale would be chosen. Perhaps it's a political decision?

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Given that the two aircraft are comparable and equally modern the decision will be down to political factors of give and take on several counts beyond the IN and covering the wider security aspects of the nation. The Americans would see the F/A-18 Super Hornet, a fast jet fighter, to be the holy grail of weapons exports to India. Given that India is {due to our own incompetencies} the world's largest market for fast combat aircraft they are not going to let go of this. This is fast becoming our 1971 moment with the US of A.

If the Super Hornet does win this one, you can't help but feel there was a great deal of political horse trading on this one to get it over the line (you can also bet your bottom dollar that while there'll be folks in the Pentagon having a chuckle at French expense, the French will undoubtedly rankle at being gazumped once more by the Yanks).

Another aspect is that the F/A-18 Super Hornets might actually be available on lease immediately from the existing US Navy stocks so the Indian Navy can start operating these right away till the newly manufactured ones arrive - I believe this was widely believed to have been an option earlier as well.

You raise a good point on availability. I was thinking more that any Indian order would be in quite a queue for the Rafale (Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar, etc). Being granted USN stock right off the bat, presumably with the ~2-3 years for IN crews to train on using the platform, that significantly shortens the timeline for this order. But how different would it be versus having IN personnel already being placed in Marine National units say to get up to speed on the use of the Rafale M?

I wonder if there isn't any Super Hornet announcement made at the summit meeting later, the GoI will announce the Rafale officially as the winner? That's desperately overlooking the fact that the defence babus could kick the can down the road and let this one play out a bit longer till some meeting between Modi-Macron for eg.

And on a completely unrelated note, speaking of Harriers, an amazing story I didn't know about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFW2cW0ZFJM

[dragracer567]

This news article seems to claim that the Predator B deal will go ahead during the Modi-Biden meeting as well. What caught my eye is the price, we were already taken aback by the $3 billion price tag for 30 drones but now even after downsizing to 18 units, the price remains at $3 billion? So, that $166 million per unit - I know this include munitions and other extras but this is steep! I mean, I believe we could get more Rafales for the same price. Am I missing something here? The Indian Navy is also planning to lease two more Sea Guardian drones which I'm assuming is on top of the two they have on lease right now. This would bring the Navy's fleet to 10 - the quantity they wanted since the beginning.

Anyway, so many news articles came and went on the signing of the predator drone contract in the past 3 years that I wouldn't hold my breath.

Originally Posted by ads11

If the Super Hornet does win this one, you can't help but feel there was a great deal of political horse trading on this one to get it over the line (you can also bet your bottom dollar that while there'll be folks in the Pentagon having a chuckle at French expense, the French will undoubtedly rankle at being gazumped once more by the Yanks).

You raise a good point on availability. I was thinking more that any Indian order would be in quite a queue for the Rafale (Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar, etc). Being granted USN stock right off the bat, presumably with the ~2-3 years for IN crews to train on using the platform, that significantly shortens the timeline for this order. But how different would it be versus having IN personnel already being placed in Marine National units say to get up to speed on the use of the Rafale M?

I wonder if there isn't any Super Hornet announcement made at the summit meeting later, the GoI will announce the Rafale officially as the winner? That's desperately overlooking the fact that the defence babus could kick the can down the road and let this one play out a bit longer till some meeting between Modi-Macron for eg.

It's strange because there was even some news coming out that the deal would be announced in the next Modi-Macron meeting. To be fair, Boeing had been pretty good at manipulating the media during the initial days that pretty much gave everyone the impression that the F/A-18 would be selected before reports about the trial results showed that the Rafale M had come out on top.

If this indeed is true, another factor could be the price. The F/A-18 Super Hornet is probably the most produced Western aircraft in production right now after the F16 and F35 thanks to the US Navy basically operating the world's second-largest air force - the US Navy operates 566 Super Hornets. Moreover, with the line closing down, Boeing might be ready to give heavy discounts in anticipation of further orders. The massive US Navy fleet also gives them the bandwidth to spare a few jets on lease, compare that to France where they have around 42 Rafale Ms - similar to our Mig-29K fleet. So, in the latter case, while is possible to integrate our aviators with the French wing as you pointed out, leasing might not be an option.

Overall, I still feel the Rafale M is the better bet right now, especially after news that the F/A-18 line is shutting down since the Rafale will keep getting improvements while the F/A-18 Super Hornet Block III is probably the final variant of the aircraft and the fact that the Air Force operates the Rafales. The only advantage with the F/A-18 is the engine commonality with the future Tejas MK-2, AMCA and TEDBF.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

This news article seems to claim that the Predator B deal will go ahead during the Modi-Biden meeting as well. What caught my eye is the price, we were already taken aback by the $3 billion price tag for 30 drones but now even after downsizing to 18 units, the price remains at $3 billion? So, that $166 million per unit - I know this include munitions and other extras but this is steep! I mean, I believe we could get more Rafales for the same price. Am I missing something here? The Indian Navy is also planning to lease two more Sea Guardian drones which I'm assuming is on top of the two they have on lease right now. This would bring the Navy's fleet to 10 - the quantity they wanted since the beginning.

Anyway, so many news articles came and went on the signing of the predator drone contract in the past 3 years that I wouldn't hold my breath.

The defense ministry has finally approved the purchase of 30 Predator B drones from the US as part of a $3 billion deal. So, seems like there would be no down-sizing after all. This has been in the running for quite a long time with India originally requesting 22 unarmed Sea Guardian drones since purchasing armed drones wasn't possible due to MTCR restrictions. India then joined MTCR with US support (ironic since the US used MTCR in the 90s to prevent India from developing cryogenic engines) which allowed the US to offer the armed version of the drone - the first time it was offered to a non-treaty ally. Since then, India & US had been in talks with a lot of the delays due to the cost despite American eagerness. Then, there were reports of downsizing like mentioned above but seems like India is going for the full order. But rather than the order being evenly split like anticipated, the Navy (which already operates 2 leased Seaguardians) will get the majority of the orders with Air Force and Army getting the rest. I understand the maritime version for the navy is different but I'm curious what would be the difference between the Air Force and Army versions.



Other pending orders include the ISTAR (image in IAF livery below - courtesy Defense Matrix) and 6 more P8is for the Navy - all crucial orders.

[aim120]

MALE UAVs have faired poorly in ukraine. Both the sides equivalent versions have been shot down with ease. So against a near peer adversary, this is of little use.

The only drones that are working in ukraine right now are quad copters and small size fixed wing UAV. Anything the size of a predator or TB2 has been shot down with ease.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by aim120

MALE UAVs have faired poorly in ukraine. Both the sides equivalent versions have been shot down with ease. So against a near peer adversary, this is of little use.

The only drones that are working in ukraine right now are quad copters and small size fixed wing UAV. Anything the size of a predator or TB2 has been shot down with ease.

A lot of the utility of these drones is for intelligence collection which is a huge force multiplier. In an earlier post, I mentioned how the Indian Navy's leased 2 leased (unarmed) Sea Guardians covered more area than the Navy's fleet of 12 P8is, 8 of which have been flying for almost half a decade now. These drones can cover vast areas in a very short amount of time while collecting invaluable intel (and not exposing lives). We know about the Predator drone that was intercepted and ditched but we do not know how useful the Predator has been for intel collection to assist Ukrainian counter-offensives.

Should be noted that with an operating height of 50,000 feet, the Predator B is at the edge of the MALE definition, its not comparable to a TB2. In modern warfare, all types of drones have a role as proven by in Ukraine. Better expose an armed Predator for CAS than a manned Rafale/Su-30, even if the attrition is higher since trained pilots are harder to replace.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

What caught my eye is the price, we were already taken aback by the $3 billion price tag for 30 drones but now even after downsizing to 18 units, the price remains at $3 billion? So, that $166 million per unit - I know this include munitions and other extras but this is steep!

I've always thought that the American's price to include total lifetime costs on their platforms. That might be what accounts for a chunk of that value.

Overall, I still feel the Rafale M is the better bet right now, especially after news that the F/A-18 line is shutting down since the Rafale will keep getting improvements while the F/A-18 Super Hornet Block III is probably the final variant of the aircraft and the fact that the Air Force operates the Rafales. The only advantage with the F/A-18 is the engine commonality with the future Tejas MK-2, AMCA and TEDBF.

I think this perfectly sums up the fact that each of these two bring differing add on benefits. The point on the engine commonality is a big factor if you think about it. When you pair that point with the engine deal and the long term ramifications from that, then ironically the pendulum swings quite considerably in favour of the Super Hornet from a maintenance and logistics rationalisation POV, compared to the Rafale! It's almost counter intuitive when you say it out loud!

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Other pending orders include the ISTAR (image in IAF livery below - courtesy Defense Matrix) and 6 more P8is for the Navy - all crucial orders.

Remind me what the deal is with the ISTAR?

Surprised that there hasn't been more movement on the P8 front.

Originally Posted by aim120

MALE UAVs have faired poorly in ukraine. Both the sides equivalent versions have been shot down with ease. So against a near peer adversary, this is of little use.

The only drones that are working in ukraine right now are quad copters and small size fixed wing UAV. Anything the size of a predator or TB2 has been shot down with ease.

Those small scale UAVs are useful for the sort of close in fighting happening in Ukraine. But given the fact that most of the order is biased towards the IN I think is telling that a big reason they'll be acquired is for the extended reach they'll afford the IN in the IOR. I don't think anyone expects to have survivable MALE UAVs in a conflict zone, and likely sure, any of this current order would be equally vulnerable from a peer state offense. That being said, I view these as primarily offering ISR with a side order of being able to be used for strike tasks on occasion. I think the unimpeded use of Predators in permissive environments over the last two decades in the ME against non state actors have coloured our perceptions towards them being strike platforms when in reality that was just some bright spark realising it was a lot cheaper to bolt a Hellfire onto a Predator that can stay on station 10+ hrs than paying for your fighter jocks in their much more expensive fixed wing jets to do the same thing.

I think it's also worth bearing in mind how uniquely hostile the Ukrainian battle space is to low level fixed or rotary wing platforms of any sort. I don't think there's any real analogue in history of an environment so densely saturated with MANPADS. So I'm willing to bet once you crunch the numbers, the kill signal on those UAVs will scale up proportionately with the absolute mountain of MANPADS just knocking about in Ukraine.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by ads11

I've always thought that the American's price to include total lifetime costs on their platforms. That might be what accounts for a chunk of that value.

Actually that report was wrong. It was $3 billion for 30 drones as previously reported. Works out cheaper than the $1.651 billion USD offered to Australia for 12 units.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by ads11

I think it's also worth bearing in mind how uniquely hostile the Ukrainian battle space is to low level fixed or rotary wing platforms of any sort. I don't think there's any real analogue in history of an environment so densely saturated with MANPADS. So I'm willing to bet once you crunch the numbers, the kill signal on those UAVs will scale up proportionately with the absolute mountain of MANPADS just knocking about in Ukraine.

MANPADS cannot lock on to drones with electric propulsion. Only drones with a engine are getting shot down by MANPADS or by thermal system of a mobile AA.

MALE reconnaissance drones have mostly been shot down by radar guided missiles from a mobile AA, since these are spotted easily on radars.

At sea there is no mountain cover. Iran even shot down a HALE.

China will mostly use heavy EW to jam these drones. So against a peer opponent only a drone navigated by INS and AI will work.