The 45,000-tonne Vikrant got the prefix INS (Indian Naval Ship) at a formal
commissioning ceremony, attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 2 September
Vikrant, which cost around $2.5bn or £2.1bn,
was expected to be inducted into the navy by 2017 but due to issues, this got delayed.
The locally designed and built warship is India’s newest and most powerful platform.
The ship is so massive that it can house two Olympic pools and two football fields inside it.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how good is India's newest aircraft carrier
INS Vikrant ? Let's get started.
Vikrant is designed by India's Directorate of Naval Design
of the Indian Navy and is the first warship to be built by Cochin Shipyard.
Its construction involved the participation of a large number of private and public firms.
Around 76% of the ship's parts were sourced
indigenously - about 500 Indian firms were roped in.
It is named Vikrant as a tribute to India's first aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant from 1961.
The name Vikrant means "courageous" in Sanskrit.
Significant delays haunted the Vikrant. Its keel
was laid down in 2009 and the carrier is 13 years in the making.
INS Vikrant is 262 m or 860 ft in length,
has 2,300 compartments and can accommodate 1700 seamen.
Vikrant has a hospital complex, cabins for female officers, two football field-sized flight decks,
8km or 5 mi of corridors, and eight generators capable of lighting up a city of 2 million people.
Powered by 4 General Electric LM2500+ gas turbine it can reach a top speed of 52 km/h
or 32 mph, and has an endurance of 13,900 km or 8,600 mi.
Sensor suit include Elta EL/M-2248 MF-STAR AESA
multifunction radar and Selex RAN-40L 3D L-Band Air Surveillance Radar
DRDO Shakti EW suite is present for Electronic warfare & decoys
Vikrant features a STOBAR (Short Take-off But Arrested Recovery) configuration with a ski jump.
The deck is designed to enable aircraft such as the MiG-29K
to operate from the carrier. It is expected to carry an air group of up to 30 aircraft,
which will include up to 24–26 fixed-wing combat aircraft, primarily the MiG-29K,
besides carrying 10 Kamov Ka-31 or Westland Sea King helicopters.
The Mikoyan MiG-29 ( NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine jet fighter aircraft
designed in the Soviet Union. It was developed by the Mikoyan design bureau
as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s
While originally oriented towards combat against any enemy aircraft, many MiG-29s
have been furnished as multirole fighters capable of performing a number of different operations,
and are commonly outfitted to use a range of air-to-surface armaments
and precision munitions. The MiG-29 has been manufactured in several major
variants, including the multirole MiG-29M and the navalized MiG-29K.
While initially, INS Vikrant will have MiG-29K , India is planning to
move towards a different fighter since there are lots of reliability issues.
Indian Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral SN Ghormade said: "We designed the Vikrant
for operating the MiG-29K, but we would ultimately deploy the indigenous TEDBF
(Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter) fighter aircraft for which we are working with DRDO. For the
interim, we are looking at Rafale, and F/A-18 aircraft and trials have been carried out."
As per the Indian Navy official, "Evaluation is being done to select the aircraft,
and we hope that the decision will be taken earliest."
The Ka-31 will fulfill the airborne early warning
(AEW) role and the Sea King will provide anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability.
The primary air defense weapon of INS Vikrant is the Barak 8.
Barak-8, which has been jointly developed by India and Israel. This 90 km or 56 miles
range missile is designed from the start to intercept supersonic cruise missiles,
which travel a few meters above the water, which makes it perfect for missile defense.
The carrier is expected to have 2 x 32 Vertical Launch System cells.
A very important feature of Barack 8 is that the minimum engagement range is only
0.31 miles or 0.5 km. So the system can target an incoming hostile object till the very last
seconds, potentially giving it the ability to target it multiple times. This enables it to
intercept missiles very close to the ship and it performs the role of a point-defense SAM as well.
The role of CIWS (Close-in weapon system) is left to the 4 AK-630
6 barreled, 30 mm Gatling guns which is a last-ditch defense against missiles.
Aircraft carriers are the most visible symbol of contemporary naval power.
With the latest INS Vikrant, and INS Vikramaditya, India now has a
two-carrier navy. There are plans for another new carrier, though they have not been approved yet.
The platform with its air-wing will be able to project power far beyond India's coastlines.
INS Vikrant would strengthen India's position in the Indian Ocean Region
and its quest for a blue water Navy. The locally designed and manufactured
INS Vikrant highlights the abilities of a maturing military-industrial complex.
Though it has several shortcomings like no nuclear power
limiting its range and endurance and the absence of CATOBAR
(Catapult Assisted Take-off But Arrested Recovery), it is still a good first built.
The experience building and operating INS Vikrant
will enable India to design more potent aircraft carriers in the future.