Indian Navy has expressed delight at the Sevmash Shipyard's progress in refurbishment of Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier towards a delivery in 2012. Unfortunately, being ignored is China's rapid development of its anti-ship (read aircraft carrier) ballistic missile program. In March 2010 Wired reported a US Admiral Robert Willard, the head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) told legislators that China was “developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.” The report further noted that since its development in 1990s, it is now at a testing stage. Due to the advanced technology in the missile even the U.S. may not have the technology to defend its carriers against such a strike, effectively meaning that aircraft carriers would be sitting ducks.
This view was backed up by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates who in Apr 2010 confirmed that China's heavy investment in anti-ship capabilities will make aircraft carriers obsolete. Adding to the woes is the proliferation in Asian waters of Air-Independent Propulsion submarines as reported by Strategy Page.
Back in India, the optimism in the Navy’s stance is visible after the return of a team led by controller of warship production and acquisitions Vice Admiral N.N. Kumar, which had gone to Russia to inspect the progress of work carried out on the much delayed aircraft carrier in May this year.
“The pace of work has picked up significantly in the last six months. This can be attributed to the additional deployment of manpower in refurbishment of the aircraft carrier,” navy spokesperson Commander Satish told 8ak. Adding further he said, “An apex level committee has also been constituted between India and Russia at the highest levels to monitor the progress of work on the Gorshkov aircraft carrier rechristened INS Vikramaditya.”
A top naval officer told 8ak, “The additional deployment of manpower is due to the urgency of India to induct the aircraft carrier in its fleet, as India has been left without an operational carrier after the grounding of its ageing fleet of Sea Harrier aircrafts, which operated from INS Viraat and the recently inducted MiG-29K by the navy from Russia cannot be used from Viraat platform, hence pushing India into a unique position of having a carrier without operational aircrafts and aircrafts which are not compatible with the carrier we have, even the under production indigenous carrier has been delayed.”
Times of India reports a naval officer saying, “There has been substantial progress since the last examination in September 2009. Around 99% of the structural work and almost 50% of the cabling work has been completed on the carrier. Almost all large equipment, like engines, diesel generators and the like, has been installed.”
Admiral Gorshkov had become a bane in the relationship of India and Russia, as the latter asked an additional US$1.5 billion for refurbishment of the carrier from the original price of US$974 million. The hike in price was due to the Russians underestimating the quantum of work required to refurbish the carrier, which was phased out from the Russian navy after it caught fire. The issue was settled this year after several rounds of tough negotiations, which saw the price being fixed at US$2.3 billion. The upgrade on the carrier will make it sea worthy for another three decades.
