Bharat Rakshak

There isn't much point in being able to hit central U.S. targets if China doesn't even have enough missiles to cover the west coast. They have maybe, what, a max of 50 missiles that can strike the U.S.? Is the deterrence really substantially higher if you can strike the eastern U.S. coast rather than just the west coast?

How different it is from our Vik in terms of length; aircraft capacity other known technical capacity etc

varyag would be around 10,000t heavier, 20m longer and around 15m wider at her widest point which is the island & waist deck region.
varyag airwing is likely to be around 10 fighters/helis more esp now that Granit silos are not doubt removed...varyag had a more carrier role built in from day1 unlike the kiev class whose hull is really too narrow for a proper carrier.

China could hit the US east coast for at least the last 30 years.

Yes, while Varyag is no doubt bigger what about the SU-33, which is it's primary fighter, doesn't it have a bigger footprint than the MiG-29K on the Vikad? My guess is that the airwing won't be all that different from the Vik, but I am just guesstimating here.

Curious to know Sir - the new carriers which india is building; is that bigger then varyag; how does it fare in compariosn to varyag...

That is one of the reason i remember during Clinton Era , China and US signed a treaty of not pre-targeting their Strategic Missile at each other as confidence building measure.

ADS1 is similar sized to Gorshkov in tonnage or slightly smaller. but being a purpose built design upscaled from cavour, it will generally be more efficient about things. wiki comparison says 20m shorter, but critically 10m broader deck.

ADS1 shape, size, tonnage is very similar to the charles de gaulle.

Oh lordy.........the Varyag picture is major photoshop. See the twin pole like thingies on the front? One of them has shadow while the other doesn't. Someone forgot to add shadow to it.

That dark patch is not a shadow ... The picture is certainly enhanced for creating awe ... but credit must be given to the Chinese for resurrecting what looks like a very good carrier.

kuznetsov class probably suffers from the same russian inexperience in prolonged deep ocean carrier ops. they had no exp in that prior to the moskva helicopter carriers and later the kiev class. Kuz class was supposed to be their first 'proper' carrier but again they just could not let their missile fetish go and packed the foredeck with granit missile silos. why in gods name could they not leave it to the oscars and akulas of the world? the chinese have likely removed these and the obese armament of SAMs and kashtans lining the verandahs like a japanese robotech movie. still we never know how good the internal hanger and systems are vs what we expect from a khan cvn. the su33 is also unproven as a naval fighter - sure it can takeoff and land but good it really is in sustained ops over the sea. payload penalty in fuel is surely there.

I would say its a better carrier design than Vik for sure being more of proper carrier, but a 'proper' 65000t carrier of the CVF type with steam cats , hornets/JSF and E2D still trounces it.

same scale

It appears that they have shifted the entire island to the starboard side and added two lifts on either sides of the island.

top pic is of AG not Kuznetsov.

Varyag I dont see any basic change. see this - overall deck has remained unchanged and the lifts were always there.
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Gall ... ant-04.jpg

Whatever little size advantage Varyag has over Vik is offset by the fact that former will operate a much larger Su-33 or it's clone J-15.

[quote="Singha"]top pic is of AG not Kuznetsov.

My bad

it would be most interesting to know if the Su33 can takeoff with its full 8-9t internal fuel and what kind of realistic payload.

A folded Su-33 inside a hanger occupies smaller foot print compared to folded Mig-29K according to Yefim Gordon in his book Su-27 Flanker.

But he was comparing the older Soviet Mig-29K with Su-33 not sure if its valid for newer IN model.

on the kuznetsov, the su33s deployed were it seems only equipped and tasked for air defence, not strike duties. they did not carry any PGM, iron bombs or ASM. these are no doubt heavier than AAMs. plus strike sorties will need to cart a couple AAM for self defence.

youtube videos of Kuz air ops show clean wings, not even dummy AAMs on the su33 ... the ship looks kind of deserted and forlorn in contrast the buzz of activity on a CVN. no evidence of Su33 taking off 'loaded for bear'. the Kuz has never done a 7-9 month intensive deployment cycle the khan carriers do.

the real proof will be if PLANAF can up the tempo and operate Su33 at high tempo and fully armed from varyag on a longish mission like say to eastern indonesia and fiji....they could exercise with other nations and practice strike missions as well.

we shall see.

In South China Sea, a surprise Chinese escort for Indian ships


“Welcome to the South China Sea, Foxtrot-47,” buzzed a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigate to the INS Shivalik (F47).

Not without Catapults .... hell no. You are gonna struggle to launch a Su-33 loaded for bear.
The only way around is to launch half the aircraft with fuel and the rest with weapons and then do buddy refueling on the way.
Refuellers return and the strike packages continues. Either way... expensive use of Su-33 as mini tankers, even those Su-33 will not be topped up. An aircraft bigger than an F-15 needs a Catapult to be launched from a soccer field.

Initially I put down my cup of tea and went what the hell when we decided on Mig-29 for the Navy but once I did the maths and read about aircraft recovery it became crashingly clear that if you are going for Ski Jumps, you got to halve your loads.

Some Comparasion pics coming up.

given their limitations, I would imagine both VK/Varyag are more useful to fleet air defence for a formation thats out of range of land based fighters, than a 1-800 A2G strike force of the kind the khan airwings have evolved into (for lack of credible air threats, while still retaining the apg79+aim9x+amraam on the side - keeping powder dry).

10k miles away, re-fuelers for su33 does not look operationally sound.

nuke powered A/C with on board capabilities to refuel is the way to go. yeah, those EMF catapults are required.

OTOH, if sea harriers ++ can be thought off, then there is something sweet. I would think a VTOL operational, would cause any force to shiver in their pants.

the vStoL JSF is not causing anyone to lose sleep - yet.

cats for the next carrier
I think we should still look at innovative ways to fling a craft, particularly for non-nuke carriers with not so abundant steam supply. Like hypergolic liquid bi-propellants (or slow burning modular ones of the solid kind for ease of storage and resupply) expanding inside cylinders to push pistons etc. Maybe EMALS running off some turbofan powered APU generators etc.

nuke power is for 180-day deployment across oceans and the situation is middle of WWIII. It does not make sense for India right now.

Also means more fuel per sortie. With 90% of all sorties being peacetime missions more fuel is burned up and a bigger logistics hurdle.

I find that a bit hard to believe

even without the wings the rest the flanker is a beast compared to the 29.

only a side by aside and top views can show whether thats true

the length of the flanker is certainly more than Mig29K .... this impacts the turning radius on deck, the parking areas and the efficiency of hanger space. the lifts might also need to be a certain minimum size.

wiki lists the flanker as 4m longer and 4m wider without folding wings ofcourse.

Well the Su-27 Flanker by Yefim Gordon mentions the details but i found a link on that and its written by Ken

link

Check the above link but synopsis pasted below



The flanker in most DACT conducted beats the Mig-29 most of the occasion in BFM and in WVR combat it already has a advantage of huge radar , weapons payload and range.

Thats my point shiv, you can either launch weapons or you can launch fuel --> if you are launching the Su-33 from KuZ.

Which means if you launched the a/c with weapons are defensive only unless you are topped by buddy.
Else you launched the a/c with little weapons and lots of fuel.

The Chinese military transformation of their military smells of their ego, one that is driven to acquire a stick of the same size and color as the bully. However in this case they got the bigger carrier and the bigger aircraft however it doesn't have the oomph. CATS !!

by the way the angle of launch on Kuz is 12 and VikAdit is 14.5

yeah..before CATS everything is maya. I am sure they are trying to work on cats using a mix of local and stolen tech from massa. unfortunately rus/ukr cannot help them on this.
it will need a mighty 'khan' cat to hurl a 30t flanker into the air for sure.

we have operated steam cats off the old vikrant for alize and sea hawk.

unfortunately the french are happy to import this low volume item rather than develop alternatives coz there is no world market for it.

I guess its time to test our 'friendship' with the khan and see if their establishment will release it and in parallel start a plan-B of working with Russia to develop cats either steam or EM both for us and for their future carrier plans. who would have thought that a technology that dates to 150 years ago would become so strategic in this day? Rus has good strength in EM stuff and perhaps japan might also be willing to extend some aid to their starving new biraders.

we will either have to run a steam plant perhaps using furnace oil to generate steam, or else EM sounds more efficient because energy can be stored rather than always needing to be generated...perhaps a diesel-electric generator can provide the current and stored in submarine style banks of batteries or something

austn,

i doubt the wing span spec wrt Mig 29K as mentioned by 'Ken' in the link provided by you. ofc he refers to the older version of Mig 29k but the fact is - the wing span which was 'improved' (by folded radome option) in the newer Mig 29K - still brings it to 14.13 meters. folded span has been improved too by shifting the fold line closer to the wing root. so MIG 29K -

wing span - 14.13 metres.

folded span - 5.80 meters.

refer MiG-29K-2002 in this link

still substancially less than SU 33.

Singha ji

IMHO EM CAT will be better in future, not only it will launch ACs it can launch future missiles, shells etc... we must build nuclear powered Aircraft Carriers so we will have no shortage of electric power.

We can enable such boats with energy hungry ray weapons to incinerate incoming missiles like DF-21s, Babars & Chino/Pako SATs as well.

IMHO this is the time when Bharat has to come out of shadow of a follower and try these new techs to show world what it has never seen or imagined. This is what creates respects globally (not any amount of charity)

thanks Austin

but I stil find it hard to believe

kind of like the Us MICs is next gen product will do longer range, more payload, more sensors, easy to maintain, etc etc all on the lowest bid

we know how they all turn out

what about the logistic foot print of fuel etc ???

the issue is moot anyway. Su33 is retired and Rus is buying a fresh set of Mig29K to keep Kuznetsov operational.

its an issue only for the chinese now, who will have to make a meal of whatever they have. Rus would willing to export Mig29K to them also if desired.

Surya , Logistically speaking there is no doubt that operating cost per hour for the flanker would be higher ...but that is more than offset with far better capabilities.

After all if you have one carrier or two and then you want to defend the entire CBG which might be 30-50 odd ship you would want your best aircraft up in air .... stuff like reach , persistence and payload would matter.

Flanker specially the more modern one can stand up to any thing out there because of these qualities , you cant say that for Mig-29K , it can defend itself but would have a hard time dominating against the likes of Flanker or Rafale out there.

The advantage Mig-29K offers is its small size affords more number and considering you can theoretically put many aircraft in air and can vector it in many directions , you still end up with more numbers of aircraft in air and quantity has it own quality for similar displacement aircraft carrier. ( you take into consideration things like maintenance you would have less number of flanker operationally available )

Singha , the key reason why Russia is option for Mig-29K its the best available to them but because they want to keep Mig in business and do not want to make Sukhoi too strong(under UAC) for its own good which it already is , its a way of balancing between the two where ever possible ....not to mention the Indian order has given a production line where it can build more and cost less , There are other reasons like keeping the factory production line open and not keeping the skills ideal. In socialism the Russian MOD are no different than Indian counterpart .

The best option for IN is to move toward Rafale or JSF by end of this decade which ever is available and we get it with no strings attached ....Rafale looks more attractive atm considering its logistics advantage with IAF fleet.

Austin - this is highly debatable for the simple reason that a carrier battle group is a complex animal of which the model of fighter on the ship is only one component. It is erroneous to judge to capability of the entire group of ships at sea simply by comparing the aircraft on board. A lot depends on the defences of the fleet from hostile ships, submarines, aircraft, where it is deployed, how far from home the fleet might be and how long the fleet has been on patrol at the start of any hostilities and what role is expected of the group in any battle.

Clearly any manager of a battle group will have to take all these into consideration.

After all the Varyag sailing within 1000 km of the Indian coastline during hostilities will not even need another carrier group even with Harriers to oppose it. It will be taken out by stand off missiles or a sub or a combination of both. So unless the Chinese watch what they do very carefully, having the Flanker on board will not keep the ship away from Davy Jones' locker. One by one if a couple of escort ships are sunk the carrier will soon have to start heading for home or one day the Flankers that take of will only have a patch of oil spill to land on.

asymmetric response availibility is why the americans did not bother with developing big anti-ship missiles of the granit or yakhont type, they had enough subs armed with torps and harpoons for the job.

I am curious to know what kind of arctic CVBG exercises nato conducts...heard of upto 4 american carriers operating together north of the article circle and also in the Fjords of norway. what they do with 350m long ships in the confined waters of fjords is also something my curious mind wants to know.

China puts its first woman astronaut into orbit

http://news.yahoo.com/china-puts-first- ... 54354.html