INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

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Philip
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Philip »

Chola, same feelings about Dhruv .The IN is fielding it on the carrier which can easily accommodate it unlike the smaller warships.While the Kols look great, the small number of SAMs carried is v.worrisome as there is no secondary AD system barring the gatlings.The latest Chin DDGs being built of around 13,000t carry around 110 v
Launched.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Indranil »

I think that Dhruv was on ferry duty for the CNS and the DM. Is it actually deployed on VikAd?
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Cybaru »

It does sport a winch...
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

Philip wrote:Chola, same feelings about Dhruv .The IN is fielding it on the carrier which can easily accommodate it unlike the smaller warships.While the Kols look great, the small number of SAMs carried is v.worrisome as there is no secondary AD system barring the gatlings.The latest Chin DDGs being built of around 13,000t carry around 110 v
Launched.

Filipov, you can’t really compare the Kolkata or the Visak’ with a 13K ton cruiser.

BTW, our crew make the old Gorshkov look good as the Vikramaditya. The night landing and takeoff are superb.

But I can’t help but notice how small and crowded the VikAd seems during launch and recovery when compared to the new videos of launches from chini Varyag from the paki forum. And the J-15 is a much larger aircraft than the 29K.

More kudos for the skill and bravery of our crew to land in the pitch black of night on that postage stamp of a flight deck. (I do not believe the chinis have shown night operations so far.) Imagine how much easier for our pilots when they are able to fly and land on our 65K ton CATOBAR!
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Indranil »

Cybaru wrote:It does sport a winch...
AFAIK all IN Dhruvs sport them. But they are not ship-borne.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Aditya G »

Indranil wrote:I think that Dhruv was on ferry duty for the CNS and the DM. Is it actually deployed on VikAd?
Its for SAR duty. During naval air ops there is always one chopper in flight for picking up pilots in case they dunk
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Philip »

Compare SAM rounds of our P-15 series with comparable DDGs.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Austin »

Indranil wrote:I think that Dhruv was on ferry duty for the CNS and the DM. Is it actually deployed on VikAd?
CNS and DM went with Sea King Charlie/Commando version there is the video there on u tube
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Indranil »

Oh! Good news then.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

Philip wrote:Compare SAM rounds of our P-15 series with comparable DDGs.
Okay, Filipov.

At 7500 tons, the P-15s are best compared with the Australian Hobart, the British Type 45 Daring and the chini Type 052D.

P-15 has 32 Barak 8 plus 16 Brahmos for 48 mijjiles. The Oz and Brit both have 48 VLS plus 8 Harpoons in canisters. We give up some anti-air capability for FAR more firepower in the anti-ship realm. I’d say the Kolkata and Visak’ are pretty even with those depending if you view anti-aircraft or anti-ship as more important.

Yes, the Type 052D with 64 VLS plus 24 CIWS SAMs is more packed with mijjiles than the other three. But it is an outlier among 7000-8000 tons warships, not the norm.

Anyways it is not the number of VLS launchers that is most worrying, it is the number of hulls.

P-15A/B — 7 built/planned
Hobart — 3
Daring — 6
Type 052D — 26
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Singha »

the 30yo P15 delhi class carries 48 big SAMs and 16 barak1 SRSAM. plus 16uran in inclined tubes.
fairly meaty for a ship of that size.

the aft barak8 silos on 15A/B can surely be doubled in size to add 16 more. and new QRSAM in peripheral boxes whether VL or trainable. atleast fit and test the cells now and keep them ready for nirbhay and brahmos2.

the aft radar should be replaced by a 3D AMDR type radar of vast aperture, discrimination and range in a MLU...we need to field it both from sea and in land (expanded size).
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Karthik S »

Quite a few of us here have talked about under-arming P15As. We need atleast 32 BrahMos and 48 Barak 8, considering it's mostly likely opponent PLAN.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

Yah Singha ji, the Delhi must been among the best armed ships in the world at 6000 tons. Problem onlee is one-armed shtil SAM system is handicapped against saturation attacks.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by andy B »

Singha wrote:the 30yo P15 delhi class carries 48 big SAMs and 16 barak1 SRSAM. plus 16uran in inclined tubes.
fairly meaty for a ship of that size.

the aft barak8 silos on 15A/B can surely be doubled in size to add 16 more. and new QRSAM in peripheral boxes whether VL or trainable. atleast fit and test the cells now and keep them ready for nirbhay and brahmos2.

the aft radar should be replaced by a 3D AMDR type radar of vast aperture, discrimination and range in a MLU...we need to field it both from sea and in land (expanded size).
GD the P15 is a beaut of a design and IIRC carries 32 barak 1s and not 16! It lacks in ASM armament with the kh35 being relatively short legged but never the less an impressive AA and short range anti missile load out. I do wonder what the Navy forsees as an update to the P15A's in the future. TSarkar ji....any thoughts???
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Karthik S »

andy B wrote:
Singha wrote:the 30yo P15 delhi class carries 48 big SAMs and 16 barak1 SRSAM. plus 16uran in inclined tubes.
fairly meaty for a ship of that size.

the aft barak8 silos on 15A/B can surely be doubled in size to add 16 more. and new QRSAM in peripheral boxes whether VL or trainable. atleast fit and test the cells now and keep them ready for nirbhay and brahmos2.

the aft radar should be replaced by a 3D AMDR type radar of vast aperture, discrimination and range in a MLU...we need to field it both from sea and in land (expanded size).
GD the P15 is a beaut of a design and IIRC carries 32 barak 1s and not 16! It lacks in ASM armament with the kh35 being relatively short legged but never the less an impressive AA and short range anti missile load out. I do wonder what the Navy forsees as an update to the P15A's in the future. TSarkar ji....any thoughts???
May be he is talking about the 16 Barak 8 in the aft, other 16 is between the BrahMos and RBUs to the fore.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

Karthik S wrote:Quite a few of us here have talked about under-arming P15As. We need atleast 32 BrahMos and 48 Barak 8, considering it's mostly likely opponent PLAN.
Agree and that would just level out against the Type 052D one on one (though when they have 26, we need to plan facing multiples.)

In our CBGs, we need a Tico class cruiser or at least a heavy DDG with 100 VLS for fleet protector. That is what the new 13K ton chini monster is for — it is a bodyguard for their carriers.

Probably too much to hope for and definitely nowhere in the IN’s immediate future but the P15A/Bs at the moment don’t quite make the cut in protecting the Vikramaditya (or Vikrant) under mass air or mijjile attack.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Karthik S »

There were reports and also a tweet from SJha about new "cruiser" on the drawing board.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

^^^ I must have missed those. Please post!
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Philip »

Ah! That (new cruiser) would be great.A Slave loadout would be great.64 LR SAMs, 36-48 BPDMS SAM/gatlings, plus at teast 24 BMos Sam's and the accompanying ADA package all in a 12000t+ hull would be a great job.

There was even one concept which we discussed at least 15+ yrs ago of equipping a merchantman/ container ship type with hundreds of modular silos- an arsenal type vessel on the cheap.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by shaun »

Image
since when pilot's name associated with the a/cs they are flying ??
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Prithwiraj »

shaun wrote:Image
since when pilot's name associated with the a/cs they are flying ??
In USAF it is fairly common.... not sure about IAF
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by hnair »

The persistent wishlist of many in BRF of "let us load up a vessel with 100s of tubes with Brahmos or Nirbhay" is good for a land-attack mode, but kind of not going to work in blue water operations of IOR. There, due to the vastness of the ocean, multiple enemy combatants can spread out of range of missiles of a heavily armed ship, but still encircle and overwhelm the defenses. Even if the hostiles are not principle combatant category, an arsenal ship will have to chase down each of such combatants at great cost of time.

What Indian Navy is going with are lightly armed, good sea-keeping vessels but with heavy duty sensors and networking via satellites. The overwhelming majority of such ships' target sets seem to be the enemy's logistics chain, hence lots of buys of subsonic, cheap rounds of AShM as well as guns. For a showdown in the islands of IOR, such ships probably will carry a modest but adequate load out of land attack missiles like Brahmos or Klub and reasonably good SAM loads to ward off shore based crafts. For subhunting, we can load up the OPVs with towed sonar and fling them across vast regions. Same with the P28s. They are there in numbers to carry lots of sensors in times of stress

The advantage for a sensor heavy Navy is that, one can move the expensive shooters (which could be aircrafts or helicopters) like chess pieces, while the cost-effective sensors can range specific regions. If cheen decides to do a full GreatPower monty (which it seem to be doing), all the P28s, P17s and P15s can be easily upgraded to double the present loadout, thanks to spacious real estate around the existing VLS magazines. IN wont have to order new ships at that point, but instead, use amortized hulls of existing ones to pack the same amount of tubes at lower cost and time

Two 8k tonne destroyer with lots of sea in between them is better than a zumwalt-size behemoth for Indian needs.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

^^^ You are describing using our P-15A/Bs as solitary raiders on the enemy’s supply line. That is fine.

But we have carriers and the battle groups supporting the carries need a protector like the Ticonderoga cruiser that the USN uses at the core of its CBG’s defense. You need an wide area sensor and defensive system (Aegis) on a platform with enough missiles to protect a fleet.

An arsenal ship built from a merchant hull won’t cut it either as it would need to keep up with the carrier and escorts.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Mihir »

chola wrote:But we have carriers and the battle group needs a protector like the Ticonderoga cruiser that the USN uses at the core of its CBG’s defense.
The Ticos were for defence against massive (division-sized) SNAF raids, which were expected to launch more than a hundred supersonic cruise missiles at NATO convoys. The threat we face isn't nearly of the same magnitude. At the same time, our carrier air groups don't have the striking power of their US counterparts - hence the need for destroyers and frigates armed with anti-ship/land-attack cruise missiles.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by deejay »

Prithwiraj wrote:
shaun wrote:...
since when pilot's name associated with the a/cs they are flying ??
In USAF it is fairly common.... not sure about IAF
Its IN aircraft.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by tsarkar »

Indranil wrote:I think that Dhruv was on ferry duty for the CNS and the DM. Is it actually deployed on VikAd?
https://flic.kr/p/DKiTM6

INAS 322 is deploying on bases across India and ships. I took the mobile snap of it flying from INS Shikra.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chetak »

deejay wrote:
Prithwiraj wrote:
In USAF it is fairly common.... not sure about IAF
Its IN aircraft.
our carrier flyboys initially trained with the USN.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, no??
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by deejay »

chetak wrote:
deejay wrote:
Its IN aircraft.
our carrier flyboys initially trained with the USN.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, no??
Small quirks Sir. We shouldn't be too harsh. I mean they land on a moving ship deck for a living- thoda show off ka latitude :D
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Kersi »

chola wrote:
Karthik S wrote:Quite a few of us here have talked about under-arming P15As. We need atleast 32 BrahMos and 48 Barak 8, considering it's mostly likely opponent PLAN.
Agree and that would just level out against the Type 052D one on one (though when they have 26, we need to plan facing multiples.)

In our CBGs, we need a Tico class cruiser or at least a heavy DDG with 100 VLS for fleet protector. That is what the new 13K ton chini monster is for — it is a bodyguard for their carriers.

Probably too much to hope for and definitely nowhere in the IN’s immediate future but the P15A/Bs at the moment don’t quite make the cut in protecting the Vikramaditya (or Vikrant) under mass air or mijjile attack.
Me think 2 ships of 6,000 T would be better than 1 ship of 12,000 T. I agree that the cost of 2 smaller ships maybe higher by 50-75%
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

^^^ I would sort of agree if we had the smaller ships in numbers. We really don’t with just 7 P-15A/Bs planned. Also, a larger platform in general gives you larger a set of sensors with greater range. Though in our case, I am not sure since I don’t know if Israel builds a larger/more powerful MF Star suite than what’s on the Kolkata.

At any rate, this is all theoritical and could be just Amreeki bias on my part. To me, it seems natural to have a Tico at the heart of a CBG’s defense. But then the USN is an outlier with over 80 warships 10K tons and above.

The P-15A/B are on par with most of the other modern DDGs so how we defend the CBG might be similar to how the Royal Navy will defend the QE class. The Brits do not have a Tico sized warship either with the Type 45 Daring I listed above as their largest and that is Kolkata/Visak’ size.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by John »

Problem is Brahmos and UVLS are more than twice the size and weight of Mk41 (Barak-8 is smaller but for now let’s say it’s equivalent). Basically you are talking about vessel that is carrying around 64 Mk 41 cells which looks pretty good.

However because it lack of universally compatible vls system that can fire both SAM and Ashm and Brahmos large weight makes P-15A underarmed on paper.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Philip »

For our DDGs of the P-15A/B series,around 48 B-8 and another 48 QRSAM 20+ km range either part of a gun/ missile BPDMS or separate like B-1 ideal.16+ BMos in their own silos.2 MR helos also equipped with subsonic ASMs, ASW munitions.I think that there is enough space available even in the existing vessels, probably less installed due to costs.When they were first planned the Chin threat wasn't so obvious and menacing.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by jaysimha »

marriage in high seas..

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease. ... lid=175716

Affiliation of INS Vikramaditya with the Bihar Regiment and no. 6 Squadron, Indian Air Force

The glittering ceremony was held onboard INS Vikramaditya in the Karwar Naval Base which is nestled amongst the picturesque Western Ghats.

Vice Admiral Girish Luthra, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, ADC, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command and
Lieutenant General Amarjeet Singh, AVSM**, SM, Military Secretary and Colonel of the Bihar Regiment
Air Vice Marshal M Fernandez, VM, VSM, Air Officer Commanding Maritime Air Operations

and a host of senior officers from all the three services graced the event.

Reception photo...

Image
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by nachiket »

hnair wrote:The persistent wishlist of many in BRF of "let us load up a vessel with 100s of tubes with Brahmos or Nirbhay" is good for a land-attack mode, but kind of not going to work in blue water operations of IOR. There, due to the vastness of the ocean, multiple enemy combatants can spread out of range of missiles of a heavily armed ship, but still encircle and overwhelm the defenses. Even if the hostiles are not principle combatant category, an arsenal ship will have to chase down each of such combatants at great cost of time.

What Indian Navy is going with are lightly armed, good sea-keeping vessels but with heavy duty sensors and networking via satellites. The overwhelming majority of such ships' target sets seem to be the enemy's logistics chain, hence lots of buys of subsonic, cheap rounds of AShM as well as guns. For a showdown in the islands of IOR, such ships probably will carry a modest but adequate load out of land attack missiles like Brahmos or Klub and reasonably good SAM loads to ward off shore based crafts. For subhunting, we can load up the OPVs with towed sonar and fling them across vast regions. Same with the P28s. They are there in numbers to carry lots of sensors in times of stress

The advantage for a sensor heavy Navy is that, one can move the expensive shooters (which could be aircrafts or helicopters) like chess pieces, while the cost-effective sensors can range specific regions. If cheen decides to do a full GreatPower monty (which it seem to be doing), all the P28s, P17s and P15s can be easily upgraded to double the present loadout, thanks to spacious real estate around the existing VLS magazines. IN wont have to order new ships at that point, but instead, use amortized hulls of existing ones to pack the same amount of tubes at lower cost and time

Two 8k tonne destroyer with lots of sea in between them is better than a zumwalt-size behemoth for Indian needs.
hnair saar, people are concerned more about the SAM loadout on the P-15A/Bs than the Brahmos loadout. 16 Brahmos is perfectly fine for the time being unless Cheen goes the full monty as you say. But the ships definitely need more Barakk-8 silos for escorting the carrier or other less protected assets like the P-28s. Especially in the IOR where patrols will be longer with no ports within easy reach to resupply with more missiles.

Of course when it comes to defending the carrier, the air wing is the first line of defense, but our air wings are smaller than others and the Mig-29's effective range might be limited in STOBAR operations(although the same is probably true for chini J-15s). Even so, the big khan floating cities with large numbers of catapault launched SHornets helped by E-2Cs have the Ticonderogas and Arleigh Burke's around them for safety.
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by tsarkar »

The INAS 322 Guardian crest on left clearly indicates Dhruv deployed on Vikramaditya.

No INAS 333 crest that operates Ka28. INAS 339 operates Ka-31
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by chola »

The INAS 322 Guardian crest on left clearly indicates Dhruv deployed on Vikramaditya.
Great insight and great news! Thanks, Tsarkar ji!
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by sudeepj »

The main rotor diameter of the Dhruv is 13.2 meters. While the VikAd lift dimensions are about 11 meters. Is the chopper parked on the main deck all the time or they position the rotors in a specific way to take it below the flight deck?
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by Aditya_V »

sudeepj wrote:The main rotor diameter of the Dhruv is 13.2 meters. While the VikAd lift dimensions are about 11 meters. Is the chopper parked on the main deck all the time or they position the rotors in a specific way to take it below the flight deck?
HAL has long had a Manual folding solyution for Dhruv's. IN needs automatic folding for its smaller ships
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by tsarkar »

sudeepj
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Re: INS Vikramaditya: News and Discussion

Post by sudeepj »

Desi chopper on carrier ops! Thats a beautiful sight. :-)
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