Posted on 04/21/2009 1:37:35 AM PDT by pobeda1945
MOSCOW, April 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will deliver the modernized Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to the Indian Navy in 2012, a senior shipbuilding industry official has said.
"Under an agreement with India, the aircraft will be delivered in 2012. Almost 2,000 highly-qualified workers are currently involved in the overhaul [of the ship]," Vladimir Pakhomov, the president of Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation, said in an interview published on Tuesday with the Vremya Novostei newspaper.
"We will increase the number of workers and speed up the work, making sure that it does not affect the quality. We are continuing talks with Indian officials about the additional financing of the project," he added.
The original $750 million 2004 contract between Russia's state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport and the Indian Navy envisioned that work on the aircraft carrier would be completed in 2008.
However, Russia later claimed it had underestimated the scale and the cost of the modernization and demanded an additional $1.2 billion, which New Delhi said was "exorbitant."
After long-running delays and disputes, Russia and India agreed in February 2008 to raise retrofit costs for the aircraft carrier, docked at the Sevmash shipyard in northern Russia for the past 12 years, by at least $800 million.
The current contract covers a complete overhaul of the ship and equipping it with modern weaponry, including MiG-29K Fulcrum aircraft and Ka-27 Helix-A and Ka-31 Helix-B anti-submarine helicopters.
The Admiral Gorshkov carrier, renamed the Vikramaditya, is to replace India's INS Viraat carrier, which, although currently operational, is now 50 years old.
After modernization, the carrier is expected to be seaworthy for 30 years.
“Russia” and “quality” in the same sentence are to laugh.
I’m afraid the Indians have been suckered into buying a hunk of junk.
"What a hunk of junk!"
A little history on the Gorshkov/Baku/Vikramaditya: RusNavy.com
Something went wrong
The story of the Gorshkov is somewhat similar to another story that received wide publicity last year: the story of the submarine Nerpa. The two ships are scheduled to be sold to India, but they have both been involved in incidents that cost people lives. True, if the incident on the submarine Nerpa, which occurred under strange circumstances on November 8, 2008, and took the lives of 20 military men and civilians, is still fresh on our memories, the case involving the Gorshkov has more or less been forgotten because of time.
The tragic incident on the aircraft carrier, which back then was still in the Russian Navy, took place in February of 1994. Because of the rupture of the main vapor pipe, 7 sailors who had been locked up in one of the ship’s technical rooms died.
The same month, because of a collision with a Ukrainian dry cargo ship, a fire broke out on the cruiser, and its consequences, according to some sources, made an eventual return of the ship into the combat group of the Russian Navy very unlikely. Nonetheless, on May 9, 1995, the Gorshkov led the V-Day parade in the Kola Bay after undergoing thorough repairs. It was in fact the last triumphant sortie of the ship out to sea.
The Gorshkov in fact has not two, but even three names. Until October 4, 1990, the aircraft carrier was actually known as the Baku, a name that was changed to Admiral of the Soviet Navy Gorshkov, though even in official documents it was still being referred to simply as the Admiral Gorshkov. After an agreement with India, the ship was renamed as the Vikramaditya, which can be translated as All Powerful or Powerful as the Sun, after a legendary Indian leader who became famous not less through his many military victories.
Construction of the aircraft carrier began at the Nikolaev shipyards under a design by the Nevsky Construction Bureau on December 26, 1978. It was based on further development of a series of cruisers of the Kiev-type built on a modified 1143.4 Project. In 1988, the Baku went to sea in its first combat mission in an squadron in the Mediterranean, and in December it was included in the Northern Fleet. Between 1989 and 1990, the ship also carried out combat missions and exercises in the Barents Sea.
The ship had an air group made up of Yak-141 and Yak-38 vertical takeoff and landing jetfighters, as well as Ka-27, Ka-252RLD and Ka-252PS recon, search and rescue helicopters. But according to Ria Novosti, the vertical landing and takeoff jetfighters, which lacked the necessary combat characteristics, were what doomed the Admiral Gorshkov. The jetfighters performed few combat missions, had an insufficient range, and a high breakdown rate.
The shortcomings could not be remedied because of the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and the dry up in funding. As a result, the aircraft were retired from combat duty and the Admiral Gorshkov itself was docked.
A second life
Negotiations on the sale of the aircraft carrier to India began back in 1994 and had been going on practically for 10 years. Finally on January 20, 2004, an agreement was signed in Delhi between RosOboronExport, the Russian government’s arm sales agent, and the Indian Navy according to which India was to pay $1.5 billion for the warship.
Approximately $600-700 million was to be spent on repairing the warship, as a result of which it was to be transformed from an aircraft cruiser into a light aircraft carrier. The bulk of the money was to be spent on planes for the ship: Mig-29ks jet fighters and Ka-27 and Ka-31 helicopters were being considered. In addition, the asking price included the ship’s equipment and armament, which was to be provided by third parties.
The Vikramaditya in December 2008
Why has work to upgrade the ship dragged on for so long is now hard to tell. But it is obvious that there were reasons, and perhaps not only financial ones.
According to some sources, the Sevmash Shipbuilding Factory catastrophically lacked the specialists needed to do the job. In comments on the matter in December 27 in an interview with the Itar-Tass news agency, the head of the government enterprise RosTechnology said the following: “To execute the export contract we are forced to assemble workers from all over the country, for the repair of the cruiser Admiral Gorshkov we do not have enough welders, and we have to search for them all over the county.”
The Indians also did not always observe the conditions of the contract, and funding, according to some sources, was neither always on time nor even made in full. According to Kommersant, a newspaper, India stopped making payments back in January 2007, and that same year, Moscow demanded $1.2 million from India for the completion of work.
The Indian Finance Ministry rejected the army’s request for funds to pay the invoice from Russia. In addition, the newspaper affirms that India had refused to pay the $600 million necessary to begin tests in the Barents Sea in 2011.
A what cost? In late November 2008, information appeared in the Russian media that Russia had demanded another $2 billion from Indian to complete the modernization of the Gorshkov. Indian journalists, without particularly giving into the details of the problem, accused Russia of “arms-twisting,” since India was in dire need of the new aircraft carrier and a cancellation of the contract would have hurt the combat capability of its navy.
Nonetheless, rumors that the Gorshkov could remain in Russia and be re-incorporated into the Russian Navy have appeared. An anonymous source in the Russian defense-industrial complex told the following to the Ria Novosti news agency in November 2008: “If India does not pay the money, we will keep the aircraft carrier. It will be very handy to have, since the world is in a very complicated stage. Such ships are necessary to patrol the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean seas.”
Why has the price for the modernization shot up so radically? Nobody knows in reality, even though, as Itar-Tass insists, the transformation of an aircraft carrier cruiser into an aircraft carrier is comparable, from the point of view the amount of work hours, to the construction of a new ship of the same class. It cannot be ruled out either that inflation played a role here, as well as price increases for equipment and armaments.
Even stranger are rumors that the U.S. is ready to give the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which is scheduled for decommissioning by the U.S. Navy, to India free of charge. These rumors appeared in early 2008. According to Izvestia, a Russian newspaper, India, as compensation for the “gift,” was to purchase 65 F/A-18E/F jetfighters from the U.S. Such a deal would have in effect killed the Russian-Indian agreement on the sale of the Gorshkov. But the Indian Navy later denied the information.
That Delhi was ready to ditch the Gorshkov and begin a search for an alternative was, after all, hard to believe. The Vikramaditiya will replace the Vigraat in the Indian Navy, an old British Hermes light aircraft carrier built in 1959 and whose potential has been exhausted. The Kitty Hawk is in fact as old as the British Hermes and can only be considered seriously only as scrap metal.
Shes the ship which did the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
Just another big submarine target.
A slice of the extra cash to be paid to the Russians will almost certainly be passed back to some of India’s ministers and ranking naval officers. I also suspect that the Indians want the aircraft as much as they want the ship. At the worst, if the ship proves to be poorly serviceable, the aircraft and their component systems can be copied for India’s indigenous fighter aircraft program.
I don’t know why the Indians always buy Russian rubbish. You would think they would learn by now.
A South Korean shipyard could have run up a much better design, much better built and would have delivered it on time and at the agreed upon price — despite never having built a warship that size before.
The Korean could probably build a better carrier in a year for the same amount of money. The Hyundai shipyards are famous for their ability to build big ships at record speeds.
I agree. A 30 year old hulk, which has already suffered one debilitating fire 25 years ago, and has been sitting mothballed since then, is little better than a rust hulk.
Ministers and Bureaucrats. The Naval board has little say in these matters beyond putting out an RFP.
Not necessarily. It's steaming and time at sea that wears a ship out. If the basic structure and mechanical plant is sound - and I admit that it's a bit 'if' - then just because she's been in mothballs doesn't mean she's a worn out hulk.
There are three of these ships. The Kutnezsov which is more or less operational, the Varyag which the ChiComs have been playing with for several years now but which has never left port under her own power, and the Gorshkov.
The Kutnezsov has been on actual deployments and has proven that the STOAL concept is doable, but it’s still way to early to say this is a proven design.
I think India really took a bad gamble when they decided to go for it.
One thing I do believe, however, is that if the Chinese decide to commission her, the Varyag (or whatever she ends up getting named) is probably going to be the most formidable of the three.
India’s own homebuilt carrier will come online before a South Korean one. You are talking about South Korean shipbuilding from a purely commercial point of view. How many carrier designs do the Koreans or anyone else offer??? The only country to have built a carrier solely for export was Spain and that was a ship little bigger than a destroyer. Nobody builds carriers for export and so buyers have few choices-China gets a ship without engines, Brazil gets a 40 year old French ship and India gets an unused 20 year old Russian hulk.
Actually no-the Indian navy was forced to buy Mig-29s as the Russians were giving the carrier for free-the IN’s original choice was the French Rafale-M and homebuilt LCA fighter.
In hindsight you are right, but in the early part of this decade, what other options did the IN have??? The South Korea build option only exists in internet fantasy and the only other alternative was an ex-British Invincinble class ship-the problem is the Sea Harriers are too old.
A Chinese Varyag will be formidable only on paper-it will take them a decade to get an airwing active.
The Indian Navy seems to have preferred the Rafale M, but I am not sure how the carrier can be “free” in light of the vast sums that Russia has demanded for dockyard work.
Yes, the carrier was offered for free since it was pretty much worth nothing-the IN had to foot the bill to refurbish and re-equip her through a Russian contract.
http://www.kommersant.com/p818496/India_Gorshkov_shelf/
While the Rafale was shunted out of the MRCA competition (any hard reasons given for that ....I know cost wise it was disadvantaged, but I'd love to know which 'technical specifications' would eliminate the Rafale yet leave the Superbug and Viper ....and if it is the AESA, I thought the Rafale was due to get one quite soon), it would have been quite effective as part of their naval air. And in terms of strike capability, much better than a Fulcrum.
The air complement came as part of the refurbishment package of 1.5 billion USD (agreed then). The value for the Migs and helicopters was almost 40% of the total contract, so don’t think the Russians would have been happy with India paying under a billion USD for structural upgrade. With the benefit of hindsight, the IN walked into a trap and should have never taken the basic carrier for free.
About the Rafale, well the IAF has issued a statement saying that the Rafale is still in!! A few months back a similar news story came out saying that the Gripen was out-only to be denied. This is probably some prank by rival companies-it’s also happening with a joint missile deal with Israel. The question is by who-the Russkies or the Yankees???
Ah ...so the Rafale is still in. I don't know why, but I am quite drawn to the aircraft. While the cost is quite high (particularly when compared to the other - non-Typhoon that is - contenders), but in terms of strike capability it provides something that the IAF does not have.
Moreover, was there not an option of using the Rafale engine on the LCA? Also, the level of TOT that the French would offer would be magnitudes higher than what the Americans would have on offer, and from a different stock (and advancement) than what the Russians have to offer. Plus, the French have never had the risk aspect that the Americans have in terms of political strings attached, as well as offering key Western diversification from the Russian camp.
The Rafale is more capable than the Gripen, and once it has the AESA more than even the Viper Block 60. The Block 60 (since it would be more or less the UAE version) is an astounding Viper, but the fact that Pakistan also flies F-16s does spike the punch.
I know there is a sweetener getting thrown into the mix (e.g an insinuation that opting for the Viper may lead to participation in the F-35), but the Indians have already opted for the Indo-Russian PAKFA stealth fighter program, largely negating the JSF carrot.
As for the SuperBug, it would be an amazing addition to the IAF, particularly on air-to-mud, but the Rafale can also provide the same, without the 'strings-attached' concept that would come with the Superbug. The Eurofighter Typhoon is an amazing plane, but it is more A2A than A2G, and (in my opinion) the SU-30MKI can handle ANY air threat that the Indians would face in their region. Moreover, the A2G weapons of the Typhoon are basically the same as those of the Rafale.
I think the Indians will opt for the Superbug (its capability plus a closer tie with the US), but if it were up to me I'd take a hard look at the Rafale. Moreover, with the problems the French have been having selling it (primarily due to political pressure on potential customers from Boeing) they would be willing to do anything short of selling their grannies to have the Indians select it. The technological transfer would be tremendous. Anyways, they will probably go for the F-18E/F, but I know which one I would be opting for, and it would smell of escargot.
While the Rafale has excellent capabilities, the French have not done themselves any good in the way they have funded or marketed it. French attitudes in arms sales tend to be snooty (unless we are talking about Arab Sheikhs)-a contract to upgrade 50 Indian Mirage-2000s is yet to be signed though Dassault/Thales won the bid over a year ago. It’s just too expensive.
About the LCA-the French had proposed reengining the Rafale with the Kaveri engines being developed for the LCA. Since the Kaveri is no where close to being ready,that remains a pipedream. The government agency developing the LCA has identified the Eurojet-200 (used on the Eurofighter) and the GE F-414 (used on the SuperBug) as the contenders to power a growth variant of the LCA. So if the Indian government thinks on similar lines, the Rafale would fall behind either aircraft.
About who will take the cake, while the Indo-US partnership will continue, a drastic political realignment in India like a coalition of regional parties (backed by the Communists) coming to power, could upset that. Though that’s highly unlikely to happen.
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