Posted on 12/01/2016 5:18:22 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
NEW DELHI—When top American naval engineers recently inspected India’s first locally made aircraft carrier they expected to find a near battle-ready ship set to help counter China’s growing sway in the Indian Ocean.
Instead, they discovered the carrier wouldn’t be operational for up to a decade and other shortcomings: no small missile system to defend itself, a limited ability to launch sorties and no defined strategy for how to use the ship in combat. The findings alarmed U.S. officials hoping to enlist India as a bulwark against China, people close to the meeting said.
“China’s navy will be the biggest in the world soon, and they’re definitely eyeing the Indian Ocean with ports planned in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,” said retired Admiral Arun Prakash, the former commander of India’s navy. “The Indian navy is concerned about this.”
The February carrier inspection, in the port of Kochi, formed part of U.S. plans to share aircraft carrier technology with India. Indian naval officials followed up with a tour of an American shipbuilding yard in Virginia and strategy briefings at the Pentagon in September, the people close to the meetings said.
The U.S. and India are drawing closer politically and militarily. The two have participated in joint naval exercises with Japan. The U.S. has agreed to sell New Delhi everything from attack helicopters to artillery. Washington has approved proposals by Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. to make advanced jet fighters in India. And in August, the two countries signed a military logistics-sharing accord.
The emerging relationship has reshaped Asia’s geopolitical terrain, riling China, which has issued diplomatic complaints over the joint exercises, and sometimes sidelining Russia, long India’s largest supplier of military hardware.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
CGI of the Vikrant
Trump will get this on track in short order.
No way to defend itself. No fleet to defend it or tactical plan to coordinate defense. Sounds like a big target.
Building and operating large fleet carriers requires a demanding set of technical, organizational, and operational skills. Although the Indians are a capable and energetic people, their civilian and military bureaucracies are notoriously slow, corrupt, and incompetent. US help will likely be unavailing against such obstacles, with the US ending up resented as a meddling foreign know-it-all. The one possible remedy might be to use Indian-American engineers able to deflect such resentments.
Did you forget the </sarcasm> tag?
weesee
An Indian described the challenges they face, and the most basic was the idea of a nation itself. He described how India should be viewed more as a continent of many peoples rather than a country of one people; there are so many different cultures and languages that unity is practically impossible. When English has to be used as the unifying language because the country is split between so many (primarily Hindi in the north and Tamil in the south, joined by many others), you realize that there are huge obstacles for a massive country that is still so young.
When Franco emerged victorious from the Spanish Civil War, he quickly arranged for Castilian Spanish to be used as the official language of the country. Gallego, Basque, and Catalan languages weren’t banned outright; they just wouldn’t be used in official capacities or taught in schools. He saw no other way to eliminate the regional mindsets that had contributed to the war itself; Gallego and Castilian portions had primarily supported the military uprising, while Basque and Catalan sections supported the communist government.
In the age of satellites, stealthy drones and supersonic missiles, almost all surface warships, despite their defensive weapons are floating coffins of obsolescence. If a ship can be seen, sensed or monitored, it can be sunk. A junior Chinese officer with a joystick, sitting in a fortified bunker can destroy more ships than in fifteen minutes than anyone would care to imagine. Consider the advent of stealthy “seagull” drones. Less than 300 cm, packed with C4 explosive,launched over 200 miles from target by missile or submarine, an entire flock directed to target by that Chinese junior officer.
Build up the U.S. Navy (plus the entire military) before we start building other countries militaries. America First!!!
Cue high energy laser weapon systems mounted on multiple ships of the CVBG.
Yes, fry the real seagulls right along with the drones.
Question: Does fried seagull taste like chicken or is it fishy?
Let’s hope you are absolutely right. Because if you are wrong, just a little bit wrong then those seagull drones may not have any flavor but they will smell like “napalm in the morning” after being deployed. Unfortunately there will always be “battleship admirals” be it in 1930 or 2016 who influence policy. Its the young sailors then and now who go into harms way.
+1
For decades, the Indian independence movement and its Congress Party papered over those differences through corruption and patronage, but the contrivance ultimately failed because it was incapable of producing the sound policies and sense of national identity required for a modern nation-state.
Not only Spain, but virtually every European country had a long and often bloody history before a solid national identity was achieved. And just as national and cultural identities helped pull apart the Soviet Union and its universal ideology, so also is resurgent nationalism tearing at the seams of the EU.
I used Spain in the example because it was recent; I guess Yugoslavia would have been even better (because Spain at least didn’t have so many different religions to contend with: they primarily had Catholics and ex-Catholics). When you realize we are almost 250 years old as a country, and India hasn’t yet reached 75, you understand they need time.
The EU had issues from the start because not only was it a hodgepodge of various languages and religions, but also cultures; the Germans in the north simply cannot share a “nation” with the Greeks in the south. They have such divergent views on government, work, taxes, etc. that they simply won’t meld...ever.
PIF: That’s the old Vikrant, by the way. India’s building a new version that will be indigenous.
Sukhoi-30mki et al: I hate to say it, but I would have expected nothing less than what the US contingent found. India is great on paper, but the reality often lags behind with many delays and missed deadlines. My bro-in-law is Indian, and outright told me that Indians are probably the worst project managers in the world, and that this is probably congenital rather than the result of a lack of training. He even told me that Indians need to be ruled; they just don’t function well in a society based on self-motivation.
There was probably a chance for Modi to provide that motivation, as he and the BJP both are more nationalist and authoritarian than the Congress party is, but Modi instead decided to pretend to be Obama. He went on extravagant foreign visits and gave lavish parties, and his administration has evidenced a serious case of tone-deafness.
Regardless, India is going to have to bite the bullet if they want to retain any kind of control of or influence over the Indian Ocean. Otherwise, they’re going to wake up one day and find themselves in a South China Sea situation writ large, with China building artificial islands on the reefs in the Palk Strait.
The Indian navy is far bigger and better equipped than the Royal Navy. In the piracy wars its fighting spirit is very aggressive and not passive like we see in western navies. And essentially it is for the areas around India and not meant for worldwide deployment. So it is more concentrated.
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