Carrier battle groups to add muscle to Navy
Indian CarrierNothing projects geostrategic power better than aircraft carriers prowling on high seas. Powerful fighter jets tearing into the skies from a moving airfield, which can travel 600 nautical miles a day, can send shivers down any adversarys spine. Carrier-battle groups (CBGs) can, after all, rapidly respond across the entire spectrum of operations as situation changers in times of crisis. Its no wonder then that US has as many as 11 CBGs to deploy around the globe, giving it the capability to strike almost anywhere.
India has been making do with a solitary carrier, the 50-year-old INS Viraat, since 1987. But now, with India and Russia finally ending their bitter wrangling over the huge cost escalation in Admiral Gorshkovs refit, the Navy is steaming towards its aim of deploying two CBGs in Indian Ocean and beyond. By 2014-2015, we should have two full-fledged CBGs, with their accompanying fighters and other aircraft, destroyers, frigates and tankers. It will make a huge difference, said Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, talking exclusively to TOI.
The first CBG will be centred around the 44,570-tonne Gorshkov, rechristened INS Vikramaditya, which India will now get in early-2013 under the fresh $2.33 billion deal inked last month. We hope to run Vikramaditya for 40 years, said Admiral Verma. The second CBG will be around the 40,000-tonne indigenous aircraft carrier
(IAC), whose keel was laid at Cochin Shipyard in February 2009. There is some delay but it will be launched by first half of 2011. We should get it by 2014, he added. The 45 MiG-29K fighters, contracted from Russia for about $2 billion, will operate both from Vikramaditya and IAC. Incidentally, a 65,000-tonne IAC-II is also on the drawing board. It will be much bigger and capable of operating fighters, AEW (airborne early-warning) aircraft, tankers etc, Admiral Verma said.
But for now, Navys intention is to stretch the operational life of the 28,000-tonne INS Viraat, even though its left with only 11 of its Sea Harrier jump-jets, till IAC is commissioned. With as many as 40 warships and submarines on order, coupled with a dedicated communication satellite to be launched later this year by Isro, Navy is fast emerging as a true-blue three-dimensional blue-water force.
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Carrier battle groups to add muscle to Navy