by Captain PVS Satish Commander Indian Navy At the time of attaining our Independence our visionary leaders saw the centrali...
by Captain
PVS Satish
Commander Indian Navy
At the time of attaining our Independence
our visionary leaders saw the centrality of a powerful Navy and set us on the
right course by envisaging an Indian Navy centred on aircraft carriers for sea
control in our expansive areas of maritime interest. INS Vikrant, India’s first
aircraft carrier was acquired from Great Britain and commissioned on 04 Mar
1961. INS Vikrant was a Majestic class CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take Off but
Arrested Recovery) carrier and operated Sea Hawk fighters, Alize
(Anti-Submarine Warfare) aircraft and Seaking helicopters. Consistent with its
vision, India next acquired HMS Hermes, a Centaur class STOVL carrier and a
veteran of the Falkland War. INS Viraat was commissioned on 12 May 1987 as
India’s second aircraft carrier and India’s first STOVL carrier operating the
Sea Harrier aircraft. Soon after the acquisition of INS Viraat, INS Vikrant was
also converted from a CATOBAR carrier to a STOVL (Short Take-off and Vertical
Landing) carrier. INS Vikrant was decommissioned on 31 Jan 1997, after 36 years
of glorious service under the Indian ensign. For almost a decade India had two
aircraft carriers and the Indian Navy was fully cognisant of the criticality of
having an aircraft carrier available for deployment on each seaboard to fulfil
the Navy’s assigned tasks. In recognition of the importance of aircraft
carriers, the Indian Navy had already started exploring the possibility of
indigenously designing and constructing an Aircraft Carrier, this project took
off in right earnest in the late 90s as the Air Defence Ship was conceived.
However, given the long gestation period of such projects, the search for a
replacement for INS Vikrant gained momentum as its decommissioning drew closer.
It was at this juncture that Russia offered
Admiral Gorshkov to the Indian Navy. Negotiations over acquiring the 44,500 ton
Admiral Gorshkov started in 1994. Various high level delegations who had
assessed the ship had independently concluded that the ship’s hull was in good
material state and would be worth considering for exploitation in the Indian
Navy with a suitable mix of aircraft.
Signing of the Contract
After detailed negotiations the two countries
signed a memorandum of understanding in Dec 1998 during a visit by Russian PM
Yevgeny Primakov. The Inter-Governmental Agreement which included acquisition
of Project 11430 (Admiral Gorshkov) was signed between the Federation of Russia
and the Union Government of India on 04 Oct 2000. After a Detailed Project
Development Review, contractual negotiations and thereafter price negotiations,
Government approved the acquisition on 17 Jan 04 at a cost of Rs 4881.67 Cr for
the complete package of R&R of the ship, spares, infrastructure
augmentation and documentation. The deal was signed on 20 Jan 04 and the
effective date of the contract was established as 24 Feb 04. The R&R of the
ship commenced from 09 Apr 04.
The repair and refit was being undertaken by
FSUE Sevmash, the state owned shipyard at Severodvinsk, Russia. The R&R was
scheduled to have been completed within 52 months. Though the refurbishment
process was started in right earnest, soon it was realized that the work and
equipment requiring replacement was significantly higher than originally
estimated. Entire length of cable, large portions of steel hull, motors,
turbines and boilers, etc. would have to be completely replaced with resulting
in cost escalation and time slippage.
A protracted renegotiation for arriving at
a mutually acceptable price for refurbishment was held in the ensuing months.
Finally, in Dec 2009, the Indian and the Russian sides arrived at an agreement
on the final price of delivery of this ship. More significantly, it was agreed
that the delivery of the ship would take place only in the year 2012. Though
the re-negotiated price was significantly higher than what was originally
agreed upon, the fillip that the addition of Gorshkov would give to the Blue
water requirements of Indian Navy compensated the greater price.
The Journey of Admiral Gorshkov (nee
Baku)
The journey of ‘Vikramaditya’ began as the
Kiev class aircraft carrying cruiser ‘Baku’. Developed from the Moskva class
helicopter carrying guided missile cruisers the Kiev class was a pioneering
Soviet era design, featuring a flight deck arrangement capable of operating
fixed wing VTOL fighters for the first time in the Soviet Navy. Baku was
constructed by Chernomorsky Ship Building Enterprise, Nikolayev (now in Ukraine).
About 400 enterprises and nearly 1,500 - 2,000 workers from different republics
of USSR took part in building of the ship. The ship was commissioned on 20 Dec
1987. Conceived as an armed cruiser, Baku was heavily armed with twelve
Anti-Ship Missile launchers, ten gun mounts of differing calibre and rocket
launchers and depth charges. The air element comprised Yak-38 aircraft.
‘Baku’ was envisioned to be a full-fledged
aircraft carrier by Admiral SG Gorshkov, however, due to conflicting dynamics
at that time, the ship turned out as the last ‘compromise’ ship of the Kiev
series. After her development and construction, it became clear to the Soviet
leadership that the vision of Admiral Gorshkov of a classical aircraft carrier
with ship borne aircraft as the primary weapons was indeed the most logical way
ahead to develop the surface forces. On 07 Nov 1990, the ship was named after
Admiral Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov.
Baku/Admiral Gorshkov began its active
operational service with the Northern Fleet and was deployed in the
Mediterranean Sea and remained in active service till 1992 and thereafter
continued in service albeit with limited operational deployments. The ship was
finally decommissioned in 1996.
The Transformation Project 11430
Admiral Gorshkov was put in hibernation
after her last sailing in 1995. With most of her equipment lying un-utilised
since then, the task of breathing life and converting her from a VTOL (Vertical
Takeoff and Landing) missile cruiser carrier to a STOBAR aircraft carrier involved
substantial degutting, equipment removal, refit and re-equipping. The major
works envisaged were modification of flight deck to include ski-jump and
arrester gear; modification of bulbous bow, aft aircraft lift & ammunition
lifts; modification of 1750 out of 2500 compartments; installation of new main
boilers; installation of new and additional Diesel Generators; replacement of
existing distilling plants; fitment of Reverse Osmosis plants, new AC plants
and Refrigeration plants and installation of new sensors and equipment. In
2007, as the refit and repair of the ship was in progress, the yard realized
that the scope of work was much larger than initially estimated and so a
revised timeline for completion of the task of modernization was agreed upon by
both Russian and Indian sides. With a revised timeline the delivery of ship was
expected by end 2012.
A Peek at the Scope of Work
 |
| The Transition |
Creation of Ski Jump
Creation of the flight deck with structural
modification to convert the VTOL carrier to a STOBAR carrier was the most
intricate and arduous. The task involved installation of Sponsons to increase
the breadth at the Flight Deck and a fitment of a new 14 degree Ski jump,
strengthening of arresting gear area, strengthening of run way area and
elongation of the aft end to generate the required length of landing strip aft
of the arresting gear. In all 234 new hull sections were installed to achieve
the desired shape. Total steel work for carrying out structural modification on
flight deck amounted to 2500T.
Modification of Super structure
The superstructure was modified to
accommodate a host of sensors and equipment such as radars, Electronic Warfare
suite and Action Information Organisation system and other systems to suit the
requirements of ship borne fighters and rotors. A very unique structural
modification that was carried out on board the ship was the installation of the
aft mast for accommodating various communication antennae.
Machinery Modification
Vikramaditya in its older avatar was
powered by boilers fuelled by heavy oil, FFO. The re-equipping included
replacement of these old boilers with state of the art boilers utilizing LSHSD
and providing a steam capacity of 100 Tonnes per Hour each.
Electrical re-cabling
The initial estimate included replacement
of only 1400 kms of old cable with new cables. However, as degutting progressed
and confined spaces were accessed it was realised that an additional 900 kms of
cable will need to be replaced. Finally the mammoth task involved replacing
2300 kms of cable, which is a little short of half of the entire coastline of
India.
Outfitting
The modification plan of Vikramaditya was
not restricted to the gears and sparks alone. The change also necessitated
revamp of the living spaces and galleys to cater to the needs of the Indian men
in uniform. Of 2500 a total of 1750 compartments were completely re-fabricated.
A host of new galley equipment suited for preparation of Indian food like dosas
and chapatis was also installed.
Arrestor and Restraining Gears
The conversion of VTOL carrier to STOBAR involved
fitment of three 30m wide arrester gears and three restraining gears.
Installation of these equipment not only involved modification and
strengthening of the flight deck but also changes to internal layout of
compartments.
To sum it up, a total of 234 new hull
sections were fabricated using 2500 tonnes of steel which is almost equivalent
to the standard displacement of a mid-size frigate. Repair and re-equipping of
Vikramaditya to give a new lease of life as a full- fledged carrier was no mean
task and was probably as demanding a task as constructing a similar tonnage
ship from the drawing board. The task was enabled by the expertise and
experience of the Russian designers and yard workers working hand in glove with
Indian experts. The extreme cold weather conditions of winter only made the
work environment harder. At the end of this refit, spanning a little short of a
decade, Vikramaditya has metamorphosed into a fully capable and potent
platform.
Rise of the Phoenix …
Vikramaditya sailed for the first time
under own power at 1200 hrs on 10 Jun 12, after a gap of about 17 years.
The
New Avtar ‘Vikramaditya’
 |
| photo: Sevmash |
An aircraft carrier carrying potent long
range multi-role fighters is a platform inherently deigned for power
projection. In as much as ‘Gorshkov’ was transformed to create ‘Vikramaditya’,
so also Vikramaditya will transform the face of the Fleet Air Arm of the Indian
Navy.
Vikramaditya, the
floating airfield has an overall length of about 284 meters and a maximum beam
of about 60 meters, stretching as much as three football fields put together.
Standing about 20 storeys tall from keel to the highest point, the sheer sight
of this 44,500 tonnes mega structure of steel is awe inspiring. The ship has a
total of 22 decks.
With over 1,600 personnel on board,
Vikramaditya is literally a ‘Floating City’. Associated with this large
population is a mammoth logistics requirement - nearly a lakh of eggs, 20,000
litres of milk and 16 tonnes of rice per month. With her complete stock of
provisions, she is capable of sustaining herself at sea for a period of about
45 days. With a capacity of over 8,000 tonnes of LSHSD, she is capable of
operations up to a range of over 7,000 nautical miles or 13000 kms.
To enable this 44,500 tonnes floating steel
city to cut through the choppy seas with speeds of up to 30 knots, she is
powered by 08 new generation boilers of steam capacity of 100 TPH at a very
high pressure of 64 bars, generating a total output power of 180,000 SHP.
Vikramaditya heralds in a new generation of boiler technology with a very high
level of automation. These high pressure and highly efficient boilers power
four enormous propellers, each greater in diameter than twice the height of an
average male. Such a four propeller - four shaft configuration is another first
in the Indian Navy.
The 06 turbo alternators and 06 diesel
alternators onboard generate a total electricity of 18 megawatts to power
various equipment of the ship, enough to cater to the lighting requirement of a
mini city. The ship also houses 02 Reverse Osmosis plants providing an
uninterrupted supply of 400 Tons per day of fresh water.
An extensive revamp of sensors including
fitment of Long range Air Surveillance Radars, Advanced Electronic Warfare
Suite makes the ship capable of maintaining a surveillance bubble of over 500
kms around the ship.
 |
| Russian MIG-29K onboard Vikramaditya |
The ship has the ability to carry over 30 aircraft comprising an assortment of MiG 29K/Sea Harrier, Kamov 31, Kamov 28, Sea King, ALH-Dhruv and Chetak helicopters. The MiG 29K swing role fighter is the main offensive platform and provides a quantum jump for the Indian Navy’s maritime strike capability. These fourth generation air superiority fighters provide a significant fillip for the Indian Navy with a range of over 700 nm (extendable to over 1,900 nm with inflight refueling) and an array of weapons including anti-ship missiles, Beyond Visual Range air-to-air missiles, guided bombs and rockets.
The ship is equipped with state of the art
launch and recovery systems along with aids to enable smooth and efficient
operation of ship borne aircraft. Major systems include the LUNA Landing system
for MiGs, DAPS Landing system for Sea Harriers and Flight deck lighting
systems.
The heart of the operational network that
infuses life into the combat systems onboard the ship is the Computer aided
Action Information Organisation (CAIO) system, LESORUB-E. LESORUB has the
capability to gather data from ship’s sensors and data links and to process,
collate and assemble comprehensive tactical pictures. This state of the art
system has been specifically designed keeping in mind the essential requirement
on the carrier for fighter control and direction.
One of the most prominent equipment fitted
on the super structure is the Resistor-E radar complex. Resistor-E is the
automated system designed for providing air traffic control, approach/landing
and short range navigation for ship borne aircraft. This complex along with its
various sub-systems provides navigation and flight data to ship borne aircraft
operating at extended ranges from the mother ship. The precision approach
guidance system aids the fighters on approach to be directed down to a distance
of 30 meters short of flight deck. Vikramaditya also boasts of a very modern
communication complex, CCS MK II, to meet her external communication
requirement. Installation of Link II tactical data system allows her to be
fully integrated with the Indian Navy’s network centric operations.
Once integrated, INS Vikramaditya will
bring transformational capabilities to the Indian Navy and will be a ‘game
changer’.
