INS Vikrant Aircraft Carrier (IAC)

Okabe Rintarou

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Well on a second thought building a clone of IAC-1 with bigger lifts might be far more cost effective for IN than procuring 4 LHDs. IAC-1 & its clone can double up as LHDs if needed. IN should go for 4 LPDs instead, of around 10k weight class which frees up money for cash starved submarine arm.

Not only LHDs built in india would lag behind indigenization percentage of IAC-1 clone. But also building follow on IAC-1 clone would help standardization of indigenous systems/parts across IAC-1 and vikky (because its not economically logical to develop systems/parts for a single ship, but if you have three or more its makes a lot of sense).

Indian Navy have to be innovatively PRUDENT if(more precisely when) they have to take on ccp's navy.
Nope. There will be little to no overlap between the internals of an LHD and INS Vikrant. LHD needs rooms for troops carried, decks for vehicles carried, assembly deck, well deck, Integrated Electric Propulsion, etc. There is very little overlap.
 

pipebomb

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Nope. There will be little to no overlap between the internals of an LHD and INS Vikrant. LHD needs rooms for troops carried, decks for vehicles carried, assembly deck, well deck, Integrated Electric Propulsion, etc. There is very little overlap.
Surely lpds can work with carriers to fill these shortcomings. Royal navy has similar view about their QE carriers. As i pointed out earlier that IN have to be INNOVATIVE.
 
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Okabe Rintarou

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Surely lpds can work with carrier to fill these shortcomings. Royal navy has similar view about their QE carriers.
I still think its better to design a new ship from the ground up or take one that is already developed to be LHD from ground up (Mistral, Juan Carlos, etc) instead of trying to fit square pegs in round holes. With systems as large as these, its better to not cut corners in the design phase by recycling some old design and then paying the costs later in terms of maintenance, low turn around rates, crew costs (due to lack of automation) and operational limitations. I am not a marine engineer, but the hull of Vikrant itself doesn't look optimized for an LHD class.
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In case of QE class, those were designed by a private company, so ofcourse they will try to recycle that design and sell it as LHD to anyone dumb enough to buy them. They care about profits. Either that or maybe they designed QE class with an LHD conversion in mind from the ground up (I doubt it). But Vikrant was designed by DND solely as an aircraft carrier.
 

pipebomb

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I still think its better to design a new ship from the ground up or take one that is already developed to be LHD from ground up
I agree but it all comes down to financial health of armed forces. Indian armed force's OPEX is constantly increasing, eating into CAPEX. Navy has an aging submarine arm, all their Minesweepers has either retired or will be in next few years with no replacement in sight this decade. Large no. of indian navy ships are managing their operational deployments with empty helicopter hangers. The gap between capital ships of ccp's navy and IN increasing at breakneck speed. India's tax paying population is around a mere 3%. IN has no choice but to be INNOVATIVELY PRUDENT.
 

Maharaj samudragupt

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I agree but it all comes down to financial health of armed forces. Indian armed force's OPEX is constantly increasing, eating into CAPEX. Navy has an aging submarine arm, all their Minesweepers has either retired or will be in next few years with no replacement in sight this decade. Large no. of indian navy ships are managing their operational deployments with empty helicopter hangers. The gap between capital ships of ccp's navy and IN increasing at breakneck speed. India's tax paying population is around a mere 3%. IN has no choice but to be INNOVATIVELY PRUDENT.
Which means cancelling the third aircraft carrier.
 

Neeraj Mathur

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Bhai agar Gripen-E hi chahiye, toh fir NLCA kyu nahi
 

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