The Case for Pocket Aircraft Carriers for Indian Navy
Published November 4, 2015 | By admin
SOURCE: JOHANAN COLLINS / FOR MY TAKE / IDRW.ORG
Following the defeat of Imperial Germany during the First World War, the Triple Entity spearheaded by a vengeful France enforced humiliating limits on the number and size of the ships the German navy could operate. Any replacement ships that the German navy could induct had to displace less than 10,000 tons. When compared to the 35,000 ton leviathans that the great powers could build, this stung the Germans.
The German Navy worked around the Treaty of Versailles limitations by design three pocket battleships. These ships could outgun a heavy cruiser and outrun a battleship, in short they were faster than anything more powerful and more powerful than anything faster. They were the Deutschland class which consisted of the Deutschland, Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee. They displaced between 10,770 tons to 12,540 tons and had a heavy armament of six 11 inch main guns.
The Indian Navy plans to build and induct four Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD) as multirole vessels. These ships would have a length between 200 meters and 230 meters and a gross tonnage of 40,000 tons. This makes this class of vessels slightly smaller than INS Vikramaditya at 45,500 tons and the new INS Vikrant at 40,000 tons. These LHD’s are actually a lot larger than the old carriers INS Vikrant and INS Viraat. INS Vikrant weighed in at 19,500 tons with a length of 213 meters while INS Viraat weighed in at 28,700 tons with a length of 226.5 meters. The LHD’s will have a well dock for amphibious operations. These LHD’s are expected to have a carriage of combat vehicles on one or more decks and embark troops and tanks. This class of ships are expected to carry ten heavy helicopters in the range of 35 tons. The contenders for the contract are, France’s Mistral class, Spain’s Juan Carlos class, South Korea’s Dokodo class and Italy’s Multi-function Ship.
The concept of operating LHD’s has gained popularity over the globe. Japan, South Korea, China, Italy, England, Spain, France, Russia, Algeria, Australia and the USA all operate or are in the process of inducting LHD’s. The Australian Canberra class is based on Spain’s Juan Carlos Multifunction ship. This ship is a true multifunction ship. These ships are able to operate fixed winged aircraft like the Harrier and the F35B due to a presence of a sky jump. They are also capable of conducting amphibious operations by embarking and disembarking troops and tanks.
LHD’s by nature are useful but have a short offensive capability due to their main weapons being the helicopters they embark. In order to increase the offensive punch of Indian Navy, India should convert the LHD’s into pocket carriers like the Juan Carlos class. The Indian Navy should embark the LCA Tejas (Navy) on the LHD’s. The Tejas is a lightweight fighter of 15.5 tons which would make it one of the lightest shipborne fighters second only to the Harrier which weighs in at 14 tons. The Harrier is on the verge of being retired by all it user.
The only options for the Indian Naval “pocket aircraft carriers” apart from the LCA Navy would be the F35B and F35C which weigh in at 27.3 tons and 30 tons respectively. The LHD’s may be able to operate these aircraft but cost of acquiring them is prohibitive. The F35B costs 251 million USD for each aircraft, while the F35C costs 116 million USD for each aircraft. The cost of a squadron of 12 aircraft would cost 3.12 billion USD for the F35B, making the squadron more expensive than all four LHD’s which would cost 2.6 billion USD. A F35C squadron of 12 aircraft would cost 1.16 billion USD which would make the squadron cost come close to the cost of two LHD’s. The LCA Navy cost 31.1 million USD for each aircraft. The entire squadron would cost 373 million USD.
In order to safely operate fixed wing aircraft that are not STOVL or VSTOL aircraft carriers would need to have an angled flight deck. All current LHD designs are straight decked, which works perfectly fine for helicopters and Harriers which have traditionally flown off LHD’s. The LCA Navy is a STOBAR carrier and would need an angled flight deck for safe operations, much like traditional carriers being operated the world over. This would require a change in the design of the LHD’s to convert their straight deck flight decks to angled flight decks. This is possible as it has been done before by the US Navy for their Essex class carriers which were designed and built during the Second World War. A total of 14 ships were converted in the 1950’s.
From an operational view point the LHD’s are large targets with huge radar cross sections, which would act as a beacon to enemy radar. An enemy ship may be able to get close enough to fire a salvo of cruise missiles at the LHD, the protective ships will be able to retaliate and sink the enemy ship but there is still a chance that the enemy cruise missiles will hit the LHD. If the LHD has the LCA Navy embarked on it, the LCA will be able to discover the enemy ship before it gets into range because of its large flight radius when compared to shipborne helicopters. The LCA would also be able to attack the enemy ship with cruise missiles before the ship got into range.
The Indian Navy should redesign the LHD’s as true multifunctional vessels by making them pocket aircraft carriers before the shipyards start building the LHD’s and a rebuild would increase cost of the program. This would make the Indian Navy of the 2030’s a seven carrier navy and a true blue water navy and make the Indian Ocean India’s Ocean.
Going back to the days of the Second World War, the three pocket battleships punched way above their weight. They tied up considerable allied naval resources and forced the allies to use a lot of force to destroy them. In a similar way these pocket aircraft carriers would punch far above their weight and tie up considerable enemy forces in an event of a war.
