Vikramaditya being prepared for delivery
This year Russia pledges to deliver the INS Vikramaditya, the largest-ever surface combatant in the inventory of the Indian navy. With a powerful aviation group aboard, she can be an effective tool of defending the nation's interests in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific.
Last year the ship underwent severe trials in the Arctic waters. She spent 108 days at sea staring 8 June 2012, and covered about 12,500 nautical miles before returning to Severodvinsk for some necessary work before delivery to customer. During the trials INS Vikramaditya developed a top speed of 27.9 knots, and demonstrated admirable maneuverability and handling qualities. She behaved well in stormy conditions of the Barents Sea. These facts enable the Russian shipbuilders to claim that the program of the ship refit and modernization was a success. The INS Vikramaditya can stay in service for some forty years provided maintenance and repairs are carried out as prescribed by the shipbuilder.
The trials revealed that the ship complies with specification issued by the Indian navy. Inevitably for such a big ship, some technical faults were discovered. There are being annihilated in the view of delivery to customer later this year.
Flying
The central part of the trials were deck landings and takeoffs by the MiG-29K/KUB deck fighters - the ship's primary weapon. These aircraft are developed and built by Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG" (RAC MIG). The number of flights made in frame of these trails totaled 218. Some of them were performed by MiGs, and some by Kamov Ka-27PS and a Ka-31 helicopters. Also, there were some sorties flown by the Russian air force MiG-31 heavyweight interceptors and A50 flying radars. They were employed to attest Vikramaditya's radioelectronic equipment. Besides, Su-27K (Su-33) carrier borne fighters of the Russian navy air arm were involved as well. The Russian navy pilots at the controls performed deck landings with aborts at finals so as to check whether the ship's system associated with deck landings worked well.
The MiGs performed 41 flight cycles involving takeoff and landing on the ship without any malfunctions. Most of these sorties were flown by test pilots of RAC MiG Mikhail Belyaev and Nikolai Diorditsa. They were accompanied by Colonel Oleg Mutovin of the Russian navy. There are three other pilots that flew the MiGs: Andrei Shishov, Sergei Rybnikov and Dmitry Demenev. It is interesting to note that RAC MIG general director Sergei Korotkov was in the back seat of a MiG-29KUB when it landed on the deck on 12 September 2012.
After a series of touch-and-goes, the first deck landing occurred on 28 July 2012, by a MiG that operated from Severomorsk AFB. This opened a period of extensive carrier borne takeoffs and landings that lasted for two months. Operations from the deck were performed by a pair of specially selected aircraft, Side 941 and Side 204. Besides, the airframe Side 311 (retired from active service) was used in the role of a full-size mockup on the flight deck and in the hangar. Also in that role were employed a couple of inoperable helicopters, a Ka-28 and a Ka-31.
Agreements between Russia and India in the domain of aircraft carriers necessitated development of a customized MiG-29K single seat and MiG-29KUB twin seat multirole fighters. The first single seater, side 941, flew for the first time in 2007, and was soon joint by twin seater Side 947. Deliverable aircraft began flight tests in March 2008. In September 2009 the MiGs intended for the Indian navy saw trials on the Russian navy only operational carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov.
The Russian navy has on order 20 MiG-29Ks and 4 MiG-29KUBs with deliveries due to start next year. They will operate from the Admiral Kuznetsov after she is back from a mid-life repair and modernization program which shall commence soon.
Refit and modernization
The work was performed by the Sevmash Dockyards in Severodvinsk near the border line between Russia and Finland. It has drastically changed the ship's outward appearance. Her flight deck increased in size and now its total length measures 283 meters. The Vikramaditya has nine decks below the waterline and 13 decks above it (with the superstructure counted in). The ship has 2,700 rooms and compartments, and so can be likened to a 22-storey building when its height is measured from the keel to the Fregat radar antennae.
There are 328 sea cabins (by that the ship’s developer understands living chambers containing one, two, four or even six beds) and 43 mess-decks (living accommodation for rating). Also, there are three messes (galleys/canteens): wardroom (officers), for midshipmen and for ratings. Most of the living areas are in the nose section with some also near the hangar.
During refit and modernization work, the Indian side asked for a number of additional measures to be implemented so as to make the ship more durable, reliable and comfortable for the crew on long sea patrols. The Russian shipbuilders did as they were told, and got paid only after a certain amount of work having been done. This prevented overpricing.
Originally an aircraft-carrying cruiser known as Project 1143.4, the ‘Baku’ was laid down on 26 December 1978 at the Nikolaev Shipbuilding Plant on the Black Sea coast. Subsequently the breakup of the Soviet Union caused her to be rechristening as the Admiral Gorshkov, since the name of Azerbaijan’s capital was no longer suitable from the viewpoint of national identity and pride.
Public discussions on converting the Gorshkov into a through-deck carrier began shortly after the navy decommissioned her in 1998 - along with three earlier built sister ships Kiev, Minsk and Novorossiysk. Their withdrawal from service had been influenced by Russia’s inability to maintain numerous capital ships inherited from the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the Yakovlev Yak-38 vertical takeoff and landing aircraft on them were by then outclassed by the far more advanced Su-33 (Su-27K) fighter on the Admiral Kuznetsov developed under Project 1143.5, whereas Project 1143.4 cruisers could not accommodate the bigger Sukhois.
The Gorshkov arrived at the Sevmash Dockyards in July 1999. The relatively young age of the redundant cruiser made the navy think of ways to rework her for other applications, but the budget did not permit this. Consequently, the ship was offered to India as an alternative to an Invincible-class “Harrier-carrier” available from the UK.
Negotiations progressed slowly until March 2004, when the Kremlin donated the ship “as is” to the Indian navy upon New Delhi’s promise to fund a refit and modernization. Renamed INS Virkamaditya, the cruiser went into dry dock in December 2005. She was re-launched in November 2008 as a Project 11430 aircraft carrier.
The initial contract for the ship’s comprehensive refit and modernization amounted to US $617 million (excluding training and after-sales support). The customer agreed to pay the builder a portion after passing each stage in the mutually agreed program.
A thorough inspection in dry dock revealed that requisite amount of labor hours appeared much higher than earlier expected due to hull and system deterioration. The customer agreed to pay extra, but came up with additional requirements aimed at making the ship more capable and longer-lasting. Most of her pipework and trunking was to be new, as well as cabling. The Indian Navy further asked for additional systems. This added 14 new programs to the refit and modernization process. Subsequently, the rebuilding contract’s value rose to US$ 1.75 billion. With the inclusion of separate contracts for training, ground equipment and shore infrastructure installations, the grand total finally came to US$ 2 billion.
A mixture of old and new
Rework included the installation of a 14-degree sky ramp and fitting three arrestor wires (as opposed to four on the Kuznetsov), to enable operations of the MiG-29K/KUB fighter. Smaller than the Su-33, the MiG better matches the carrier’s size and can be stowed in greater numbers in her hangar: 128m in length, 25m in width and 7m high. Reflecting considerable changes to the original design in the cause of modernization, most of the existing constructions inside the hull had to be removed. Around 500 technological cutaways were made in the hull and the superstructure to get out everything that could be lifted. The hull itself was subjected to thorough cleaning by jets of small particles (grit blasting).
The ship’s 116 internal fuel tanks have a capacity of 8,500 tons. Since the Indian navy ships run on diesel, all remaining Furnace Fuel Oil (FFO, a heavy oil mixture) had to be removed. During the several years during which the cruiser remained idle after decommissioned the remaining fuel started to carbonize, which complicated its eventual removal.
The flight-deck has received a sky ramp and an extender in the stern, the work being undertaken in a covered workshop. Yet most of the modernization work was done in the open. All eight boilers for the main propulsion machinery are new. The Baltic Plant produced one more for the training purposes in its St. Petersburg educational facilities for use by Indian specialists.
The Vikramaditya’s machinery is a mixture of old and new. Some items have been retained from the Gorshkov. However, certain vendor items were purchased new from non-Russian suppliers in accordance with the Indian Navy’s procurement requirements. Lastly, the ship developer Nevskoye PKB required installation of additional equipment in order to meet the customer specifications.
Vendor items
During the course of the modernization work Sevmash placed over 800 contracts for vendor items with more than 200 suppliers, including ten Indian companies as well as a number of others from Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Finland, France, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the UK. The grand total of companies involved in the industrial cooperation on the Vikramaditya exceeded 400.
Indian-made systems include the CCS-MK II for communication, the LINK II for data transfer, the KATC for automatic telephone exchange and DAPS for landing indication, as well as the ALAN P-11430 administrative local network and cable TV. The Macrotech protective coating, interrogators friend-or-foe, transponders, torsion meters, life rafts, pumps, circuit breakers, filters, smoke density indicators, hygiene and galley equipment also come from India.
France supplies Thales telephones and gyrocompasses, the UK adds a cargo transfer system between ships at sea. Six auxiliary diesels come from Wartsila of Finland. Key control and resource management systems are of Russian and Indian origin. Early on, the Indian side considered the Barak-1 short-range antiaircraft system from Israel. The Russians flatly refused to accept such things from a third country on the ground that otherwise they cannot guarantee performance of the ship in wartime.
Firms based in St. Petersburg including Transas supply global navigation system receivers using global positioning signals from the GPS and the Glonass satellite constellations, as well core systems for ship controls, data acquisition, processing and management. The Fregat and Podberezovik radars come from Moscow-based Salut Plant. The former (with antennae atop the superstructure) can detect aerial targets at a distance of 250 km, the latter (antennae seen above the flag-deck) at 500 km. The Ladoga navigation system comes from Elektropribor, and lighting equipment, lamps and signal projectors from Saturn company.
The Resistor and Luna systems help pilots make flight-deck landings. Its elements are found in the stern, on the superstructure (including that covered by a large protective ring below the Fregat antennae) and on a special mast astern of the superstructure. The Gorshkov had a Resistor and the Vikramaditya features a newer version. The most recent addition is an automated communications channel enabling two-way data exchange between airborne aircraft and the ship. The forward elevator has been retained, while the second one has been enlarged.
As of now, the Vikramaditya does not have missiles or guns. The customer is choosing between the AK630 30-mm six-barrel antiaircraft cannon and the Kashtan combined missile/cannon antiaircraft system. There are some rooms in the superstructure reserved for the Kashtan system, large enough for two or four AA/SAM mountings.
Russia is ready to cooperate with India on various naval projects, including those to do with carriers and deck aviation. Fruitful cooperation between the two nations in the naval domain has been going since 1965. There is a proposal to form a joint venture that would be seeing to after sales support of INS Vikramaditya in the Indian navy service. It can also take part in the programs on "home-grown" carriers that are being developed or constructed.
) so they ordered ship without CIWS , to be fitted later in India . Now they are talking about AK-630 or Kashtan , maybe Israeli deal fell trough ?