Indian aircraft carrier enters sea trials as navy eyes Rafale

Russia has commenced sea trials involving the Indian navy's refurbished aircraft carrier the INSVikramaditya, as sources suggest the service could consider a future acquisition of the Dassault Rafale.

Originally built for Russia as the Admiral Gorshkov, with a maximum displacement of 43,500t, the refitted and modernised vessel left Severodvinsk in the north of the country on 8 June for open-sea trials, preceeding its delivery to India in December. Once operational, the Vikramaditya will be capable of carrying 30 to 34 aircraft, including RSK MiG-29K deck-based fighters.

Eugenia Legostaeva

Sources say the Indian navy is considering the carrier-capable Rafale M as a possible acquisition, with a potential cost benefit to come from the air force's pending deal for 126 of the type to meet its medium multi-role combat aircraft requirement.

Dassault

Already operational with the French navy and similar in size to the MiG-29K, the Rafale M could potentially be operated from India's future ski-jump-equipped domestic aircraft carriers and offer a greater operational capability than current Russian aircraft and India's Aeronautical Development Agency Tejas naval fighter.

India's interest in new naval fighters stems partly from China's ongoing test work with the aircraft carrier Shi Lang, which will be capable of deploying locally-built versions of the Sukhoi Su-30.

Source:

India prepares to counter China's clout with INS Satpura

New Delhi: As global focus shifts to South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta sought India's cooperation to jointly counter China. India declined saying it doesn't share the US perceptions on the Asia-Pacific region and yet Defence Minister AK Antony, obliquely referring to China and dispute around South-China Sea, said: "Large parts of the common seas cannot be declared exclusive to any one country or group."

So what is India's trump card in ensuring its control and dominance over the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific region? The answer may well be INS Satpura.
 
The latest stealth warship in the Navy's stable, INS Satpura will put India in the league of six other countries which own such a ship. But how exactly will it help?


"It's all about who finds the enemy first. Stealth allows us to sneak closer to the enemy and not only that, it makes the job of enemy difficult when they come looking for you," said Lieutenant Commander Nitin Oberoi.
 
But this apart, the ship has several more features like never before. It has a heavy and medium gun to take on close targets, Shtil air defence system that can destroy anything within 30 km, Klub surface-to-surface-missiles to hit targets beyond the horizon and Barack surface-to-air missiles.

But stealth and increased fire power are not all. What adds to the Navy's capability is the speed at which this ship can operate.

Built by the state-owned Mazagon Dockyards Limited, INS Satpura is a 143-metre-long Shivalik-class warship with 6,200-tonne displacement, and the power it generates is about 600 SUVs pulling an object forward. It can reach upto a speed of 30 knots which is about 60 km per hour.

What it means is that the ship can sneak in, hit hard and run away fast. That's possible due to an array of censors that allow looking deep into enemy territory.

"I am completely networked. I can see where our assets are, look at the pictures on a real time basis, see what's happening around them and instantly decide what to do," said Captain Sharad Mohan.
 
This brings about a sea change in the way the Indian Navy functions. Everything from starting engines to closing doors can now be done at the click of button through computers, which means lesser manpower and better working conditions.
 
"In earlier ships, there were no air conditioners but this has a great AC. Water was problem in earlier ships, you couldn't take bath for days. Today, you have hot and cold water 24 hours. Earlier you believed in working, today we believe in working smart," said Sahu.
 
Over the next five years, the Indian Navy will add at least 46 ships to its fleet; it will also have two aircraft battlegroups by the year-end. India's second aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, will join the fleet this year along with three more stealth frigates. Besides INS Chakra - the nuclear powered submarine - that joined fleet this year, INS Arihant the nuclear powered submarine that will carry nuclear missiles being built in India will go through sea trials this year.

The Navy will also get Kolkata class stealth Destroyer next year.

There is a silent yet a definitive change that the Navy is going through and the INS Satpura embodies that change. It has sensors for air, surface and sub-surface surveillance, electronic support and counter equipment and decoys for soft kill measures.

One thing is clear: While India may not have joined the US bandwagon to counter China, it is developing its own muscle and sea legs so that it can effectively police the Indian Ocean region


Source:NDTV

India-Massive military helicopter buys allow for indigenisation

he Indian Air Force (IAF) purchase of 126 Rafale fighters has made global headlines, and the Indo-Russian Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) could be another jaw-dropper. But Indian military aviation could see an even more prominent growth area in helicopters, where the defence services are poised to induct well over 1,000 rotary wing aircraft in the coming decade, the majority of them developed and built in the country.

Already on the anvil for the army, IAF, navy and coast guard are the following:

The IAF is inducting 139 Russian Mi-17 V-5 medium lift helicopters, for an estimated $2.4 billion. The workhorse Mi-17, which transports 26 soldiers in combat gear, or four tonnes of supplies to high altitude posts, has been in IAF service for decades, but the new-model V-5 is a vastly superior machine, with new engines, rotor blades and avionics. An IAF order for 80 Mi-17s is already being delivered, which is likely to be followed by an order for 59 more.
 

INDIA'S HELICOPTER BUYS
Type	No. of units	To be bought from
Mi-17 V-5	139	Russia
Heavy lift helicopters	15	CH-47 Chinook likely
Medium attack helicopters	22	AH-64 Apache likely
Utility twin-engine helicopters	159	HAL (Dhruv Mk III)
Naval twin-engine helicopters	50	Global market
Naval medium, multi-role	91	Global market
Weaponised utility helicopter	76	HAL (Rudra)
Light Combat Helicopter	179	HAL (LCH)
Light Utility Helicopters	197	Global market
Light Utility Helicopters	187	HAL
Source: Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL)

Fifteen American CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters will be bought to replace the IAF’s Russian Mi-26 helicopters, of which just three to four remain serviceable. The Chinook, built by Boeing, has seen extensive combat, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. The IAF has evaluated the helicopter and is pleased with its avionics and power, which allows it to accurately deliver 50 fully-equipped soldiers, or a payload of 12.7 tonnes, on to the roof of a house or the edge of a cliff.

The IAF has also completed trials for the purchase of 22 medium attack helicopters, and homed on to Boeing’s AH-64 Apache. Attack helicopters, which operate from close behind the forward troops, provide immediate fire support — cannons, rockets and anti-tank missiles — to soldiers that encounter the enemy, providing them a battle-winning advantage. Unlike most other countries, India has chosen not to use attack helicopters in counter-insurgency operations for fear of collateral damage.

The IAF and army have also placed a Rs 7,000-crore order for 159 Dhruv Mark III utility helicopters. These have been designed and built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), which builds 36 Dhruvs each year. There is an estimated need for more than 350 Dhruvs for the Army, IAF, coast guard and paramilitary forces.

The Navy is buying an additional 50 light, twin-engine helicopters, most probably from AgustaWestland. The Dhruv does not meet its needs since its composite rotors cannot be folded up for stowing the helicopter in a warship’s tight confines.

In addition, the navy is procuring another 91 medium, multi-role helicopters to replace its vintage Sea King fleet, which flies from larger frigates and destroyers. A global tender is out for 16 helicopters, to which another 75 have been added.

Riding on the Dhruv’s success is HAL’s Rudra, a heavily armed version of the Dhruv, which carries a cannon, rocket pods, anti-tank missiles and a full suite of electronic warfare (EW) equipment. The army and the air force will buy 76 Rudras.

HAL is also developing the Light Combat Helicopter, of which 179 are on order (IAF 65; army 114). This 5.5-tonne light armed helicopter features the Shakti engine, the Dhruv’s dynamic components (main rotor, tail rotor, and the gearbox), and the weapons suite that is being developed on the Rudra. The LCH will be a high altitude virtuoso: taking off from Himalayan altitudes of 10,000 feet, firing guns and rockets up to 16,300 feet, and launching missiles at UAVs flying at over 21,000 feet.

The military’s other bulk requirement is for 384 light utility helicopters, or LUH’s, to replace the army and IAF’s obsolescent Cheetahs and Chetaks. This has been divided into two streams: 197 LuHs are being bought off-the-shelf through a global tender; and 187 LuHs are being developed and built in India by HAL. To ensure timely delivery, the Ministry of Defence has specified target dates for HAL’s development milestones: building of a mock-up; the design freeze; the first flight; Initial Operational Clearance, and so on. Each time HAL misses a milestone, its order reduces from 187.

Unlike IAF’s fixed wing aircraft acquisition plan that focuses on foreign buys, its rotary wing plan leans towards indigenisation. This after a strategic assessment in the mid-1990s, when Ashok Baweja was HAL’s chairman, that indigenisation could be realistically pursued in the less challenging rotary wing field than in the cutting-edge realm of fighter aircraft.

This policy drew strength from the technological breakthroughs of the Dhruv helicopter and the Turbomeca-HAL Shakti engine. Both these were optimised for high altitude operations up to 20,000 feet, a unique feature in the army’s operating environment.

P Soundara Rajan, HAL’s helicopter chief, says the Bangalore-based division will ramp up turnover from the current 10 per cent of HAL’s turnover to 25 per cent a decade from now. Having taken 40 years to build its first 700 helicopters, which were basic second-generation machines, HAL aims at building another 700 fourth-generation within the next 15-20 years

Souyce:Business Standard

India - Naval satellite

NEW DELHI: The armed forces are finally set to get their first-ever dedicated military satellite, a naval surveillance and communications one, as part of their long-standing quest to effectively harness the final frontier of space.

The geo-stationary naval satellite has "already been shipped out'' for its launch that will take place "within a month or so", government sources said.

A not-too-subtle indicator of the space event in the offing was also the creation of a new post of assistant chief of naval staff (communications, space and network-centric operations) at the Navy head-quarters over the weekend.

Though tight-lipped about the "over-the-sea" satellite's launch, the Navy on Sunday said Rear Admiral Kishan K Pandey, a communications and electronic warfare specialist, had taken over as the new ACNS (CSNCO) in keeping with its endeavour to transform from a "platform-centric Navy'' to a "network-enabled Navy''.

The satellite, with an over 1,000 nautical mile footprint over the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) stretching from Africa's east coast right till Malacca Strait, will enable the Navy to network all its warships, submarines and aircraft with operational centres ashore through high-speed data-links.

There is an urgent need to keep real-time tabs over the rapidly-militarizing IOR, where China is increasingly expanding its strategic footprint, as well as on troop movements, missile silos, military installations and airbases across land borders.

The long-delayed naval satellite is to be followed by ones for the Army and IAF for "over-the-land use''. In absence of dedicated satellites, the armed forces have so far depended on "dual-use'' Indian satellites as well as lease of transponders on foreign ones for their navigation, communication, surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.

There are around 300 dedicated or dual-use military satellites orbiting around the earth at present, with the US operating over 50% of them, followed by Russia and China.

China, in particular, is pursuing an extensive military-space programme that even extends to advanced ASAT (anti-satellite) capabilities with "direct-ascent" missiles, hit-to-kill "kinetic" and directed-energy laser weapons.

DRDO, on its part, contends it can quickly fashion ASAT weapons, if required, by marrying the propulsion system of the over 5,000-km Agni-V missile tested recently with the "kill vehicle" of the almost-ready two-tier BMD ( ballistic missile system) system it has developed.

But India is still some distance away from effective ASAT capabilities. The government is also not yet willing to establish a tri-Service Aerospace Command on the lines of the Strategic Forces Command which handles nuclear weapons.

The naval satellite is a step in the right direction. The Navy has already tested the "ship-end'' of the new space era dawning through the massive Tropex (theatre-level readiness and operational exercise) held in January-February. The network-centric operations were tried with both the Eastern and Western Fleets, backed by fighters, spy drones and helicopters, out at sea.

Source:TOI

India-built sub-assembly on US Navy's combat planes

New Delhi : An India-built electronic sub-assembly will be part of the US Navy's combat planes, a statement said Wednesday as Indian companies step up efforts to be part of the global defence supply chain.

The sub-assembly provides the cockpit flood lighting compatible with the aircraft's night vision imaging system (NVIS).

American aerospace major Boeing has delivered the first EA-18G Growler aircraft fitted with a cockpit sub-assembly produced by Indian public sector defence electronics major Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) to the US Navy on May 3, a statement from the firm said.

Boeing has also extended a contract signed with BEL for another year for supplying the sub-assembly for Boeing military planes.

Boeing had awarded BEL an initial contract in March 2011 for work on F/A-18 Super Hornet combat plane cockpit sub-assemblies.

That contract included options to renew annually for up to four years. "As a result of BEL's demonstrated performance, Boeing recently exercised an option to renew the contract for another year," it said.

"BEL continues to demonstrate its capabilities and its position as a valued partner to Boeing," Boeing Defence, Space and Security in India vice-president for international business development Dennis Swanson said.

"BEL's work on P-8I, Super Hornets and Growlers is another example of how Indian companies are becoming a part of the global supply chain while Boeing helps them expand their opportunities across the global aerospace industry," he said.

Other EA-18G parts produced by BEL include a complex-machined stowage panel for the joint helmet mounted cueing system connector cable and an avionics cooling system fan test switch panel with an NVIS-compatible floodlight assembly.

Some of these cockpit sub assemblies also will be installed on Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.

In addition to its F/A-18E/F and EA-18G work, BEL provides Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) interrogators and Data Link-II communications systems for the Indian Navy's fleet of P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

India is buying 12 P-8I planes to boost its maritime domain awareness. The initial contract for eight of these planes were signed in January 2009.

Boeing and BEL also partnered to establish the analysis and experimentation centre in Bangalore in 2009.

The centre is a resource for collaboration, experimentation and discovery where the two companies work together to help the Indian armed forces understand the potential operational impacts of new system concepts, innovative technologies, and emerging and evolving processes.

Source:IANS

Agni-VI to be ready by mid 2014

Before the din that was kicked off after test firing of the much-touted Intercontinental Range Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Agni-V was settled down, India is gearing up to go for the maiden development trial of Agni-VI missile within next two years notwithstanding international reactions and pressures.

Being developed by the DRDO, the new generation ICBM Agni-VI will have a strike range of 8,000 km to 10,000 km. A reliable source told ‘The Express’ that the drawing and designing work of the most advanced missile had been started.

“It will be a three-stage missile and taller than the Agni-V. The design is just taking shape and other sub systems are under development. If everything goes as per the programme, the missile will be ready by mid 2014,” said the source.

A scientist associated with the project said unlike the bulky Agni-III, the new generation Agni-VI missile will be more trendy and sleek, so that it can be easily carried to any place and deployed as and when required.

While the length of the missile would be reportedly around 40 meters as against Agni-V’s 17.5 meter, its diameter will be 1.1 meter, which is almost half of Agni-V. The missile’s launch weight would be around 55 tonne.

The Agni-VI is said to be the latest and most advanced version among the Agni series of missiles. It will have the capability to be launched from submarine and from land-based launchers. The DRDO is also working on integrating Agni-V with submarine.

The new missile will also carry more number of warheads than any other versions. While Agni-V can carry up to three nuclear warheads, sources said the next missile in the series can carry even up to 10 nuclear warheads, capable of hitting multiple targets simultaneously.

After the first test launching of 5,000 km range Agni-V missile while many had raised question about its ICBM capabilities, though it can hit the target anywhere in Asia, Africa and Europe except America, the development of Agni-VI would definitely be a befitting reply to them.

Apart from the Agni-VI’s ground version, the DRDO is also simultaneously working out for its underground variant. The submarine launched version of the missile will arm the Arihant class submarines of the Indian Navy. This missile with a strike range of 6,000 kilometers can carry a payload of one tonne.

“We are seriously contemplating to enhance the reach of our strategic missiles. The development of Agni-VI will be a step forward to accomplish the goal. With the present strength we are capable of developing the inter-continental ballistic missiles which can hit targets beyond the range of 10,000 km,” added the scientist.

Source:CNN IBN

Indian naval ships visit Haiphong in Vietnam

Two Indian naval ships, the INS Shivalik and INS Karmuk, commanded by Rear Admiral Ajit Kumar P, who is also the Eastern Naval Commander, docked in Haiphong port city on May 19.This is the fifth visit to Haiphong by the Indian ships, aiming to reinforce the friendship and cooperation between India and Vietnam, as well as between the two navies.

The Indian delegation is scheduled to pay a courtesy visit to leaders of the Haiphong municipal People’s Committee, the High Command of Military Zone 3 and the Navy High Command. They will also conduct an exchange with students from the Vietnam Maritime University, and offer gifts to children in the Hoa Phuong orphanage.

The Indian navy leaders will visit Hanoi and pay tribute to late President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum, in addition to doing some sightseeing in Haiphong and Halong Bay.

The ships will conclude their visit to Vietnam on May 23.

SOURCE: VOICE OF VIETNAM