Without a catipult, the combat load of flankers or any other type of fighter operating off of the Varyag would be pretty limited, and thus are their combat potential and usefulness.

I guess you would condemn the future Indian ADS with its MiG-29Ks because it is STOBAR as well?

To be sure, CATOBAR is the most capable and costly solution to carrier aviation. The Russians considered and developed catapult technology for years, and might have finally fielded steam catapults in the early to mid 90s… if the Soviet Union hadn’t collapsed.

There is also the ‘small’ issue of mission. The PLAN’s current objectives are located close enough to the Chinese mainland to be able to count on land based combat air support for pretty much any kind of combat mission the PLAN is likely to face.

This means that it would make far more sense to have the Varyag carry helos for fleet AEW and ASuW duties.

As for the costs of the radar and missiles, well if they are going to make the Varyag operational again, its going to cost a heap of money anyways, and its not like they are just going to stuff engines into her and call it a day. Radar, C&C, missiles, CIWS etc will all be installed anyways, and while four phase arrays are going to be a hell of alot more expensive the a Chinese verson of Top-plate and all the other radars needed, it’ll give a pretty huge leap in capabilities in return.

I’d be extremely suprised if the PLAN is willing to spend so much money just for a training tool, when,
a) they have a huge number of critially important projects ongoing right now that all need lots of money (051C, 052C, 054A, SSN, SSBN, Song SSK, Yuan SSK, stealthy FACs etc), and so there is very little reason to skim much needed funds from them to just make a training tool that is not even needed right now.
b) even with all its new DDGs and FFGs, the PLAN is still pretty light in air-defence and its ASuW can always use some beefing up. However, with Chinese yards having already filled their order books for years to come, the PLAN might very well not be getting the ships it wants fast enough (eg, second batch Sov order). If they are going to make the Varyag sea-worthy again, they might as well spend a little bit more to make her truely useful.

Its also not like the Varyag will need major strutural changes, as the ship was designed to take a great many VLS AShMs. They would just need to be replaced with VLS SAMs, and the fighter carrying capacity of the carrier would remain largely unchanged.

I am not suggesting that the PLAN is thinking of completely re-making her into a supercruise that just happens to be able to carry fighters, but merely the kind of upgrades the PLAN is likely to make to her so that she can play a bigger role then just training, to justify her cost.

Assuming that the Chinese could put the ex-Varyag to sea, under here own power, making her original design speed, she would be a very useful vessel indeed.

Of course, the effectiveness of a carrier largely depends on her airgroup and history has shown that defensive weaponry alone isn’t sufficient to protect a carrier.

A Top Plate radar and 3 or 4 30mm CIWS systems would be sufficient. Moreover, the Chinese would be well advised to reduce the size of the island and plate over the intended positions of the VLS cells.

China’s escort program is already quite impressive, both in terms of build rate and technology. The last thing they would need is to swamp a potential carrier program with unneccessary purchases of radar and weapons systems….assuming China indeed has an active carrier program?

Sferrin, thanks.

I never realized the scope of the Navy’s anti-ballistic missile program.

Moray program was terminated without a prototype or an order when RDM bankrupt.
Walrus is a pretty good design, on par with equivalent and contemporan western submarines.
Has its goods and its bads.

There Dutch were originally going to order a total of 6 Walrus class, but the final pair was switched to the smaller Moray class. The Moray proposal dates from the mid to late 80s, although it really only received public attention during the many failed export sales attempts of the 90s.

Oddly, the Moray reverted to a conventional rudder design, instead of the X rudder of its larger predeccessor. You would think that a smaller sub might be more likely to be “bottomed” than a larger type.

The Walrus was indeed a “good design,” but the build times were terribly long – and it didn’t help that the lead ship had a fire in the shipyard that was so catastrophic that the Dutch government considered scrapping it.

RDM’s big, Albacore hulled submarines were probably equivilent to Japanese submarines of the same era. Of course, Japan tends to order one submarine every year and Japanese shipyards are models of efficiency. It is a pity, or perhaps a blessing for France and Germany, that the Japanese don’t make defense exports.:)

Perhaps, Japan builds the best SSKs in the world, if only because they have the continual experience of an active domestic building program. Of course, it is hard to prove that they are the best because only exporters need to “market” their products.

Also I’d be interested in any info anybody might have on what kind of SAMs/ABMs they’re kicking around for the new VLS system. (Supposedly KEI will be going to sea but there’s no way it would come close to fitting in the new VLS system. Any idea how they plan on doing it?)

What is the source of the image? It looks like a part of a .pdf or a powerpoint?

The 21 inch diameter was mooted for the LASM, but I though that the land attack mission had now been passed down to a quad-packed GMLRS derivative?

The take-off weights and speed for the A-6 required more than the “short” BS-5 could put out.

The A-6 did, however, fly off the Ark Royal in an “exchange” operation:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=44318

Note the USN Phantom as well.

The new A-6Es & the EA-6Bs were only fitted for the nose-bar type launch, and the A-6A>E conversions had the bridle attachment points removed.

The A-7A/B/C, and maybe the E now, could have operated off the French carriers… although they might have been restricted to a lower max payload.

I would think that the limited clearance between the jet blast deflector and the catapult would have limited the length of the run of a nose-bar equipped aircraft.

X post from BR

India says no to British Harriers

New Delhi, Oct 13 (IANS) The Indian Navy has declined to buy eight British Sea Harrier FA.2 fighter jets that were phased out of the Royal Navy in March this year.

According to a report in the October issue of the defence magazine India Strategic, the eight Harriers, which were also the last to serve the Royal Navy, were on offer but without some vital components like missiles and the Blue Vixen fire control radar. The prime consideration was to use them to train pilots and to fill in the gaps caused by the loss of six Harriers in the Indian Navy due to accidents spread over more than 20 years.

Indian Navy pilots and defence ministry representatives inspected and assessed the aircraft for technical and financial evaluation but it was decided not to go in for them as the jets needed considerable expense in upgrading their avionics and arming them.

Published reports indicate that India has 22 Sea Harriers, 16 of them being the FRS.51 fighter version. They are to be gradually replaced by MiG-29K aircraft, some 40 to 50 of which are likely to be acquired from Russia.

India has already contracted to buy 16 MiG-29Ks as part of the deal with Russia to acquire the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, renamed INS Vikramaditya, but more such aircraft would be needed as the Indian Navy grows to its required size and capability.

As for the Royal Navy Harriers, the Indian Navy was initially enthusiastic, but then felt that “devoid of their offensive systems, they wouldn’t be of much use”. For training “the navy is already considering either the BAe Hawks or Boeing/BAe Goshawks”, a source said.

Indian Navy pilots are now being given advanced carrier takeoff and landing training at the US Navy’s Pensacola facility to prepare them for the arrival of Gorshkov and MiG-29Ks.

This had become necessary as ironically, the Russians were unable to offer matching training facilities although they sold both the aircraft carrier and the MiG-29K jets.

Harrier jets played a decisive and proven role in the Falklands crisis of 1982. The last naval variant, the FA.2, was armed with US AIM 20 AMRAAM (advanced medium range air-to-air missile) and the Ferranti ARI.50019 Blue Vixen radar that enabled it to engage four targets simultaneously.

India had decided to buy the Harriers in the mid-1970s as part of its efforts to build a blue water navy, while their actual deliveries began in 1983.

The Indian Navy’s 16 Sea Harrier FRS.51 fighter versions are now under a midlife upgrade with new air-to-air missiles as well as helmet-mounted target acquisition sights.

The Indian Navy Harriers originally were equipped with the Ferranti Blue Fox radar that had poor “look-down” capability compared to the Blue Vixen of the British Navy.

The Indian Navy plans to use the Sea Harriers till around 2020.

Engines for Indian Sea Harriers were supplied by Rolls Royce while the aircraft have been maintained and upgraded – as prime contractor – by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

–By Gulshan Luthra

http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=17433

It might have been easier to retrofit Israeli radar sets to the surplus RN Sea Harriers, and perhaps the additional space and volume provided for avionics would have made the upgrade cheaper than retrofitting the IN’s own older Sea Harriers. Some of the airframes on offer were less than a decade old, far younger that the IN’s own well worn Sea Harriers.

The UK was right not to export the Blue Vixen to India, at least from the standpoint of non-proliferation. Why offer nearly free technical assistance to a nuclear power like India? It is clear that possession of Blue Vixen radar sets would have been useful for India’s own MMR program.

India should have snapped up these Sea Harrier airframes, as offered. Instead, money is being spent on older, less serviceable Sea Harriers and the very riskly MiG-29K purchase.

I think they’d have better luck tracking the SDB itself…

Matt

“Rogue states” can hardly afford to fire a S-300/S-400 class missile at every SDB that comes their way.

I think the real beauty of the SDB is that a bomber sized platform can drop dozens (up to the low three figure range?) of these munitions on a single sortie – all from outside the engagement envelope of most most SAM systems.