NEW DELHI: With the first successful sea trial of the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 1 (IAC1), to be named INS Vikrant once it joins the Indian Navy in a year or so, India has entered the exclusive group of countries capable of designing and building aircraft carriers from scratch. In the maritime domain, aircraft carriers hold a position of pre-eminence amongst warships and are thus considered the pinnacle of warship design and construction for any Navy. Aircraft carriers are also the most visible sign of a Navy’s capability, resolve and stature. Design and construction of aircraft carriers, because of their scale, complexities and legacy experience is considered immensely challenging.
An aircraft carrier is a mini floating ‘airbase’ at sea which sets it apart from other warships in terms of operations, reach and complexities. The business of designing and constructing a warship is a daunting task. Confronted with a compelling need for effective tactical power at sea and the reality of constrained fiscal resources, warship design is a long iterative process to strike a balance between the two. Unlike commercial ships, a warship, in addition to float and move, has to perform the ‘fight’ role in a hostile sea environment. Aircraft carrier design adds another element of aviation to this complex process requiring facilities for launch and recovery of a combat aircraft, which present enormous complexities.
However, in spite of India’s glorious maritime heritage, there was no indigenous warship design or warship building capability at the time of independence in 1947. India missed the industrial revolution during colonial rule and shipbuilding in India stagnated when the world was transiting from sailing ships to mechanised ships. Fortunately, post-independence, the decision makers and naval visionaries had the foresight to realise the importance of this vital sector. They laid down a policy and vision for self-reliance in warship design and shipbuilding.
It was as early as in 1950 that the Indian Navy laid the foundation for creating a capability to design and build its own ships. One major step taken by the Indian Navy towards indigenous ship design was the formation of the Directorate of Naval Construction (DNC) in 1955 .The DNC was established as a nodal agency at the naval headquarters, for the acquisition and induction of all ships from abroad.
Subsequently, the Central Design Office (CDO) was set up in 1964 for carrying out full-fledged design for acquisition of ships through indigenous construction. This Central Design Office later became the Directorate of Naval Design (DND) in 1970, from which the Directorate of Submarine Design (SDG) was carved out in the late-eighties.
The year 1975 turned out to be a landmark year in the history of DND and that of major warship design in the country when the Design Organisation undertook indigenous design of Godavari class frigates with approximately 4,000 tonnes displacement. With a modest beginning of designing the Ocean Going Tugs and Landing Craft Utility and Seaward Defence Boats, the design organisation of the Navy has come a long way and can boast to have designed almost all types of ships ranging from survey ships to corvettes to stealth frigates to destroyers and thereafter embarked on the ambitious project of designing an Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC).
From its first attempt at making a warship on its own, albeit a Seaward Defence Boat (SDB) INS Ajay, to have graduated to designing and constructing a 40,000 tonne aircraft carrier, India has come a long way in indigenous warship design and construction.
The journey of IAC 1 has been a gradual process, based on the geo-political scenario, resource availability and in consonance with the national vision of maritime security through self-reliance. The indigenous carrier first took shape on the drawing board in 1985 with a vision for a Sea Control Ship (SCS) of approximately 35,000 tonnes with Short Take-off but Vertical Landing (STOVL) capability and the capacity for carrying around 30 aircraft.
In 1988, capabilities of Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) for building the carrier were taken up through DCN or ‘Direction des Constructions Navales’ of France. DCN, after completing the audit, confirmed CSL’s capability for constructing the carrier subject to requisite infrastructure augmentation.
With the decommissioning of INS Vikrant in 1997, the Navy’s proposal for an aircraft carrier gathered momentum. In 1999, a proposal was put up to the government for construction of indigenously designed air defence ship for the Indian Navy.
It was around this time that INS Vikramaditya along with its Russians ship-based version of MiG-29, called the Mig-29K (K stands for Karabal, Russian word for ship) came into the picture and the Navy’s designers sought fruition of the Short-Take-Off-But-Arrested-Recovery (STOBAR) option, wherein the launch would be from a ski jump but recovery would be with the help of arrester gear.
Finally, the design of a full-fledged carrier of around 260 m length, 60 m beam, and displacement between 34,000 and 37,000 tonnes was approved by CCS in 2002, with the capability of power-projection and sea control in a multi-threat environment.
It was decided that the IAC would be capable of operating an air wing consisting of 30 aircraft—MiG-29K, KM-31, ALH and LCA (Navy). Italian firm Fincantieri has provided technical consultancy for the propulsion package while Russian support from Nevskoe Design Bureau has been obtained for integration of the aviation complex comprising Russian MiG 29K aircraft.
The ‘keel’ of the ship was laid in 2009. True to tradition, the ship was successfully launched by Elizabeth Antony, wife of then Raksha Mantri AK Antony on August 12, 2013 and christened ‘Vikrant’. Since then, the ship has spent its time at the outfitting berth of CSL steadily progressing equipment and system installation, testing and trials, habitability package etc. onboard.
What is significant about the maiden attempt of Indian Navy to indigenously design and build an aircraft carrier? With more than 76 per cent of the equipment and material being sourced from indigenous suppliers, the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier ‘Vikrant’ is a true reflection of India’s new policy of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.
As per Naval tradition, ships never die, and in keeping with this dictum, the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) was honoured with the name of her predecessor, India’s first aircraft carrier acquired from the UK in 1961 and decommissioned later. Thus, the new ‘Vikrant’ came into being. Vikrant, meaning victorious and gallant, has its crest depicting arrows resembling the delta wing of combat jets going in all four directions. It is capable of blunting attacks from any direction. The crest as well as ship’s motto ‘Jayema Sam Yudhispradhah’ has been taken from Rigveda, meaning ‘We win over those who dare to fight’ are the same as that of the old Vikrant.
So what are the main features of the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (Vikrant)? It is 262 m long, 62 m at the widest part and has a depth of 30 m minus the superstructure. There are 14 decks in all, including five in the superstructure. The ship has over 2,300 compartments, designed for a crew of around 1,700 personnel, including specialised cabins to accommodate women officers when embarked.
The ship is like an 18-storey-high floating building. The steel used in the hull itself (about 21,000 tonnes) is adequate to fabricate three Eiffel Towers! The flight deck covers an area roughly the size of two football fields. She would have two take-off runways and a landing strip with three arrestor wires, and would be capable of operating STOBAR aircraft as well as a range of helicopters.
The carrier has been designed with a very high degree of automation for machinery operation, ship navigation and survivability. The propulsion package comprising four LM-2500 Gas Turbines in a twin shaft, “Combined Gas And Gas” (COGAG) configuration, will produce a total power of around 90 MW.
The ship’s top speed would be around 28 knots and cruising speed 18 knots. The ship’s endurance would be about 7,500 nautical miles; and therefore she can almost cover the entire coastline of India twice without any requirement of refuelling. The ship’s diesel generators can produce 24 MW electrical power sufficient to light up an entire city. The ship has nearly 1,500 km of cabling criss-crossing its decks, almost the distance from Kochi to Mumbai, if stretched out.
As an outcome of the elaborate procedure for procurement from indigenous sources, IAC boasts of a variety of indigenous equipment. To begin with, the LM 2500 gas turbines have been produced by M/s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in India, under a Transfer of Technology (ToT) license agreement with M/s General Electric (GE), USA. Main gearbox for the transmission of power has come from Elecon Engineering Co. Ltd. (in collaboration with M/s Renk, Germany). The air conditioning and refrigerating plants have been designed and developed by Kirloskar Pneumatics. The steering gear system, main switchboards, doors and hatches for IAC have been developed by L&T. Integrated Platform Management System (IPMS), which is like the brain of the vessel, has been developed by the public sector giant BHEL. The internal and external communication system, vital for any warship, has been sourced from another ‘Maharatna’ PSU, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). The Combat Management System (CMS) of the vessel has been developed by Tata Power Strategic Engineering Division (TPSED) in collaboration with Indian Navy’s own R&D arm WESEE. This is also the first CMS developed by private industry.
The construction of IAC was planned to start in 2004. The ship’s construction, however, could commence only by 2006 due to non-availability of imported steel from Russia for hull construction, as was initially planned, due to certain RBI regulations. At this juncture, a conscious decision was taken to construct the ship with indigenous high tensile warship quality steel, developed by the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Hyderabad and produced by the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL). The journey was fairly tumultuous, with SAIL having to grapple with several issues associated with a first-time development in terms of technology, process, financial viability etc. These challenges were, however, overcome successfully with dedicated efforts of Indian Navy, DMRL and SAIL, who had ramped up process and capacity at their Rourkela, Bhilai and Bokaro plants. The greatest spin-off from this has been that now Indian industry indigenously manufactures all grades of steel for all warships being built in India, thus eliminating Navy’s dependence on foreign sources of supply for this most basic but ‘critical’ input material.
To date, CSL has contracted over 500 indigenous vendors to support the IAC project. Out of these, close to 100 of them are MSMEs, who have supported the project for development and supply of indigenous equipment and systems. As per data provided by CSL, the shipyard has generated significant business opportunities for MSMEs in line with the GoI directives for impetus on MSME sector with total order amounting to ₹300 crore placed on these MSMEs for the carrier project alone.
Clearly, there are spin-offs that will boost the Indian MSME sector as well as create a set of skills not easily acquired. The IAC has, therefore, been a boon in many ways.
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