True enough, but my point is simple. The Russians signed a contract with the Indians for a birdfarm at a certain price.
If the Russians can’t deliver the ship, as contracted, within that price, the Indians should either demand the Russians pay the extra or give the money back. That is just simple business.
There is rumors abounding that either the Indians or certain parties within the United States are touting the USS Kitty Hawk for sale to India after her decommissioning from the USN.
Whether or not it would be a good idea to sell the Kitty to the Indians, it is definitely certain that it would she would be a much better bargain, whatever the cost, than the Gorshkov.
The Kitty is a proven weapon’s system with more than 40 years of honorable service behind her. She has stood the test of time and served in all oceans of the world.
I actually like the Russian STOAL concept and think we should be building our own. But even though they thought of it, they haven’t gotten it working right yet. We could do better.
The Indian navy chief has already ruled out the Kitty Hawk-it’s twice as old as the Gorshkov & irrespective of it’s currrent condition,won’t serve as long.Besides,it’s twice the size,with over twice the crewing requirement.
About STOBAR,well everything I have read about it puts it at a disadvantage against catapults barring lower costs.
Of the Indians can demand to take possession of the ship as is. They can tow it to Mubai and do the work themselves. They will learn more that way, anyway. The way they are going, this ship is not going to be a useful weapons platform at the end of the day, so they might as well gain some experience from the process.
Here is a concept for the Indians. The problem with carriers is that the aircraft have a high top speed, but need to take off and land slowly. All of the heroics are designed to increase that take off/landing speed as much as possible, so the aircraft design can be optimized as much as possible for high speed flight.
But what if you forget about supersonic flight, or even near-supersonic flight? A carrier capable of launching large numbers of tough turbo-prop fighters, attack aircraft and maritime patrol aircraft with a top speed of about 300 mph could be a very useful military asset for providing ASW coverage for your fleet and for power projection against many lesser powers. It would not be able to take on a US carrier task force, but what can, these days?
If you look at the problem, you have aircraft flying at 800 mph and missiles flying at 3000 mph. The speed differential between a F-18 and a missile and a slow turboprop and a missile is more or less the same. For missile engagements, it is more important that the aircraft be numerous, have good coordination and radar, and be as stealthy as possible. These requirements can be dealt with much more readily in a package designed with a 300 mph top speed, which gives you more payload, a more convenient shape, longer endurance, lower unit cost and much simpler maintenance.
I know the military is in love with things that go fast, but there may be a place for a different approach. Designing a carrier around a 80 knot stall speed would be a much, much simpler operation.
I'll believe it when I see it.
US Navy ships, especially aircraft carriers, are very heavily constructed and there are a lot of classified engineering details in their design and fabrication based on lessons learned going all the way back to WWII. Heck, even the details on the deliberate sinkings of WWII carriers post-war are still classified.
Doubtful we are going to hand that knowledge over to the Indians or anyone else.
My feeling is that Kitty Hawk will be stripped of hazardous materials and sunk in very deep waters.