The Indians are not totally inexperienced in this area. They've been running this ship since the mid-80s. I think what might really bite them in the butt is the expense of a full size CV, as you mentioned.
INS Viraat (ex-HMS Hermes).
Posted on 05/24/2008 7:38:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Manipal, India — Thanks largely to India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who shared with his leftwing British friends a dislike of the Yanks, the geopolitically senseless alienation between the United States and India continued for five decades after India's independence in 1947.
What seems finally to have convinced the British to leave India was the seepage of loyalty from the Indian component of the armed forces. More than 2 million Indians saw action on the Allied side during World War II. Yet during the war, their loyalty to the Crown was tested by the discriminatory treatment meted out to Indians in the services. British personnel dominated the higher reaches of the military and were given perquisites and privileges far beyond those enjoyed by Indians.
Several thousands of soldiers joined the pro-Axis Indian National Army during the war. Within the ranks of those who remained on the Allied side, there was visible sympathy for those Indian officers and men who switched sides and refused to fight for the British monarchy that denied them the privileges enjoyed by soldiers from the Australian, New Zealand, U.S. and Canadian complements. The possibility of widespread revolts within the armed forces concentrated minds in London and speeded up the withdrawal from India
During World War II, the Muslim League under M. A. Jinnah backed the Allies unreservedly, and was later rewarded with Pakistan, a Muslim state carved out of Hindu-majority India. Jinnah's effusive backing for the British was matched by his successors' similarly emollient line toward the United States. As a result, Washington joined London in regarding Pakistan as a reliable ally, in contrast to the "undependable" Indians -- a tilt that continued until 9/11.
Even as late as the 1990s, the U.S. was pressuring India to surrender the Kashmir valley to Pakistan. At the same time the Clinton administration was covertly backing the jihadi elements that finally took power in Kabul in 1996 as the Taliban. Interestingly, as yet the U.S. Congress has not opened an enquiry into the 1994-96 policies that resulted in Osama bin Laden's patrons being given charge of Afghanistan, with consequences that have been disastrous for international security.
Relentless U.S. and British pressure since the 1950s on the Kashmir issue, and lavish military and civilian help given to Pakistan, caused New Delhi to gravitate toward the Soviet Union. Even in its 1971-1977 heyday, however, the strategic relationship between New Delhi and Moscow never resulted in a single Soviet soldier coming to India for basing or training.
Nowadays the U.S. military routinely undertakes joint exercises and training sorties in India. Fear of international jihad and worries over a fast-developing Chinese military have made the United States and India de facto military allies.
However, within both countries strong lobbies are still at work to abort this alliance. Within the United States these anti-India groups have coalesced around two poles. The first comprises those who take a Euro-centric view of the world, seeing it in terms of the West and the Rest. Such individuals see little value in a full-fledged alliance with India that might divert focus from NATO. According to this school, the only core international partners of value to the United States in worldwide conflicts are the other NATO countries.
The other lobby hard at work within the United States to sabotage the India-U.S. military alliance comprises backers of the Pakistan army. Recent efforts by officers who seek to forge a comprehensive military relationship with India to offer the USS Kitty Hawk carrier to the Indian Navy -- as the USS Trenton was a few years ago -- seem to have foundered on opposition from pro-Pakistan and NATO-centric elements in the U.S. military. They see the move as potentially alienating the Pakistan military.
Such a transfer would link the United States and India in a military supply relationship that could lead to the displacement of Russia as the primary supplier to India of defense equipment. Yet both the NATO and Pakistan lobbies within the U.S. military are working overtime to scuttle the plan to offer the USS Kitty Hawk to the Indians.
Within India too there has been resistance to the induction of the USS Kitty Hawk. It comes from the segment within the Indian Navy that is in favor of Russian or French platforms, both being lucrative sources of patronage. Their efforts at downplaying the force multiplier effect of the U.S. carrier focus on its "obsolete" catapult technology and the expenses involved in a refit.
That their primary interest is to prevent a reversal of the Indian decision to induct the Russian carrier Gorshkov (now estimated to cost US$1.6 billion in place of the $500 million quoted earlier) is clear from the primary argument used against the U.S. naval vessel, which is the age of the four-decade-old ship. However, unlike the Gorshkov, which is unable to sail at all, the U.S. vessel is operational, and was recently in the news for its attempt to dock in Hong Kong over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The fear among those within the Indian defense establishment with financial ties to Russian and French defense suppliers is that acquisition of the USS Kitty Hawk would result in New Delhi purchasing U.S. aircraft for the carrier, and later for the air force, in place of Russian ones. As such purchases could amount to US$22 billion over the next five years, the stakes are substantial even in purely financial terms.
Eager to get India to pay an extra US$1.4 billion for the Russian carrier, the pro-Russia lobby in India has ignored the fact that the modified Kiev class aviation cruiser was earlier mothballed due to a collapse of its propulsion systems. After nearly $500 million was paid toward a refit by India, it has been pulled out for a very expensive refurbishment and rechristened the INS Vikramaditya. The effectiveness of the multidimensional firepower it could unleash after such a $1.9 billion refit is yet to be tested.
The French and Russian lobbies were alerted by the Indian Navy's procurement of the former USS Trenton LPD-14. This ship, rechristened the INS Jalashwa in 2006, has a long record of operational performance with the U.S. Navy's carrier and amphibious groups. The Indian Navy's amphibious expeditionary capabilities have been significantly enhanced with the Jalashwa, the induction of which has helped familiarize naval personnel with U.S. systems.
The Indian Navy will add at least another 45 vessels in the next decade to maintain a 140-ship navy for operations. The focus is to reinforce sea control and sea denial capability that spans the Persian Gulf to the China Seas. The induction of the USS Kitty Hawk could be the trigger for the switchover from Russian-French to U.S. platforms in first the navy and later the air force and the army.
Indeed, the Kitty Hawk was the lead carrier along with the USS Nimitz CVN 68 in the recently concluded Malabar 07-02 in the Bay of Bengal, which significantly enhanced interoperability between U.S. and Indian forces. If it beats back hostile lobbies in both the U.S. and India and is rescued from oblivion by joining the expanding Indian Navy, the USS Kitty Hawk may serve as a force multiplier in the U.S.-India defense relationship.
I'm not sure it's appropriate to call 50,000+ men "several thousand."
Of the initial 45,000 or so captured by the Japs, 40,000 immediately joined the Indian Traitor Army.
I think it was over 50000 in all. 50000 was the number that fought in the East Asian theatre alone. Many more thousand fought in the African theatre and some in the European trenches if I remember reading it right.
40,000 joining the the INA is also an unlikely number, but I dont have data to challenge it today :)
Bump
Surely not just for a coastal defense? Does it need a blue-water navy?
Now (Indian)Navy wants Super Hornets too
After decommissioning, carrier’s eventual fate unknown (Kitty Hawk)
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE — Nobody likes moving day — the packing, the lifting and, at day’s end, the echoing of an empty home.
Now, imagine emptying out an 80,000-ton ship with 2,550 compartments. It makes for an awful lot of refrigerators to unplug.
The crew aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk already is preparing for such a historic move, one that will end the ship’s 47-year career in the U.S. Navy.
As the carrier sails for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, sailors will begin going through 19-point checklists to make sure the proper items get unplugged, collected and stored before the ship drops anchor in July at Bremerton, Wash. About 430 crewmembers will stay with the ship over the following few months, before the official decommissioning in January, the Navy said last week.
From there, the carrier’s eventual fate remains unknown.
A group in North Carolina wants it for a museum, homage to CV-63’s namesake location in the state. Congress this month talked about keeping the Kitty Hawk in ready-reserve status during the next few years.
After decommissioning, the carrier will be assigned to the Navy’s inactive ship inventory. The secretary of the Navy will make the “ultimate decision on disposition,” Navy Lt. Clay Doss said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.
Moving-day preparations already are under way, even as sailors peel off to different assignments.
Chief Petty Officer Elison Talabong, an aviation ordnance specialist, said the carrier’s operational tempo, advancing age and shrinking crew means everyone does more with less.
“It’s challenging. We have the same mission — just with reduced personnel,” Talabong said last week.
His department is currently down about 30 people. “So we all take jobs other than our primary duties,” he said.
Once in Bremerton, the ship will get a full-scale shuttering that will take months.
Last year’s decommissioning of the USS John F. Kennedy called for the equivalent of 26,000 workdays, according to Doss. The work included emptying and cleaning all fuel oil tanks, deactivating and covering catapult troughs, deactivating and securing aircraft and weapons elevators, cleaning the ship’s piping system, and rigging for tow, Doss said.
Eventually, “Big John” was towed to a Navy facility in Philadelphia, where it’s held for safe stowage, Doss said.
The Kitty Hawk could end up in a similar mothball stage, at least for the near future. But earlier this month, the House Armed Services Committee approved paying for a study to determine the costs of reactivating the Kitty Hawk and the Kennedy, if needed.
A group in Wilmington, N.C., however, would like to claim the Kitty Hawk for public view.
Retired Navy Capt. Wilbur Jones is part of a statewide group, the Wilmington Kitty Hawk Concept Team, that plans to ask the Navy’s permission to turn the ship into a museum. Jones said the process could take five to seven years, and the team would have to hire a museum consultant and raise money for the project.
The group is in the process of filing for nonprofit tax status, is looking for a possible site, and hopes to hire a chairman soon, Jones said in an e-mail to Stripes.
“The most optimistic projection would have the ship arrive here in 2011-12,” Jones said. “The Navy’s detailed bureaucratic application process is cumbersome but can be overcome.”
Why does India need a carrier the size of the Kitty Hawk?
Surely not just for a coastal defense? Does it need a blue-water navy?
It would only be operational for about 6 months or less. The skills needed to maintain a full sized
carrier are not learned overnight,much less operate it.
And it ain’t cheap either.
Ask the Soviets.
Or the Brits.
Jack
Sounds reasonable.
The MMR's would have to be overhauled. If we pay for that we may as well keep it for ourselves. Only one carrier yard in the USA maybe two are capable of doing such a feat correctly both are in Norfolk area and both are busy.
It's just too big a risk. It can't be put back to sea without the MMR's being rebuilt. The system is 50 years old. A leak in the steam piping down in the hole or up in the CATS the size of a #2 pencil lead will dismember you. She was taken out of service for good reasons.
Ping list ping.
India's whole strategy is watch the game play out while cussing us out, the way they did during the Japanese war crimes trials and the Korean War. There is this essential complacency among indophiles about India's long term territorial ambitions that staggers the mind. We don't know anything about these ambitions. India simply hasn't been strong enough. I think we should bide our time before handing out freebies.
The Indians are not totally inexperienced in this area. They've been running this ship since the mid-80s. I think what might really bite them in the butt is the expense of a full size CV, as you mentioned.
INS Viraat (ex-HMS Hermes).
You’re right about the subjugation part. After the war, the Brits expected to walk right back in as masters of India, etc. I would suggest, however, that those noble and patriotic Indians of the INA just hadn’t had a chance to observe the Imperial Japanese at close range.
Yes. That’s why immigration from India to the UK should never have been allowed, and should in fact be reversed. Enock Powell understood this. The Indians (and Pakistanis) were never “British”, and should never have expected to be treated the same as British, or of British descent.
I should be careful about the subjugation schtick. The USA used to be full of Red Indians. The British left India in far better shape than the US left the Indigenous Indians.
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