Air Defence Ship - What do you think?

[srirangan]

For those who haven't heard of the ADS being constructed for the IN, here's a description:

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Images/ADS1.jpg
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Images/ADS3.jpg
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Images/ADS2.jpg

In a landmark decision, the government finally sanctioned construction of a 32,000-ton vessel on 14 June 1999 with the Navy receiving a formal letter of intent from the Cabinet Committee on Security. The decision came seven years after the designs were originally conceived. Pointing out that the vessel would be built at CSL, then-incumbent Chief of Naval Staff - Admiral Sushil Kumar, said the vessel will be built at an estimated cost of Rs.20 billion. Another Rs.50 million will be spent on expanding CSL's shipyards warehousing space, extending its marshalling yard and acquiring new equipment as the vessel is the largest and broadest ship ever to built in India. CSL Chairman & Managing Director, Commander (retd.) M.K. Murthy said that plate cutting was expected to be conducted by 2003 and the vessel would be ready for sea trials by 2009.

This image shows a CTOL (Conventional Take-Off & Landing) arrangement and may not be the definitive version. The CTOL arrangement is based on the open hangar principle with side elevators. Despite this, the arrangement of the two catapults indicates that it will not be possible to carry out simultaneous take-off and landing operations. This is both the result of the ship's limited size and of a deliberate design choice (adopted most notably also for the French Navy's Charles De Gaulle) in order to have a maximum of free deck space for aircraft parking.

In 2001, CSL released a graphic showing the 32,000-ton STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) design with a pronounced ski jump. The design of the 'island' (superstructure) and sensor suite was considerably different from the model displayed at Def Expo '99. In February 2002, current Chief of Naval Staff - Admiral Madhvendra Singh, stated that the commissioning of the ADS will take eight to ten years since the shipyards have not yet being modernized. It was also revealed that the 32,000-ton ADS design was 250 meters long, capable of speeds of 32 knots with a crew of 1500 personnel.

On 20 March 2002, Defence Minister George Fernandes stated that the Navy had reassessed their requirement and proposed building a larger vessel displacing 37,500 tons and measuring 252 meters by almost 57 meters with a speed of 28 knots. It is probable that with a full load, the ADS will exceed 40,000 tons. This last design iteration shows much influence from the Italian Andrea Dorea Class carrier in that there is much sloping of the superstructure and ship sides. The vessel will be powered by four HAL-built General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines driving 2 shafts. With a 12 to 14º ski-jump, the carrier has a STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) arrangement on an angled flight deck with 2 aircraft elevators - one before the island and one after. In the STOBAR arrangement, the aircraft lands on the angled-flight deck and is stopped by arrester wires. The air group will likely consist of at least 12 - probably 24 - combat aircraft like the MiG-29K, Sea Harrier and Naval LCA along with 10 or so helicopters of the Sea King Mk.42 and/or the HAL Dhruv. Two Ka-31 helicopters would provide airborne early warning coverage.

The most recent design has SAMs in VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells mounted on sponsons on either beam - the port side is to the aft of the ship while the starboard sponson is to the fore of the ship. Four OTO Melera 76mm Super Rapid dual purpose guns are mounted symmetrically on sponsons along the flight deck- two on the fore section and two at the fantail (stern). Preliminary sensor fit appears to show a Top Plate 3D radar on the mainmast and a large 3D radar antennae of a yet undetermined type, along with the usual SATCOM and Electronic Warfare antennae. CSL will use a modular approach to reduce construction time from nine years to around six to eight years. The most recent press releases indicate a commissioning date of 2009 or 2010.

It'll be a good and effective genre of naval vessels imho. Any thought's on this unique project?

[gf0012-aust]

I was under the impression that no Indian yards were able to cut metal of that size. (This was about a week ago in the Indian press). Is there a view that the initial vessel of type will be built offshore or will the Indian Yards have to restructure?

[srirangan]

AFAIK its being manufactured from scratch at the Cochin Shipyards.

[Pathfinder-X]

the ram looks a bit weird, it has that little extra space sticking out.
from the model it looks like the bridge and hull has some stealth features. wut kind of AWACS will be put to use on this ship?? from wut i know the ram cannot accomondate large aircrafts.

[tatra]

The model showns the ADS as a smaller, non-nuclear powered derivative of France's Charles de Gaulle, which incoprporates some stealth features (but projected newbuilt ships do these days).

AFAIK, India is in the proces of switching over from traditional to modular shipbuilding techniques (notably with the Project 17). SO, perhaps that reduces the need to cut metal of that size.

[lalith prasad]

it resembles italian andrea doria (a larger version ofcourse) but with french guidance . it may have the aster which was offered to india . it is to be fitted with oto melara 76mm stealth guns.csl is the only shipyard in india capable of manufacturing 100000 tonnes class of vessels it was further upgraded for this purpose .dcn is acting as consultants for this project

[Magoo]

"it resembles italian andrea doria" :eek

Do you mean Giseppi Garibaldi? Andrea Doria was a cruise ship famously sunk ina collision in the 70's.

[lalith prasad]

no i meant the latest italian aircraft carrier project the andrea doria check naval-technology.com

[adsH]

:cop :cop Alarm bells ringing at the Pentagon, Here comes india!! with its naval power!! :cop :cop

[srirangan]

Ah no alarm bells.. Infact US and India have too much in common to be threat to each other .. And recent bon-homie and everything, they can be perfect allies

[adsH]

Ah no alarm bells.. Infact US and India have too much in common to be threat to each other .. And recent bon-homie and everything, they can be perfect allies

My last comment was intended as a joke :lol ofcouce there can two mutual allies equally power both interms of military power and Economic power, they can be practically brothers, infact!!, they can both live together as mutual Superpowers! there's alot in common between the two, the perfect allies. :)

[darklegent]

The designs that u see here are actually progressive visualisation and not the original layouts. I no alot of u wud ask me how wud the final landing, parking and the super structure look like....... but then I can not actually tell u as of now coz all that is availible are modular designs. i wish i cud tell u more .... wait for a few more years, n u will see it for yourself.

[tatra]

Well, for the ADS, lots of french influence in design.

[corsair7772]

And the cut of those fatigues! It should take india about 2018 to put that thing on trials. A remarkably short time cuz india is building its first AC and it has access to a lot of foreign expertise.

[lalith prasad]

the expected dete of commissioning is 2010 because it is of modular construction and the csl is one of the best shipyards in india besides it had been recently upgraded for this purpose in collaboration with dcn of france.

[XEROX]

So how many aircraft carriers will the navy have by 2020??

[corsair7772]

2010??? Uve got to be kidding me. Do you have a link for this? If so please post it because this info is considered irrelevant unless you do.

[lalith prasad]

check br website under the heading ads in the navy today

[santpaul]

i thought the navy was going to built two air defence ships?

is this true

[VICTORA1]

Srirangan,
Pin pricks start wars and India would be the next super power. When that happens I hope the indians don't remember the way they are made fun of their red dots in the U S.

[srirangan]

Well there are a lot of racist people in the US but isn't the same true of all places?

[Soldier]

Well there are a lot of racist people in the US but isn't the same true of all places?

I live in US and frankly speaking, I have lived part of my life in Africa and Europe. Compared to Europeans (excluding British), Americans are most friendly, wise and receptive people on earth. Racist or not, we are no one to point fingers on them as we should look at ourselves. How many Indians, Pakistanis or Chinese (Including whole of Asia) do you find marrying Black guys or girls? Yeah right, now we know that......hshhh, I guess we asians marry whites but when it comes to blacks, we are worst then white people. So logically we asians are more racist than europeans or americans. Quite frankly, I find those people ridiculous who indulge in mudthrowing on americans picking issues like racism, as those people need to really look closly to the american way of life. Fanatics are always everywhere but come on, talk about masses. Perhaps accuse Americans for other things but racism, I do not think so.

[srirangan]

Exactly my point Soldier.

[Soldier]

Srirangan,
Pin pricks start wars and India would be the next super power. When that happens I hope the indians don't remember the way they are made fun of their red dots in the U S.

Victora, People from other cultures make fun of Muslim women, Muslim beard, Sikh beard, Pagri, Bindi and god knows what.....as they are too much busy in themselves to know about the religious values of other people or even culture. But at the same time, let me tell you that you are only talking about very very few people, about whom you by chance happen to read in some newspaper.

[VICTORA1]

Soldier,
History 101---Christians have ruled both the muslims and hindus, the muslims have ruled over the christians and hindus---the hindus have been ruled by both the muslims and christians and I don't think they liked that very much. One of these days not too far from now, Hind is going to be a super power. A major major player in the world politics and a millitary power to be reckoned with. For pakistan it is better to have friends next door---India will flex is muscle big time once it gets there and not neccessarily on pakistan.

[gf0012-aust]

:cop :cop Back to the topic folks.

[Salman78]

The name Air Defence Ship i think is inappropriate. Anyway Aircraft Carriers are good only in pairs. They need a lot of support ships to keep their guard and aircraft which r truely multi role cause they not only will have to intercept any incoming enemy from a far off distance but should also be capable of carrying a formadible ground attack weapon load. Not sure if the Mig 29's naval variat is capable of that.

[brahmos]

The name Air Defence Ship i think is inappropriate. Anyway Aircraft Carriers are good only in pairs. They need a lot of support ships to keep their guard and aircraft which r truely multi role cause they not only will have to intercept any incoming enemy from a far off distance but should also be capable of carrying a formadible ground attack weapon load. Not sure if the Mig 29's naval variat is capable of that.

India has all the capability needed to fully operate an aircraft carrier. we have been operating carriers for more than 3 decades now.

[RealIndian]

NLCA will be onboard ADS. The Navy is now lobbying with the government to build two more aircraft carriers.