Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

The Russians have had INS Vikramaditya (former Admiral Gorshkov) since 2004 in re-fit. And still she is not finished. By contrast CVN-77 was laid down in September of 2003 and was commissioned in January 2009. What's taking so long to re-fit the INS Vikramaditya (former Admiral Gorshkov)? Besides the funding....

Perhaps Newport News has more experience with aircraft carriers than Sevmash?

bd popeye said:

The Russians have had INS Vikramaditya (former Admiral Gorshkov) since 2004 in re-fit. And still she is not finished. By contrast CVN-77 was laid down in September of 2003 and was commissioned in January 2009. What's taking so long to re-fit the INS Vikramaditya (former Admiral Gorshkov)? Besides the funding....

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Bro, if it'd be of any consolation to the Russians or the Indians, the ex-Varyag, which was a rusting husk to begin with, sat in Dalian shipyard since 2002 and only now can be said close to be readied for its first-ever powered cruise / sea-trial, neck-in-neck with INS Vikramaditya in work status...

Though it's only fair to say that the Chinese finally get their minds set on making it into a working carrier sometimes around 2005...

^^^ By most standards the re-fits are taking way too long..Both ships should have been finished long ago.

bd popeye said:

^^^ By most standards the re-fits are taking way too long..Both ships should have been finished long ago.

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Indeed they are, but my gut instinct is that both of these refits have more to do with training the shipyards in the intricacies of completeing a carrier than actually getting the damn things to sea. What's the betting they have both gone over the same ground more than once to educate their shipyard workers (repeat training courses paid for by unwitting governments?). Just a theory...

Obi Wan Russell said:

Indeed they are, but my gut instinct is that both of these refits have more to do with training the shipyards in the intricacies of completeing a carrier than actually getting the damn things to sea. What's the betting they have both gone over the same ground more than once to educate their shipyard workers (repeat training courses paid for by unwitting governments?). Just a theory...

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In that case the Indians are really getting ripped off and are certainly not reaping the benefits like china is refitting the varyag themselves.
Maybe they should've refit the gorshkov at their own shipyards and paid the russians for advice and the necessary parts. Or better yet, not have bought the gorshkov in the first place and two or three juan carlos or mistral LHDs. Goodness knows if such a deal was inked in 2004 possibly all three ships could be in the IN's hands by now, and at similar or lower cost than they paid for refurbishment of gorshkov too.

bd popeye said:

^^^ By most standards the re-fits are taking way too long..Both ships should have been finished long ago.

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Both Russia and China first face the problem of setting up shop for something they never did before, the finer difference are:
1. China build a permanent drydock for future carrier construction+maintenance, Russia's more like a temporary setup
2. China's work pay out by Chinese gov't, while Russia's pay by India...with concern of negotiation and cost mark-up delays, China's can do with one less layer of red tape.

Also, I've read somewhere that the Indian shipyard is a state owned enterprise but notorious for inefficiency and delays...

China has a huge and sophisticated ship building industry that can supply most of the components and subsystems.

India don't, and the comprison is night and day.

and I would argue even Russia after fall of USSR would have difficult time as alot of its defense plant is scattered into former soviet republics and worst of all the central planning system that connected all these enterprises together is no more.

any one of the two big state ship builders CSSA or CSIC would have no problem source most the carrier components in house.
heck even some of these smaller ship builders, some private, would have no problem assembling hulls for let's say a miniflattop.

If china were facing what US faced in 1940, it's ship yards would have no problem mobilizing and cranking out jeep carriers and liberty ships like US did during ww2.

On my way home tonight i took a quick snap of a huge chunk of the Queen Elizabeth that currently sits on Govan dock,Glasgow.Sorry for the quality but if anyone is interested i'll take a run down in daylight and snap better ones.They may even be online somewhere ,i dunno.

Since we have the QE II pic here, what's the latest status of the program anyway?
Will there be cats now or is that still just an upgrade option for the future? And that also has implications on the aircraft to buy. The RAF / FAA could get it's hands onto F-35C instead of B.
And PoW really becomes a LPH now with a still to be determined setup / layout, correct?