Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

On the lighter side, India always achieves a "milestone" a few years later than other major powers.

A couple years back the honors would have read:

Since the year 2000, there have been twenty-five major naval incidents involving submarines from: ten American submarines, five Russian, five British, two Canadian, one Chinese, one Australian, and one French.

(India missing in the above list).

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bingo said:

On the lighter side, India always achieves a "milestone" a few years later than other major powers.

A couple years back the honors would have read:

Since the year 2000, there have been twenty-five major naval incidents involving submarines from: ten American submarines, five Russian, five British, two Canadian, one Chinese, one Australian, and one French.

(India missing in the above list).

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Wrong category. An accidental sinking is not a 'major' incident; it's a 'catastrophic' incident, as are sinking or totaling from onboard fire, from collision, or sinking and totaling of any kind not resulting from combat or deliberate scuttling.

Now, let's see, what other navy has had three ships sunken or damaged beyond repair from accidents in the past eight years?

Some more recent photos of the INS Vikramaditya, R33. Had not seen most of these before:

Seeing the Indians with these young, cocky pilots tells us a couple of things.

First, they have young, cocky pilots flying these aircraft. That is not meant as a slight. That's what these guys are, and what they do. All hot stick fighter pilots have a certain swagger about them...they almost have to, as long as they are also disciplined and well trained.

Second, it tells us that they have a program in place that has already produced the older, more experienced pilots who serving as instructors and probably in the aggressor exercises...who are able to now take these young mid-late twenties age pilots, with all of their very fast reaction times and physic, and train them in numbers. It tells us their naval flight training program is mature.

Of course, with so many years of both fixed wing (earlier) and then the Harriers, carrier flight experience, it is also understandable that the Indians would have a leg up in this area. They have long since institutionalized it. And now they are taking advantage of that and moving relatively quickly as a result.

Jeff Head said:

Seeing the Indians with these young, cocky pilots tells us a couple of things.

First, they have young, cocky pilots flying these aircraft. That is not meant as a slight. That's what these guys are, and what they do. All hot stick fighter pilots have a certain swagger about them...they almost have to, as long as they are also disciplined and well trained.

Second, it tells us that they have a program in place that has already produced the older, more experienced pilots who serving as instructors and probably in the aggressor exercises...who are able to now take these young mid-late twenties age pilots, with all of their very fast reaction times and physic, and train them in numbers. It tells us their naval flight training program is mature.

Of course, with so many years of both fixed wing (earlier) and then the Harriers, carrier flight experience, it is also understandable that the Indians would have a leg up in this area. They have long since institutionalized it. And now they are taking advantage of that and moving relatively quickly as a result.

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Well..... Both younger and older pilots have a lot of experience flying Mig-29K as a land-based fighter - there is no doubt about that. But, no active pilot in Indian Navy has experience with cats&traps , because last Sea Hawk was retired in 1983.

According to Indian forums, some of the gentlemen that went to Russia to train may have experience with Harriers. This may or may not be true, but anyway Mig-29K is whole another ball game. IMHO, despite all the pomp and bluster, India will need some time to fully integrate this carrier into service.

thunderchief said:

Well..... Both younger and older pilots have a lot of experience flying Mig-29K as a land-based fighter - there is no doubt about that. But, no active pilot in Indian Navy has experience with cats&traps , because last Sea Hawk was retired in 1983.

According to Indian forums, some of the gentlemen that went to Russia to train may have experience with Harriers. This may or may not be true, but anyway Mig-29K is whole another ball game. IMHO, despite all the pomp and bluster, India will need some time to fully integrate this carrier into service.

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Well, cats and traps are different than STOBAR traps and takeoffs. That is what they are moving towards now.

And, in that regard, they sent pilots to train on the Mig-29k to Russia, and they got experience on the Kuznetsov doing take-off and landings from their STOBAR carrier.

We know that occurred. We have pictures of the Mig-29Ks from Indian landing and taking off of the Kuznetsov. I expect those ten guys were the older pilots who have now been training the younger ones.

They have now had the Vikramaditya for four months in their home waters, and also had during that same time, a full wing of production level Mig-29Ks. I am willing to bet, that over the last four months they have gotten quite a bit of experience trapping on the Vikramaditya, and taking off from it. They announced either in late January or early February that the first Indian Mig-29Ks had in fact landed and taken off from the Virkamaditya in Indian hands and there are pictures of that.

So, I believe they are building their expertise rather quickly, and they have the infrastructure and the history in carrier operations, policy and practice to help make move that along.

As I say...kind of a "trust but verify," thing that I am fond of...I'd like to see a picture of the Vikramaditya deployed with the sixteen Mig-29Ks aboard.

Jeff Head said:

Some more recent photos of the INS Vikramaditya, R33. Had not seen most of these before:

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Very roomy in comparison to many other navies. In many ships the enlisted crew can't even sit up on their beds.

We are probably looking at a junior officers' quarters, which would be about right. Enlisted would get triple-stacked in there like sardines.

Solaris said:

We are probably looking at a junior officers' quarters, which would be about right. Enlisted would get triple-stacked in there like sardines.

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Yes, you are probably right.. E-6 and below are packed like sardines. I like the USN officer's quarters more though in CVNs and that is not saying much!! the one in the picture doesn't look to have a lot of storage space.

small ships like DDGs or CGs generally have a tad better berthing than the ones on carriers.