Aerospace & Defence Review the Indian Navy Today
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VI/2017 Aerospace & Defence Review The Indian Navy Today Interview with the CNS HMS Queen Elizabeth The Final Reckoning ? MBDA’s future plans Carrier borne fighters Dubai Air Show 2017 CELEBRATING A PROUD HISTORY OF PARTNERSHIP AS WE FACE TOMORROW’S CHALLENGES TOGETHER www.rafael.co.il VI/2017 VI/2017 Aerospace & Defence Review 36 ‘Fully Capable and 52 Indian Navy’s quest for 72 Dazzle over the Always Ready’ a carrier borne fighter Desert The Indian Navy Today Interview with the CNS HMS Queen Elizabeth The Final Reckoning ? MBDA’s future plans Carrier borne fighters Dubai Air Show 2017 Cover : INS Vikramaditya with fleet support vessel at Sea (photo : Indian Navy) Dan Gillian, Boeing Vice President, F/A-18 and EA-18 programmes, writes on the Super Hornet in context of the EDITORIAL PANEL Indian Navy’s requirement for a carrier MANAGING EDITOR borne fighter and elaborates on key In this on-the-spot report, Vayu features of the Block III Super Hornet. Vikramjit Singh Chopra editors review aspects of the recently concluded Dubai Air Show, with record EDITORIAL ADVISOR “Life on an Ocean’s orders announced including mammoth Admiral Arun Prakash 57 deals for both Airbus and Boeing. Wave” Highlights of the Show are included. EDITORIAL PANEL Pushpindar Singh On the eve of Indian Navy Day 2017, ‘Brilliant Arrow 2017’ Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal Vayu interviewed with Admiral Sunil 114 Dr. Manoj Joshi Lanba on a range of issues and was assured that the Indian Navy is fully Lt. Gen. Kamal Davar capable of tackling all the existing and Lt. Gen. BS Pawar emerging challenges in the maritime Air Marshal M. Matheswaran domain. Gp Capt JC Malik Cdr M Nirmal 42 The Final Reckoning? Monica Arora Angad Singh Sayan Majumdar The UK Royal Navy’s new aircraft Richard Gardner (UK) carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, made a spectacular entrance to Portsmouth Reuben Johnson (USA) harbour on 16 August 2017. Vayu’s The Luftwaffe’s largest exercise was Bertrand de Boisset (France) UK correspondent Richard Gardner conducted 11-24 September 2017 in Dr Nick Evesenkin (Russia) reports on the Royal Navy’s impending northern Germany. ‘Brilliant Arrow’ is designed to train NATO air forces Tamir Eshel (Israel) resurgence as a fixed-wing carrier operating force. to share their experience and skills in Admiral Arun Prakash writes on India’s combined air operations. ADVERTISING & MARKETING MANAGER Resurgent Maritime Power, recalling Husnal Kaur maritime traditions, recent Naval 63 Bullish on India ! Also : IAF Chief on the single-engine developments but also flagging some fighter; Air Force Day at AFS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER MBDA’s future plans lacunae, essentially the Navy’s material Hindan; Critical Hollowness; Time Premjit Singh shortcomings, arising from acute for enforcing Jointness; Interview import dependence. with CEO, Lockheed Martin India; HMS ‘Queen Elizabeth’: PUBLISHED BY Cooperation in the Facts and Figures; Irkut’s MC-21; 48 Nammo’s ‘Programmable Vayu Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. Indian Ocean Region Ammunition’; Russia’s Submarine D-43, Sujan Singh Park, Building; TACAMO Submarine New Delhi 110 003 India Communication systems ; Saab’s Tel: +91 11 24617234 Swordfish MPA; Safran’s Aneto Fax: +91 11 24628615 family; RJAF PC-21s; ‘Operation Indian defence procurement might be Market Garden’ ; Macedonia’s e-mail: [email protected] slow, the business environment a maze, Aviation Brigade and others e-mail: [email protected] and military requirements in near- constant flux, but from CEO Antoine Printed at Aegean Offset Printers Bouvier down, MBDA’s top leadership Regular features : In a related article, Admiral Arun remains positive on India as a market Commentary, Opinion, Impact, Prakash’s speech delivered at the and an opportunity for international co- The opinions expressed in the articles Aviation & Defence in India, World published in the Vayu Aerospace & Defence Goa Maritime Conclave at the Naval operation. Vayu’s Angad Singh reports Aviation & Defence News, Ancient Review do not necessarily reflect the views War College, is reproduced for Vayu from MBDA’s facilities in France and Aviator Anecdotes, Vayu 25 Years Back, or policies of the Publishers. readers. the UK. Tale Spin. Visit us at: www.vayuaerospace.in C O M M E N T A R Y The Tillerson Turn Navy Blues US President Donald Trump surprised India last August with The commissioning of India’s third and newest anti-submarine a major departure from America’s South Asia policy by asking corvette, INS Kiltan, by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Delhi to play a larger role in Afghanistan and demanding that is good news. But it also underlines the ills that plague warship Pakistan immediately shut down the terror sanctuaries on its building in India. The Kiltan was commissioned five years later than soil. Then, in October, it was the turn of Secretary of State Rex originally scheduled and without anti-submarine capabilities that Tillerson, who put India at the very heart of America’s efforts are fundamental to such a corvette. Three-and-a-half years after the to balance an increasingly assertive China. In a speech before National Democratic Alliance came to power promising to quickly his visit to the Subcontinent, Tillerson said America wants to make up the military’s arms shortfalls, it is evident that, in warship be India’s most “reliable partner” in an increasingly uncertain building, like in the procurement of other weaponry, this government world. Looking beyond the bilateral, Tillerson affirmed that has performed no better than the United Progressive Alliance before it. India and America “are two bookends of stability on either In April, the navy’s warships acquisition chief told defence industrialists side of the globe” with shared political values and converging in New Delhi that the navy would increase its strength from 140 vessels economic interests. As he lauded India’s rise, Tillerson did currently to 170-180 ships by 2027. This requires increasing warship not mince words about the challenges that Beijing poses numbers by three or four every year, as well as inducting four or five to freedom of navigation, China’s attempts to “subvert the new vessels annually to replace warships that complete their service sovereignty” of its neighbours, and its “predatory economic lives of 25-30 years. Against this requirement for seven to nine new policies”. Tillerson called for a more intensive regional warships every year, the navy is barely able to induct three or four. collaboration between the US and Asian democracies — India, This lackadaisical production rate in domestic defence shipyards has Japan and Australia — to ensure peace and promote prosperity forced the navy to look overseas at offers such as the Russian one to in the Indo-Pacific. build four follow-on frigates of the Talwar-class. New Delhi has been quick to welcome the Trump A key reason for building delays is the navy’s penchant for the Administration’s new approach to Pakistan and China — latest, with admirals demanding that each warship incorporates two factors that have long complicated India’s relations with newer and more sophisticated technology. This is a recipe for delay. In contrast, fast builders such as China finalise a particular design America. In facing up to India’s concerns about Pakistan’s use and then churn out a large number of those warships, benefiting of terror as an instrument of foreign policy and China’s quest from economies of scale, the certainty of supply orders and worker for hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, Trump and Tillerson have experience in building a particular “type”. The People’s Liberation certainly raised hopes for a closer regional alignment between Army (Navy) has already commissioned 25 Type 054A Jiangkai II- Delhi and Washington. But there is no dearth of sceptics class frigates and is building three more. It has already inducted six who caution India against premature celebration. The US Type 052D Luyang III-class destroyers and work is under way on at foreign policy establishment that is appalled at the Trump least eight more. In contrast, the Indian Navy builds barely three or Administration’s incoherence and wild policy vacillations is four warships of one type before going back to the drawing board barely saying two cheers to America’s renewed enthusiasm for and reworking specifications. It built just three Delhi-class destroyers India. The traditionalists in the Indian strategic community under Project 15 and then took years to rework the design into what have always questioned the potential for any basic shift away it called a “follow-on” class – Project 15A – but which was actually from US partnerships with Pakistan and China. a substantively different warship. Frigate orders have been similarly To be sure, Islamabad’s critical role in stabilising broken up. A different kind of disjointedness characterises the four- Afghanistan and America’s worries about Pakistan becoming corvette Project 28 order. The ship now commissioned, INS Kiltan, a rogue nuclear state have tended to stop the US from dealing has an all-composite superstructure in place of the steel superstructures with the sources of terror there. America’s extraordinary on the first two Project 28 corvettes. economic interdependence with China and Washington’s Besides design and planning confusion, warship building is also need for Beijing’s cooperation on a range of regional and global dogged by capacity limitations. All four public sector warship yards issues deter the US from an explicit balancing strategy. But – Mazagon Dock (Mumbai); Garden Reach (Kolkata); Goa Shipyard India should resist the temptation for an endless debate on (Goa) and Hindustan Shipyard (Visakhapatnam) – are located in whether America can move away from China and Pakistan metropolitan areas with little scope for expanding facilities. To add and be India’s reliable partner.