This is the second of a multi-part series that looks at aircraft carriers and other naval technologies, and discusses what might work for India. In here, we focus specifically on aircraft carriers, looking at the pros and cons, and discussing how they would affect India. The first part in this series was a brief primer on maritime strategy, and can be found here.
A few months ago, India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, undertook and completed its first sea voyage as part of its sea trials. This 40,000 tonne ship marks India’s entry into an elite club of countries that have the capability of constructing their own aircraft carriers.
Worldwide, aircraft carriers are usually the flagship of any navy. They serve as a symbol of power, a means of launching air missions over distant lands or seas, as well as for providing humanitarian relief in times of need. However, both in India, and across the world, developments in modern weapons technology have raised several concerns about the vulnerability of these carriers. Justifying their steep costs of construction and operation is an additional challenge.
Carriers in the Indian context
The INS Vikrant (the recent indigenous carrier is its namesake) was India’s first aircraft carrier. It was commissioned in 1961 after being purchased as an incomplete carrier in 1957 from the Royal Navy. It was decommissioned in 1997, served as a museum ship from 2001-2012, and then scrapped in 2014. The INS Viraat was commissioned in 1987 after being purchased from the Royal Navy, and decommissioned in 2017.
Since 2013, India has operated a single aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya, which is a refurbished Russian carrier.
India is in the process of constructing two indigenous aircraft carriers (IACs). The INS Vikrant has been constructed, and recently completed its first sea trials. The INS Vishal has been planned as a much larger carrier — however, to the best of our knowledge, no definite plans or designs have been pinned down as yet. This suggests that construction is still some time away.
The strategic goal of the Indian Navy is to have a three aircraft carrier fleet. This will allow for one carrier on each seaboard (that is, one for the Arabian Sea and one for the Bay of Bengal), and one carrier in reserve. The reserve carrier is important because aircraft carriers face lengthy maintenance docking periods due to the complexity of the systems involved.
What Aircraft Carriers bring on board
Carriers have a lot of operational flexibility. Tweaking the deployment of the air wing (that is, the aircrafts that are stationed onboard) can modify what the carrier can be deployed for. As such, among mobile military assets, aircraft carriers are unrivaled in the range of combat options they offer. Even during peacetime, carriers can provide humanitarian aid during emergencies via an appropriate air wing deployment.
Launchpad for military operations
Aircraft carriers can be used as a launching board for military operations far away from the mainland. For example, in the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh, the Indian Navy used aircrafts onboard INS Vikrant to strike targets deep within erstwhile East Pakistan. This provided support for the land operations being carried out by the Indian Army. The US Navy has also used aircraft carriers in this manner, with the USS Midway being used to launch aircraft to begin the air campaign during Operation Desert Storm.
On the flip side, the deployed air wing might consist of aircrafts having shorter ranges. Taking off within the limited length of on the carrier runway means fuel tanks can be only partially filled. It has been pointed out that
…Vikrant and Vikramaditya would struggle in strike operations (against Pakistan) because of limitations on aircraft weight…
This would limit the scope of airborne operations from the aircraft carrier — however note that the aircraft carrier itself is likely to be a significant distance from the mainland, and taking that into account could result in a net increase in range as compared to shore-based air campaigns. More importantly, this can open an added dimension during a war and put pressure on the opponent.
Sea control and sea denial
Our previous article describes some of the nuances of sea denial and sea control, along with some discussion on strategies used by the USA, China, and Russia. We also saw that the Indian Navy has generally believed more in “control”-based strategies that are focused on the Indian Ocean Region.
Aircraft carriers are ideally suited for, and are usually considered to be a central part of control-based strategies. To quote Rahul Bedi writing for The Wire:
The Indian Naval Doctrine … opts for carrier battle groups (CBGs) on the grounds that these comprise the most ‘substantial’ instruments in securing the aim of sea control, as these assets possess ‘ordnance delivery capability of a high order’ to assist the Navy in prevailing over the enemy’s ‘Centre of Gravity’ by degrading his Decisive Points.
Aircraft carriers can help secure Indian interests by protecting her sea lines of communication (SLOCs) and the associated mercantile traffic effectively.
Peacetime assistance
Aircraft carriers can be platforms for disaster management and humanitarian relief. They can provide medical assistance and a self generating supply of fresh water to populations in dire need. For instance, INS Viraat was vital in the 2004 tsunami relief efforts. They can also be reconfigured based on the type of disaster, which allows for tactical flexibility.
Tried and tested
Aircraft carriers are military assets that have been proven to work, with global powers seeking to expand their aircraft carriers in operation. The United States operates 11 nuclear powered carriers, with the intent to maintain a twelve-carrier force into the future. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) today operates two operational aircraft carriers with a third under construction. Defence analysts estimate that the PLA-N is likely to have four operational aircraft carriers by 2028, with the eventual aim of having a 10 aircraft carrier navy by 2049.
Sidebar: This article provides an informative comparison between nuclear-powered and conventional-powered aircraft carriers. The trade-offs are complex, but the bottom line is that nuclear-powered carriers can be tricky and expensive to maintain and dispose of, and using conventional fuel-powered carriers seems to be the way forward when budgets are limited.
Do the counter-arguments hold water?
One of the biggest criticisms of carriers is their outsized costs. Their vulnerability to recent advances in missile technology are also causes for concern, and they are in many ways large, sinkable targets in the middle of the ocean.
At the same time, it is important to note that since aircraft carriers are high-value units, their use has always been dictated by the degree of risk it is appropriate to incur.1
Prohibitive costs
The total outlay for INS Vikrant is estimated to be $11 billion, including the cost overruns and the 36 aircraft on it. India’s third carrier, the INS Vishal, could cost up to $17 billion by the time it is operational. This does not even consider the high costs of staffing and operating such platforms.
Fuel and operational costs
The Indian Navy does not have on public record its costs incurred in deploying an aircraft carrier. However, estimates for the cost of operation of a USS Ford-class carrier are in the ballpark of $100 million per year, and the RAND Corporation has estimated the cost of operating a Royal Navy carrier to be about £500,000 per day (Also see this RAND monograph on their estimation methodology). Aircraft carriers are deployed along with a carrier group with other ships for protection (more on this below) — the cost of operating an entire US Navy carrier group is about $7 million a day!
There are legitimate questions about whether expenditure of this magnitude is wasteful, especially for a country like India. On the other hand, building an advanced ship like an aircraft carrier indigenously means that a good portion of the initial expenditure will go towards domestic job creation and employment, which is good for the economy. To quote FICCI Advisor Commodore Sujeet Samaddar N.M. (Retired):
Shipbuilding leads to job creation and this is the key need for our country. There is no other industry with a higher multiple of job creation than the shipbuilding industry. Most estimates quote that one job in a shipyard results in 60-65 jobs outside in direct employment.
The INS Vikrant (Project 71 IAC 1) was constructed by Cochin Shipyard Limited, and involved around 50 local companies and manufacturers. 75% of the total material equipment and material used was locally sourced2.
A larger portion of the local procurement was for the ‘float’ component which includes the hull and overall structure (90% domestic sourcing), showcasing India’s development of the shipbuilding industry. However, the weapons and propulsion equipment was imported to a greater extent (70% and 50% respectively), suggesting directions where India can improve indigenous capabilities in the future.
Docking and maintenance
An aircraft carrier on average requires six months of maintenance for every six months of deployment. This reduces its effective deployment and operation by a factor of two. The lengthy docking periods have at times raised concerns even for the US Navy, which has a total of 11 aircraft carriers, all of which are nuclear-powered (which means that docking for refueling is a rare occurrence).
Maintenance is also expensive. The are a number of advanced interlinked systems that need to be up and running perfectly with each other for optimal performance, and requires many teams working in parallel to meet the six month maintenance timeline. However, the recent construction of a dry dock in India that is large enough to accommodate the INS Vikramaditya is estimated to save the Indian Navy around 10 lakh rupees a day.
Vulnerability
Another oft-cited concern is that carriers can become a target for enemy missiles and submarines during a conflict.
The first step in attacking a carrier is to find it. Satellite imaging and detection capabilities have advanced significantly in recent years, and this has reduced the scenarios where carriers can be used in stealth operations, thereby limiting their potency.
The most effective weapons available to attack carriers are ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, torpedos, and mines.
Ballistic missiles
Recent advances in missile technology have seen the development of hypersonic ballistic missiles (such as the Chinese Dong-Feng-21) that can hit moving aircraft carriers from a distance of up to 5,000 km. Hypersonic means speeds greater than Mach 5, or about 6,200 km/h.
A quick example: The distance between the Chinese port of Hainan to the Lakshadweep Islands is about 4,200 km, a distance that can be covered at Mach 5 in about 40 minutes. The distance from Xinjiang to Lakshadweep is around 3,900 km. Most of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea can thus be assumed to be within 4,000 km of Chinese missile launch facilities. In comparison, the top speed of the recently commissioned INS Vikrant is only about 52 km/h. It would take some time to reach this top speed too. As a result, it would be essential to detect a missile launch very soon after it happens in order to be able to take appropriate evasive manoeuvres and avoid damage to the carrier group.
Submarines
Submarines also pose a potent threat to the aircraft carrier. Nuclear submarines and the hybrid diesel-electric submarines when running on electric mode are very quiet and therefore hard to detect. In simulated exercises carried out between the USA and France, there were a number of simulations in which a submarine was able to get past the defences surrounding the carrier and “sink” it.
A2AD weapons systems
Various navies across the world now have anti-access/area denial (A2AD) integrated weapons systems, which can be used to target ships out at sea. We looked briefly at China’s and Russia’s A2AD capabilities in the last article.
All of this has made some critics describe carriers as ‘white elephants’ and ‘floating status symbols’. Importantly, a preoccupation with keeping such an expensive asset safe could prevent it from fulfilling its full range of wartime capabilities. For example, during Operation Vijay, which wrested control of Goa from Portugal in 1961, INS Vikrant was instructed to keep clear of the embattled enclave when a foreign submarine was detected.
Striking a balance
Carriers, while exceedingly expensive at the time of acquisition, generate their fair share of strategic and tactical gains. Even the issue of cost itself is tempered when the lifetime of a carrier, across 40 - 45 years, is taken into consideration.
The latest aircraft carriers have made strides towards addressing concerns of vulnerability. They have some resilience against the attacks highlighted. The USS Ford class aircraft carriers have been tested to withstand indirect explosive blasts at close range. There have been suggestions to include air defence systems on Indian ships too — however this would significantly increase the cost of construction.
Furthermore, the aircraft carrier is generally always deployed as part of a larger group of vessels. This could include warships, frigates, and submarines. Sinking the carrier alone would require simultaneous strikes by multiple weapons systems, due to the multiple water locks that are designed in such large vessels. The attack would have to also disable a good portion of the supporting carrier group, and if it fails to do so, there would be a massive retaliatory response.
The fear of carriers sinking may be overblown if precedence is considered. The last aircraft carrier to be sunk in conflict was the Japanese aircraft carrier Amagi in 1945. In addition, in the current climate of “hostile peace” where global powers are hesitant to engage in full fledged combat, carriers are unlikely to be targeted, as that would risk a dramatic escalation in the conflict.
Ultimately, carriers help realize the navy’s vision for ‘blue water’ capabilities. They can easily switch between soft power diplomacy, power projection and combat operations, therefore becoming game changers for India.
At the same time, it would be remiss of us not to look at the alternatives to aircraft carriers, and their positives and negatives, so as to have a more complete view on how aircraft carriers benefit India. This will be the focus of our next article.
PS: The subtitle was inspired by this song. It is rather catchy, so be warned if you don’t like earworms.