India Weighing Nuclear Powered Carrier

[frigidmagi]

USNI

India is considering powering its second domestically built aircraft carrier with a nuclear propulsion plant, according to a Tuesday report by news agency Press Trust of India.

The design of the carrier is ongoing and nuclear power is still an option for the carrier, said Director General of Naval Design Bureau, Rear Admiral Atul Saxena, in response to questions from reporters.

India’s first domestically built carrier — the 40,000-ton INS Vikrant currently under construction in Cochin Shipyard in Southern India — will be powered by four General Electric LM-2500 gas turbines.

The second carrier Vishal is planned to be much larger — up to 65,000-tons — and is still in the conceptual design process, Saxena said.

Last year Indian officials said the two major decisions for the carrier were its power supply and launching and recovery methods for the planned Vishnal.

Though more technically complicated in design and construction stages, a nuclear powered carrier provides greater flexibility to commanders once in operation, Eric Wertheim, author of the Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World, told USNI News on Wednesday.

“Nuclear power frees up space,” he said.
“You don’t have to store fuel for your ship onboard.”

Nuclear carriers have more room for ammunition and fuel for aircraft on the ship and shedding the requirement for refueling the ship simplify the logistics of resupplying the carrier at sea.

However, it’s unclear if India can overcome the technical requirements to fielding a nuclear carrier.

“It’s a big if. There’s a lot of challenges to overcome,” Wertheim said.
“I’m skeptical how soon India would be able to master that ability.”

India’s new leadership is bullish on the country’s carrier ambitions, writ large.

In July, India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi backed funding the $3.18 billion needed to complete INS Vikrant, following a visit to India’s Russian built carrier, INS Vikramaditya.

Vikrant supposed to be completed in 2013 but delays in construction have pushed the operational date to 2018.

Eventually, India wants to operate three carrier battle groups (CBG).

Part of India’s push to create a carrier force widely seen as a hedge against Chinese expansion and the growing capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

China is currently working on its own domestic carrier program with a reported goal of four ships.

The Indian Navy currently operates two originally foreign carriers — the Russian built INS Vikramaditya and the 50 year-old carrier INS Viraat — the former British carrier Hermes.

[LadyTevar]

Blame China for this?

[General Havoc]

I doubt India will actually pull the trigger on this, but it's an interesting flag to fly.

[Josh]

I have a feeling that by mid-century carriers are going to turn out to be little more than extra-big targets. But things like these aren't just about actual military power, but rather making statements with the defense budget about one's place in the global scheme.

[General Havoc]

I have a feeling that by mid-century carriers are going to turn out to be little more than extra-big targets. But things like these aren't just about actual military power, but rather making statements with the defense budget about one's place in the global scheme.

That theory's been dancing about since the mid-50s, frankly, and it hasn't happened yet. This doesn't mean it won't ever happen of course, but carriers have purposes other than fighting World War III, something the US has proven on many occasions and China (and India) plainly believe.

[Lys]

To put it in really simple terms: Air power reigns supreme over modern warfare, aircraft carriers are giant floating air bases, an 70% of the planetary surface is water. If you want power projection capabilities, you need a carrier.

[Josh]

Oh yeah, carriers are johnny on the spot for wars in third world turf, as we've demonstrated twice against Iraq. Basically, their primary purpose these days is exactly that: providing quick support on land. But whatever form the next big one takes, they're probably heading for the historical devaluation that battleships got.

Much like the Great White Fleet, though, they're great for large and visible displays of power and technological prowess.

[General Havoc]

Oh yeah, carriers are johnny on the spot for wars in third world turf, as we've demonstrated twice against Iraq. Basically, their primary purpose these days is exactly that: providing quick support on land. But whatever form the next big one takes, they're probably heading for the historical devaluation that battleships got.

Much like the Great White Fleet, though, they're great for large and visible displays of power and technological prowess.

Battleships disappeared entirely, rendered entirely obsolete by the coming of the carrier. Even if they become easy to sink, I do not foresee the need for mobile air bases in remote locations disappearing all of a sudden.

[LadyTevar]

I agree about the Carrier still being a necessity. It and its attending ships are a full CIC complete with MASH, Air Force, Troop Landing, and Artillery. For the foreseeable future, there is nothing in the pipes that can replace it for that role.

Now, when the battle is house-to-house like a lot of ISIL will turn out ot be, a carrier is left to CIC Overwatch. Unless there's a safety margin to 'bring the rain', that is.

[frigidmagi]

With the advent of laser and railgun based missile protection, I think it might be to early to count out the Aircraft carrier.

We'll see.

[Batman]

Carriers mean you get air power to anywhere that has a coastline, and until the value of air power is either negated somehow or we get the ability to deploy it from fixed bases half a planet away in a timely fashion the carrier's here to stay.

[Lys]

Basically if something negates the aircraft carrier as a thing it's more likely to do so by negating the "aircraft" part over the "carrier" part. Even then, should anti-aircraft systems advance to the point where it's suicidal to fly a combat aircraft, we would likely simply replace them with swarms of cheap, disposable drones. So aircraft carriers would change to drone carriers, but their fundamental mission and role would remain the same. The one other thing that might see the demise of carriers is widespread orbital weapon systems and military infrastructure, as there's basically nothing a carrier can do to defend against a rods from god type weapon.

[Batman]

A drone carrier would still be an aircraft carrier. It would merely be carrying unmanned aircraft, and if you think that's semantics nitpicking that's because it is.

And I'd argue that in a 'Rod from God' scenario, carriers become even more valuable. Fixed airbases are an automatic fatality if your enemy has that kind of capability because they can't move, and pretty much everybody knows where they are for most of them. Carriers CAN. Which means your enemy has to a) locate them and b) manage to get a killer satellite in a position to strike.
Unless you want to intimate every involved party has orbital strike capacity everywhere on the planet at all times, which would naturally render carriers useless...along with all other forms of conventional warfare except for occupation/'peacekeeping'/'rebuilding' purposes.

[Lys]

The first part is more or less the same one I was making, even systems that will neutralize much of the effectiveness of modern air power will merely see said air power shifted to more disposable platforms. In the second case, yes I was positing a scenario wherein the carrier is rendered obsolete by orbital strike capability in much the same way the battleship was rendered obsolete by air strike capability. Advantage of the high ground and all that. You're right that in the initial parts of the transition from one to the other carriers will be more valuable than ever, arguably the same was true for the early days of air power, but eventually there would be little point to them just as eventually there was little point to battleships.

[Josh]

Basically if something negates the aircraft carrier as a thing it's more likely to do so by negating the "aircraft" part over the "carrier" part. Even then, should anti-aircraft systems advance to the point where it's suicidal to fly a combat aircraft, we would likely simply replace them with swarms of cheap, disposable drones. So aircraft carriers would change to drone carriers, but their fundamental mission and role would remain the same. The one other thing that might see the demise of carriers is widespread orbital weapon systems and military infrastructure, as there's basically nothing a carrier can do to defend against a rods from god type weapon.

The eventual elimination of manned combat aircraft and advanced sub tactics/usage, basically.

To word my premise more clearly, I don't think that the aviation aspect of naval warfare will go away entirely. I think the era of the big fleet carrier will, though, in favor of smaller platforms that are less vulnerable and also less of a crippling blow when they get sunk. Also I expect they'll be primarily/exclusively drone platforms due to the advances coming in AA tech as well as how as how crippled our ability to design/implement/produce high-end manned combat aircraft has become over the past couple of decades.

[Lys]

The difficulty and expense of producing modern weapons systems is itself an interesting discussion. Basically, our technological base is advancing at a faster pace than our industrial base. Consider the first half of the 20th century, when the absolute cutting edge of our available technology could be rapidly designed, prototyped, put into mass production, and used in the field. Consider the F4U Corsair and P-51 Mustang were the pinnacle of two branches of fighter design (radial air-cooled, and in-line liquid-cooled) when they were introduced, and the both of them had their requests for proposal issued in early 1938 and were flying in combat by mid-1942. We also built over 12 000 Corsairs and over 15 0000 Mustangs. For another example, the first operational jet fighter used by the US Air Force went from paper to prototype in 143 days, then prototype to production in about two years. Granted all of these were under wartime strains, but consider the F-86 Sabre, which was mostly designed post war and only took about five years to go from paper to operational. We built 9860 of them. These are all examples of the absolute best that the technology at the time could produce, just as the F-15 Eagle was in its time, and the F-22 Raptor is now.

Yet when you look at the F-15 you start to see the design process getting slower and more complicated, it's not longer something that you can rapidly prototype and send off to be mass produced. The Eagle took eight years to go from proposal to production, and only around 1200 of them have been built. The F-16 is little better, having gone from request for proposal to full scale production in seven years, though its production run is rather more robust at 4500 aircraft. Then we move to the modern day and the F-22, the successor to the F-15, took ten years to go from request to prototype, and then another nine to go from prototype to operational, and the entire production run was less than 200 aircraft. The F-35 Lightning II, which will replace the Viper isn't any better. Taking 1996 as the request for proposal date, and the fact that the thing is projected to be operational in 2016, we're looking at 20 years to go from a piece of paper to a functional combat aircraft, longer if there are more delays.

Now there are some severe problems with the whole procurement process which expand costs and magnify delays, but the fact is that our ability to actually implement our most advanced technology such that it can withstand the rigours of combat has been diminishing. Part of the problem is that increasing technological complexity has demanded increasing industrial complexity. No longer can you just retool a furniture factory to build bombers like you could during the Second World War, you need to build the required machinery and production facilities nearly from the ground up. Perhaps with the advent of 3D printing the trend will reverse, but a lot of the complexity in modern weapons systems lies in the electronics, and these don't seem like they will much benefit from 3D printing processes, so this may very well be an ongoing problem for the foreseeable future.

This is actually the main question that comes to mind when I think about the whole singularity thing. Where the fuck is the industrial machinery and infrastructure to support the technological hard take-off going to come from? A self-improving AI might have any number of grand ideas and theories it wants to try out, but no means to actually implement them because the tools to do it simply don't exist. In fact, the self-improving AI would be itself limited by the hardware it is running on, such that it might know how to make itself smarter, but not be able to do so for lack of memory space or processing power.

[frigidmagi]

Building our industrial base is more expensive then researching new tech right now. That'll change. Give it time. Our comsumer products are getting more and more up there as well. At some point we're going to have to completely rebuild everything... Actually I've posted articles in the past showing... That we already are. Piece by piece. Alot of our factories are being retooled, 3D printing and other technologies are becoming more common as companies invest in them as a means to become once again competitive with cheap Asian labor.

Like I said, give it time.

That said, I am completely in favor of limiting AI's.