INS Vishal
INS Vishal is a designed aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy that Cochin Shipyard Limited will construct.
It is also renowned as Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 2 (IAC2).
Following the INS Vikrant, it is projected to be India’s second aircraft carrier (IAC-1).
The proposed design for the second carrier will be a unique innovation with significant differences from Vikrant, such as expansion and displacement.
A CATOBAR ("Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery”) Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) seems to be considered.
The INS Vishal will make India the third country in the world, after the United States and France, to maintain a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
It will be the third aircraft carrier in India after INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant
Why India needs a third aircraft carrier ?
The debate over IAC-2 has been plagued by numerous reservations like its astronomical cost of around $5-6 billion and its operational efficacy in an environment of burgeoning anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capability honed by China and Pakistan.
TheA2/AD is essentially a multi-layered defensive strategy to deter enemy carrier operations.
Furthermore, recent advances in cruise missile technology have made it easier and cheaper for countries like China and Pakistan to conduct A2/AD operations.
So much so that even the U.S. Navy considered China’s evolved A2/AD strategy a serious threat to its fleet, and remained wary of challenging it.
Moreover, within the Indian Navy, opinion was split between operationally pursuing a ‘sea denial’ strategy, largely by deploying submarines, or alternately seeking a ‘sea control’ approach via costly and relatively more vulnerable carrier battle groups comprising multiple surface and underwater escorts.
Some also questioned the monetary logic of building a new carrier at the cost of inducting additional ‘killer-hunters’ SSKs (Scorpene-class submarine) whose numbers in the Indian Navy had depleted to 16, of which 11 from Russia and Germany were either beyond, or nearing retirement
Financial constraints have forced the Indian Navy to revise its goal of operating 200 assorted warships by 2027 in keeping with the Maritime Capability Perspective Plan (MCPP).
These fiscal shortages had also reduced the Navy’s demand for 12 mine counter-measures to eight and an additional 10 Boeing P-8I Neptune long range maritime multi-mission aircraft, to just six.
AF veterans reasoned that under the prevailing penurious conditions, an aircraft carrier would not only be a ‘costly indulgence’ but more pertinently, entail fielding a platform vulnerable to formidable A2/AD threats.
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