India and China's first homegrown aircraft carrier, Vikrant VS Shandong

India's first homegrown aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, was officially commissioned on September 2nd, after more than 10 years of construction. Similar to China, India first converted an aircraft carrier from the former Soviet Union, and then built a domestic aircraft carrier with reference to it. So how does the Vikrant compare to China's first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandong? Today, I will compare the first domestic aircraft carrier of India and China. India and Chinese aircraft carriers are all from the former Soviet Union. As the largest country in the Indian Ocean, India has a much longer history of owning and using aircraft carriers than China. In the 1960s, India had the first aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, which was also used by the domestic aircraft carrier that has just been in service. Vikrant means mighty or heroic in Sanskrit. The first generation Vikrant was originally the Majestic Class Aircraft Carrier, HMS Hercules, built by the United Kingdom during World War II. Later, the construction was interrupted because the war had ended. After being purchased by India in 1957, it was restarted and modernized, and it was equipped with the Indian Navy in 1961. The first generation Vikrant played a key role in enforcing the naval blockade of East Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. India purchased retired Royal Navy's HMS Hermes in 1986, named it INS Virat. HMS Hermes was built at the end of World War II and participated in the Falkland Islands War in 1982. And INS Virat was decommissioned in 2016. India's third aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, entered service in 2013. It was converted from the No. 4 ship of the former Soviet Union's Kiev-class aircraft carrier. China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was refitted from the second ship Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier, Varyag. The Kuznetsov-class was born later than the Kiev-class and is more like a professional. The displacement at full load increased to nearly 60,000 tons. As for the Kiev-class, its full load is 43,000 tons with various missiles, so it is called an aircraft cruiser. When India purchased it, a comprehensive modification was carried out. The entire modification took 9 years and cost 2.3 billion US dollars. It can carry 20 MiG-29K fighter jets and 10 helicopters. The Varyag, which China brought from Ukraine, was not completed at the time. It was bought by a Chinese veteran in 1998 in the name of building a maritime casino and then was dragged to Dalian in 2002. China purchased a full set of drawings from Ukraine and hired Ukrainian experts to guide the construction and renovation since 2005, and finally delivered it to the PLA Navy in 2012. China did not have a carrier-based aircraft at that time, so it purchased a prototype of the Su-33 from Ukraine and imitated the Shen Yun J-15 multi-role fighter aircrafts. India's fourth aircraft carrier is the domestically produced INS Vikrant, the largest warship ever built by India. It was designed by the Indian Navy's Directorate of Naval Design, with technical support from the Italian Fincantieri Group, and built by the Cochin Shipyard in India. The design work started in 1999. The keel was laid on February 28, 2009. It was first removed from the dry dock on December 29, 2011, and officially launched on August 12, 2013. The construction of the INS Vikrant has been tortuous. It has been launched three times. The progress is dragging and pulling, and the design and construction time is as long as 23 years. The Vikrant is 860 feet long, 203 feet wide, and has a displacement of 45,000 tons. It uses four General Electric LM2500 Plus gas turbines, licensed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, with total power up to 160,000 horsepower. The maximum speed is 30 knots. The endurance is 8,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. It can self-sustain power for 45 days, and the staffing is 1,350. The displacement and size are similar to those of the Super Sun King, but the power system is changed to a gas turbine, and the endurance is significantly enhanced. There is also a ski-jump take-off deck on the bow deck, which is also very similar to the Vikrant Maditya. The Vikrant can carry 30 aircrafts. It was originally planned to carry 20 fixed-wing aircrafts, including 12 MiG-29Ks and 8 HAL Tejas light fighter jets and 10 helicopters, but it has been determined that the MiG-29K will not be used again, and one will be selected from the Boeing F-8-18EF Super Hornet and the Dassault Rafale. The aircraft carrier is equipped with four-sided active electronically scanned array radar, vertical launch anti-aircraft missiles, and close-in anti-aircraft guns, and has strong self-defense capabilities. The AESA radar is developed by Israel-Elta Systems, operating in the S-band. This radar can perform 3D air surveillance, plane search, multi-target simultaneous tracking, weapon command and fire control, and other operations, especially in the absence of fixed-wing early warning aircraft. The radar can coordinate the 450-km air defense early warning of India's new aircraft carrier. China's first homegrown aircraft carrier, Shandong, was also developed with reference to the previous aircraft carrier. Sitting at a length of 1,000 feet, a width of 246 feet, a depth of 36 feet, and a displacement of nearly 70,000 tons, it also takes off by ski jump and can carry 44 aircrafts, including 32 J-15 fighters and 12 helicopters. The Shandong is also equipped with AESA radar, as well as self-defense weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles and CIWS close-in weapon systems. The Shandong is much larger in size and displacement than the Vikrant, but the carrier-based aircraft has not increased accordingly. It can be seen that the whole design may still follow the Soviet model. While the Vikrant benefits from Italian fincantieri, the design has many similarities with Italy's KVOR aircraft carrier. The Shandong's power system is still conventional steam turbines, with backward technology and insufficient maneuverability. The Vikrant used the well-established and popular LM2500-plus gas turbines, the same as the KVOR, but with more power to accommodate the larger displacement. China's large-scale power system, whether it is the Air Force or Navy, has always been a soft underbelly. The Navy's Type 052 destroyers once used the LM2500 gas turbine, but were later embargoed because of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Later China imported gas turbines from Ukraine and used them on the Type 052C destroyer. It also purchased drawings from Ukraine, hired experts, and finally imitated and developed the gas turbines used in the current Type 052D and Type 055. Because of the displacement and size constraints of the Vikrant, the takeoff and landing cannot be carried out at the same time, greatly reducing the operation's performance. Because the takeoff position is close to the port side, even the jet blast deflector is omitted. The Shandong is longer and wider, the takeoff position is around the middle, so takeoff and landing performance is superior than that of the Vikrant. Now as an aircraft carrier, the hull is the carrier and the real power lies in the aircraft. If they're not powerful, no matter how large the carrier is, it's just a large support ship at best. During its initial design, the Vikrant was considered to continue to use the MiG-29K fighters. India chose the Russian carrier-based MiG-29K when refitting the Vikramaditya. Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau also improved the MiG-29K fighters for India and India purchased 45 MiG-29Ks in two installments. However, after all, the MiG-29K is an old aircraft modified and has not reached the technical level of the 4th gen fighter. In addition, there are many questions in operating and MiG-29K's reliability and availability are very poor, so India's Navy want changing MiG-29Ks. By the 2010s, India had gradually started to become more diverse. For the next generation of weapons, India has basically abandoned Russian manufacturing and began to cooperate with manufacturers in Europe and the United States, either in design and development or directly purchasing. In terms of carrier-based aircraft, India has also begun to tender Europe and the US. Finally, the Rafale-M fighter of the French Dassault Company and the F-A-18EF Super Hornet of the American Boeing Company entered the final stage. In addition, the Indian Navy may also carry the recently purchased MH-60R Seahawk anti-submarine helicopter on the Vikram. Both the Rafale and the Super Hornet are multi-role fighter aircrafts. They were tested at the Hansa base, where the Indian Navy has a runway to simulate take-off conditions. The Super Hornet is medium-sized and the Rafale-M is similar to the MiG-29K. Indian Air Force has purchased 36 land-based Rafale fighters, while the Super Hornet's load and range are greater than that of the Rafale. And Boeing's Super Hornet will be the latest Block III, which has many improvements over the current Block II. The variety and performance of weapons that the Super Hornet can carry far exceeds that of the Rafale. Super Hornet is also more advanced than Rafale when in avionics. According to current configuration of the Vikrant, Super Hornet is more likely to be selected. First, the Rafale's inability to hold its wings not only makes it take up more space on deck and in the hangar than a Super Hornet, but would also force the removal of the missile launcher rails from the wingtips to fit into the Vikrant's elevators, which are narrower than those of French or American carriers. Quite an inconvenience. On the other hand, given its limited production of under 50 units, the only operator is the French Navy. The price of the Rafale-M is higher than that of the conventional take-off versions operated by the French Air Force, India Air Force, and several export customers. Also, there are about 1,400 Super Hornet cells produced, which would lower certain operating costs due to economies of scale. Another aspect that would favor the choice of the Super Hornet is the engines. The U.S. naval fighter uses two General Electric F-414 engines, which is the same powerplant chosen by India to equip its own design of carrier-based fighter, the twin-engine deck-based fighter, TED-BF, for the Navy, and which will also be the engine of the Indian Air Force's Tejas Mk 2. The F-414 is expected to be manufactured in India under license from General Electric. The Chinese aircraft carrier J-15 is developed using the Su-33 prototype and full of similarities to the Soviet fighter. The most criticized is that the fuselage is too heavy and the empty weight is 38,600 pounds compared to the Super Hornet's 32,100 pounds. The power system is also a flaw in the J-15. The J-15's engine initially used the Russian Al-31F3, and the new model used the Chinese WS-10A. The fuel efficiency, maintainability, and life of these engines are far inferior to the American and French engines. The J-15 cannot take off with full fuel and bombs, and the combat radius is greatly limited. In various exercises, the J-15 can only take off with air-to-air missiles, which mainly play the role of air dominance and cannot achieve attack power against warships, which also loses the maximum function of carrier-based aircraft. Of course, when the Super Hornet or Rafale takes off in a ski jump, its performance will also be limited, and it cannot be fully fueled, but if its weight is light, it can mount more weapons. In this regard, the gap between the J-15 is relatively large. Moreover, both Super Hornet and Rafale have participated in actual combat, and Super Hornet has experienced many battles. Their combat effectiveness has been affirmed, while the J-15 has no real experience. Overall, the various hardware performance of the aircraft carrier Vikrant is better than that of the Shandong. If it is used properly, it should exert greater combat power. Of course, there are still many variables. The Indian Navy has been rapidly rising recently, and in the future, relying on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue Mechanism, it will play a greater role in the Indo-Pacific area.