India has already experienced several generations of aircraft-carrier aviation. From the original INS Vikrant and its Sea Hawk fighters to the Sea Harrier era of INS Viraat, and from INS Vikramaditya to the indigenous INS Vikrant, India's carrier journey has repeatedly adapted to changes in aviation technology.
Now India faces another important choice: Should the next aircraft carrier simply be another evolution of INS Vikrant, or should India begin moving toward CATOBAR carrier aviation?
The answer could determine the character of Indian naval aviation for several decades.
This article was originally published as part of Manoj Ambat World View and is reproduced here on Strategic Vanguard for our long-standing Blogspot readership.
Read the original article on ManojAmbat.in:
https://www.manojambat.in/post/indias-next-aircraft-carrier-another-vikrant-or-catobar-future
Watch the Manoj Ambat World View video:
https://youtu.be/ADZbnMj6NrU
India Has Been Here Before
There is an interesting historical fact at the heart of India's current aircraft-carrier debate. India has operated a catapult-equipped carrier before.
The original INS Vikrant operated Sea Hawk fighter aircraft during the early decades of India's carrier aviation. Unlike today's STOBAR aircraft operations, conventional carrier fighters such as the Sea Hawk could use catapult-assisted launches to become airborne with useful operational loads.
This means that CATOBAR is not an entirely new concept for the Indian Navy. India has already experienced conventional catapult carrier aviation.
But India's carrier philosophy subsequently changed.
The arrival of the Sea Harrier introduced a completely different model. Its STOVL capability—short takeoff and vertical landing—meant that the aircraft did not depend on a conventional catapult for launch. This allowed India to operate a different type of carrier aviation, eventually continuing the model aboard INS Viraat.
The important lesson is that India did not abandon the catapult simply because catapults had become obsolete. The aircraft had changed, and the carrier-aircraft combination changed with it.
Today, the aircraft are changing again.
From Sea Harrier to STOBAR
After the Sea Harrier era, India returned to conventional carrier fighters through INS Vikramaditya and subsequently INS Vikrant.
But this time, India adopted the STOBAR model.
STOBAR—Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery—uses a ski jump to assist aircraft during takeoff, while arresting wires are used during recovery. This approach is less complex than a full CATOBAR system and has allowed India to operate conventional carrier fighters without installing steam or electromagnetic catapults.
INS Vikrant represents a major achievement in this respect because India did not merely acquire another carrier. It demonstrated the ability to design and construct a modern aircraft carrier domestically.
For India's immediate requirements, an enhanced Vikrant-type carrier can therefore appear attractive. It uses a technological pathway India already understands and can potentially be constructed with lower risk than an entirely new CATOBAR carrier.
But there is a larger question.
Should the carrier India commissions in the future be designed primarily around the aircraft India operates today?
The Payload Question
The biggest strategic argument for CATOBAR is not simply the ability to launch an aircraft.
It is the ability to launch an aircraft at a useful operational weight.
A carrier-based fighter has to balance several competing requirements. It needs fuel for range and endurance. It needs weapons for the mission. It may need sensors, electronic-warfare equipment and other stores.
A ski-jump launch imposes particular aerodynamic and weight constraints. Depending on the aircraft and operating conditions, compromises may have to be made between fuel, weapons and launch weight.
A catapult provides additional launch energy. That gives the carrier greater flexibility in launching heavier aircraft and in combining fuel and weapons loads.
This leads to a simple but important distinction.
A carrier is not merely a platform from which aircraft take off. It is a platform that determines how much combat capability those aircraft can take into the air.
That is why CATOBAR deserves to be considered as more than a mechanical technology.
It can be a combat capability multiplier.
CATOBAR Is About More Than Fighters
The future carrier air wing will probably be considerably more diverse than today's fighter fleet.
A modern carrier battle group requires persistent surveillance, early warning, electronic warfare, intelligence and long-range strike capabilities. Fighters remain central, but they are only one component of the larger aviation system.
One of the most important advantages potentially offered by CATOBAR is the ability to operate fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft.
Such aircraft can provide much greater airborne sensor coverage and endurance than many helicopter-based alternatives. They can detect and track threats at considerable distances and provide information to the carrier's fighter force and wider naval network.
The importance of this capability becomes even greater as missiles become longer-ranged and naval warfare becomes increasingly dependent on networked sensors.
The carrier of the future will therefore need to be more than a floating fighter base.
It will increasingly become a mobile aviation and information centre.
The Unmanned Carrier
Another major change will come from unmanned aviation.
Future carrier air wings could include unmanned combat aircraft, surveillance systems, electronic-warfare platforms and potentially unmanned tanker or support aircraft.
Some of these systems may be relatively light. Others could become large and sophisticated aircraft requiring substantial launch energy.
This creates another reason to think beyond the limitations of today's carrier design.
India's future carrier should have the flexibility to accommodate aircraft that do not yet exist.
That is one of the most important arguments for thinking about CATOBAR now, even if India decides that an enhanced STOBAR carrier is the appropriate immediate solution.
China's Fujian and the Future of Carrier Aviation
The discussion cannot be separated from developments in the Indo-Pacific.
China's aircraft-carrier programme has progressed from ski-jump carriers to the more sophisticated CATOBAR configuration represented by Fujian.
The significance of Fujian is not simply its size. Its importance lies in the expansion of the types of aircraft and aviation systems that a catapult-equipped carrier can potentially operate.
India does not have to copy China's carrier architecture.
India's strategic requirements, geography, industrial base and naval doctrine are different.
But technological developments elsewhere provide an indication of where carrier aviation is heading.
If India commissions a major new carrier in the 2030s, that ship could remain in service for several decades. Its design therefore has to anticipate the aviation environment of the 2040s and 2050s.
Another Vikrant May Still Make Sense
This does not mean that another Vikrant-type carrier is necessarily the wrong decision.
Quite the opposite.
India needs additional carrier availability, and an enhanced version of an existing design could provide that capability while limiting technological and construction risks.
A new CATOBAR carrier would require much more than installing a catapult. India would need to master the associated launch and recovery systems, deck machinery, power requirements, aircraft integration and operational doctrine.
The aircraft themselves would also have to evolve alongside the carrier.
For that reason, an enhanced Vikrant could potentially serve as a bridge between India's current carrier capability and a future CATOBAR generation.
The danger would be allowing that bridge to become the destination.
If India continues indefinitely with variations of the same STOBAR philosophy, it may eventually possess more aircraft carriers without possessing the full range of fixed-wing naval aviation capabilities that a CATOBAR carrier can potentially provide.
The Carrier After Vikrant Should Be Different
India's carrier history can be viewed as a sequence of technological transitions.
The original Vikrant established conventional carrier aviation.
The Sea Harrier and Viraat represented the STOVL era.
Vikramaditya and Vikrant returned India to conventional carrier fighters through STOBAR operations.
The next generation should ideally represent another technological step.
The objective should not simply be a larger ship.
It should be a more capable carrier air wing.
That means thinking about the future requirements of the TEDBF, fixed-wing airborne early warning, unmanned combat aircraft, electronic warfare, long-range weapons and network-centric naval operations.
The carrier should effectively be designed from the air wing backwards.
Instead of asking:
How large should India's next carrier be?
India should first ask:
What aircraft does India want to operate in 2045, and what carrier will those aircraft require?
That is the more important strategic question.
India Has Come Full Circle
There is an interesting historical irony here.
India began its carrier journey with a conventional carrier fighter and a catapult-equipped INS Vikrant.
It then moved to the Sea Harrier and STOVL operations.
It subsequently returned to conventional carrier aviation with INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant, but through the STOBAR route.
The future could therefore bring India back toward CATOBAR—but not as a return to the past.
It would be a return to catapult-assisted aviation with an entirely new generation of aircraft.
The progression could be understood as:
Sea Hawk → Sea Harrier → MiG-29K/Rafale-M → TEDBF and future unmanned aircraft
alongside:
CATOBAR → STOVL → STOBAR → CATOBAR?
The question mark is important.
India does not need CATOBAR merely because it is technologically advanced. It needs to determine whether the operational advantages justify the additional cost and complexity.
What Should India Build?
The most practical approach may therefore be evolutionary.
India could build an enhanced Vikrant-type carrier to address its immediate requirement while simultaneously developing the technologies required for a future CATOBAR carrier.
That would allow India to maintain carrier numbers while preparing for a substantially more capable generation of naval aviation.
The ultimate objective should not be to possess the largest possible carrier.
It should be to possess a carrier capable of generating the greatest useful combat aviation capability for India's strategic requirements.
That means looking at aircraft sortie generation, range, weapons payload, sensor coverage, endurance, survivability and the ability to integrate manned and unmanned aircraft.
CATOBAR could become an important component of that future.
The Strategic Question
India has already demonstrated that it can operate catapult aircraft.
It has demonstrated STOVL operations.
It has now demonstrated that it can design and build an indigenous STOBAR carrier.
The next challenge is deciding whether India should take the next technological step.
An enhanced Vikrant may be the bridge that India needs.
But India's ultimate carrier architecture should be determined by the future of naval aviation—not simply by the technology that is easiest to build today.
The fundamental question is therefore not:
Should India build another aircraft carrier?
It is:
Should India's next major carrier simply carry today's aircraft—or should it carry India's ambitions for the next thirty years?
Original article:
https://www.manojambat.in/post/indias-next-aircraft-carrier-another-vikrant-or-catobar-future
Video:
https://youtu.be/ADZbnMj6NrU
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