India’s Carrier Fleet
By No, India will not be purchasing one of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, or at least not in the short term. The most important reason, I suspect, is that the British aren’t selling; despite a mish-mash of reports to the contrary, the Royal Navy seems as committed as ever to moving down the two carrier path, even if it guts the rest of the fleet. Reading Joshi’s article, however, I’m increasingly convinced that the purchase of the Russian Admiral Gorshkov was a serious mistake. She’s over budget, behind schedule, likely to be less capable than new Indian construction, 32 years old, and was built in Russia. I suppose that the deal may have made sense when the Russians promised that they could deliver the modified Gorshkov in 2008, thus helping to close the gap between the old Hermes and the new Indian carriers. Right now, however, Gorshkov seems the whitest of white elephants.
Kitty Hawk would have made more sense. I’m just sayin’.