Cochin Shipyard to build 5 aircraft carriers

The keel of India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, to be the second warship christened INS Vikrant, will be laid on February 28 at Kochi. But it is now clear that while Cochin Shipyards will build three aircraft carriers in the current 37,500-ton category (the second and third are to be christened INS Viraat and INS Vishaal apparently), design work has already begun in earnest to develop and build two more aircraft carriers with not only much larger displacements, but possibly nuclear propulsion as well.
Unlike what the model in the photograph depicts, the new INS Vikrant will almost definitely be inaugurated with a flight of MiG-29Ks as its commissioning deck birds rather than the Naval Light Combat Aircraft (the Express has a report about this today). More details soon.

Photo by Shiv Aroor / LiveFist

48 thoughts on “Cochin Shipyard to build 5 aircraft carriers”

  1. ins vishaal sounds fantastic! that would be true to the ship too. wow imaging india building nuke propelled supercarriers. my heart will burst with pride..

  2. Awesome news … Hope this time there is time bound agenda and delivery. While this is the “organic” approach, the “inorganic” approach will be to look at a few US Aircraft carriers too.

    In 6 months time, most of the banks in US will be nationalised (temporarily) to clean up the mess, the economy will be in a free fall. While Chinese rush in with Yuan and more “chings for the buck”, India should go in for smart buying.

    Cheers.

  3. Shiv I hope you can post something about the sources or even quote anonymously IN officers or CSL executives to lend credibility. A detailed report on IAC1’s status and some pics of the building blocks that have been built till now would be great.

    Its sounding too good to be true frankly.

  4. Looks like they shall need a lot of names to fit-in with the V carriers identified so far. Here are some suggestions – Visthruth, Vishvakarma, Vishalaksh, Vinashak … sss

  5. 5 carriers??? Yeah right. And they will follow up with the new and improved Arjun, and the World beating Tejas jet!!! Long live the socially-ackward Indian males.

    p.s. I hope you realize of the fact that India will not build 5 carriers in 100 years, the Arjun is dead in the water, and the Tejas will have the career of the Marut.

  6. Hey Jay, don’t talk nonsense. I’m Vishal myself and all these years it was just my brother who lapped up all the attention of an aircraft carrier for being Vikrant. Its my turn now. 🙂

  7. 5 Nuclear Submarines of the ATV-1 and ATV-2 class, 2 Akula-2s (With talk of 2 + 2 – with two on reserve with the Russian Navy), and now this ADS-1 and ADS-2 designs.

  8. oh nooo!!!
    I hope that our grand children get to see these 5 ships sailing!!! LOL

    BTW can any knowledgeable person tell me what would happen to the $ 500 million invested by India in the refurbishment of Gorshkov carrier, in case India decides to pull out of the deal due to escalating costs??
    Will it be refunded to us??

  9. jokes apart Shiv, can u provide more details about 5 Aircraft Carriers.

    And does that mean India is not going for Gorshkov?

    What is the time frame in which they are planned to be delivered to Indian Navy?

  10. Vikramaditya – 44,500 tonnes( Ad. Gor)

    Vikrant, Viraat, Vishal- all 37,500

    V—–., V—–. ( 64,000t ?)

    choice of names V series

    Vijay,Vikraal?????

  11. We all know India is going to moon and then to mars and build 5 aircraft carriers and buy atleast one artillery piece..!
    But the million dollar question is WHEN? in which time frame..?

  12. Completion date??? Building a carrier is no easy feat. Past programmes examples do not bold well for completion on time.

  13. [quote]Anonymous said…

    5 carriers??? Yeah right. And they will follow up with the new and improved Arjun, and the World beating Tejas jet!!! Long live the socially-ackward Indian males.

    p.s. I hope you realize of the fact that India will not build 5 carriers in 100 years, the Arjun is dead in the water, and the Tejas will have the career of the Marut.
    7:24 AM
    [/quote]

    And you will probably will be whining like this even after 50 years

  14. The cochin shipyard is aiming for the stars with five aircraft carriers. I hope they can atleast reach the top storey of their building!

    Let them deliver on Vikrant(new) and Viraat(new) on time, then we shall see.

    I wonder what shall we do with 5 aircraft carriers! I thought the operational doctrine required three, one for the western command, one for the eastern command and one in refit. That can be served by the Vikramaditya, Vikrant(new) and Viraat(new).

    BTW, any idea what they plan to do with the old Viraat that shall de decommissioned soon? I hope they sell it off to some underdeveloped African country to improve India’s presence in that country and aid us in gwting access to natural resources as the chinese have been doing.

  15. Really good news for IN. But do you really think the ADS design will admit 2 nuclear reactors? It is conceived around an Italian propulsion (Fincantieri). Don’t you think nuclear carriers will be another class of ships instead? Probably with ATV’s reactor (example: French navy used 2 nuclear reactors from Triomphant-class SSBM for its nuclaer carrier).

  16. Here is a Names for 5 IAC proposed by government

    IAC1: INS Mahatma Gandhi

    IAC2: INS Indira Gandhi

    IAC3: INS Rajeev Gandhi

    IAC4: INS Sonia Gandhi

    IAC5: INS Priyanka Gandhi

  17. Anon 10:12 again

    I just got the full report:

    Last 2 ships are in different class IAC S & P class are different from IAC 1 class, IAC 3 & 5 (S & P class) have enlarged back and tight angled front for simultaneous operation under high tension operations. unlike IAC 1 (M class)can only use front or take from back at any time

  18. I think there will be more than 5 ATvs at least 8 of them.

    The article says that the second and third ship may be nuclear powered.
    IAC2 (aka INS Viraat) is slated to be delivered by 2017 (I think it will be 2018-19) and will have a displacement of 60,000+ t.

    They will have N-LCA and Mig-29K, in future we may see F-35 in IN.

  19. India seems to be cheawing much more then it can bite. Aleady major warships constructions in stealth Frigates and Destroyers has taken an immense beating on account of frequent design changes

  20. Here is a Names for 5 IAC proposed by government

    IAC1: INS Mahatma Gandhi

    IAC2: INS Indira Gandhi

    IAC3: INS Rajeev Gandhi

    IAC4: INS Sonia Gandhi

    IAC5: INS Priyanka Gandhi

    why not just INS Congress Party!

  21. guys just forget about Arjun and lca. It was the sole responsibility of DRDO. Cochin shipyard has a good track record in timely delevery. Even though they had never created a ship of this size. I am sure they will be able to come up with this. Lets hope for the best.

  22. Shiv, are you quite sure about the 5 carrier story? Is it possible that your source was a highly inebriated IN officer who was stating what he thought the IN should have?
    The reality is that P-71 (IAC-1) is running many years behind schedule and 2014 timeframe is VERY likely to slip by a couple of years.

    Building 64K ton carriers require massive cranes and suchlike besides having suitably large berths. These things are presently not quite in place. Besides, the detail design work will require many years of work by DND.

    Conceivably, IAC2 would be an improvement over IAC1 in terms of size and displacement. Hopefully, CSL would have adequate berthing space to accomodate large vessels of about 300m length in due course.

    As for large carriers, of >60K displacement, a safer and quicker bet for the IN is to partner with UK and France in the CVF/PA2 program and order additional hulls, thereby saving years of work.

  23. Firstly I would like to commend Shiv for giving us all this fantastic news of INS Vishal and the future prospect of Cochin Shipyard (Albeit be only in plan). Its a great news for us optimistic patriotic indians.

    Secondly to the ignorant and pessimistic ones – Please have a gaze upon the times when the old projects (whether be Arjun or LCA) were started and compare it with the economic growth and industrial capability of india at that time. India recieved computational tools far later than its western counterparts. It proves that whatever our brilliant scientists have achieved at DRDO and other locations is a success. If you pay attention to the different facets of development in india you will realise that in the past few years there has been a rapid continuous growth in defence as well as civil sectors. Missiles are being inducted in a very short span as compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world – and its all indigenous. Check out ISRO – they have successfully developed an indian cryo engine. They are working on a RLV-TSTO and are very near to finishing up on a technology demonstrator. GTRE – have achieved the single crystal blade technology. Nag is ready to be inducted – and many more like them. And you think all this is a joke. If you compare americans who drained the world of its best brains and are the world leader simply becoz of that while indian achievement is completely homegrown. Youve got some nerve ridiculing all the effort thats been put in to bring indian defence to what it is now.

    I would like to comment that you sit in your comfortable couches and ridicule years of hard work of these scientists while you yourselves dont have a single ounce of experience of working in a professional engineering environment and the challenges that they face.

  24. Its a good move , but need to keep up deadline in manufacturing , to safeguard these valuable ships india need massive fleet of submarines , we have the tot in scoropene sub from france ,we have spent huge amount in getting TOT , we need to manufacture sub's from this tech and further develop it to next generation , if not their is no use of getting tech . Govt need to make massive line of manufacturing submarines along with private concern's in india in fastrack . govt need to avoid heavy depletion in submarine fleet .

  25. in fact kochin ship yard limited has a record of delivering ships before there delivery date! this has beenn done atleas two times and was on the media too.

  26. Cochin ship yard is run by Malayalees, they know how to get things done. Trust me you will get your carriers well on schedule.

  27. All, if you walk into any public sector undertaking and talk to the top people they have ready presentations on ambitious plans and delusions of grandeur. Hardly anything matreializes either some sensible babus dont fund it and in the event they funded you never get your moneys worth. the theory is you prent plans and requisition budgets and bigger the plan larger the budget and more the corruption. Its a fact they are amounst the most corrupt of govt organizations. Walk around a shipyard and talk to workers and you wiull realize the innovative ways one makes money there. I have worked in these places before during my early years.

  28. india will going to have a total of 3 cariers before 2020 all will be conventialy powered
    iac1 vikrant-40,000tonns
    iac2 vishal-65,000tonnes
    and vikramadetya-45,000tonnes
    these all will be ready on time on 2014,2017and 2012 respectively.and nuclear powered aircraftcarrier will be in service by 2025 we will hv 4 aircraft carriers by 2025 nd ins virat will be decomesioned by 2015.and there r no delays by now i hv done research on this.all will hv capabilities to operate more than 2 squadrens of fighters on them.

  29. hahaha. 5 aircraft carrier…beauty…the grandson's generation of Kochin shipyard's has confirmed projects at their hand now…they ahve said 2018 as the 1st delivery of the AC-1 but read the news on 2018 for the new date…come on where are we living in India guys…

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