![]() Indian and Chinese troops clash on disputed border The US Navy sees China as a “pacing threat” in the Indo-Pacific, and India’s naval operations look toward China too, Schuster said.Īn Indian Army truck drives along a road to Tawang, near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), neighbouring China, near Sela Pass in India's Arunachal Pradesh state on October 21, 2021. The US Navy operates the world’s largest carrier fleet – 11 warships – and just last week had two of those, the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan, operating together in the Philippine Sea. What the Indian Navy can learn about dual-carrier operations from the United States could be substantial. “India’s partnerships and collaborative exercises with other navies have broadened the navy’s operational knowledge and open ocean experiences,” Schuster said. New Delhi’s forces have been stepping up cooperation with other navies in the Indo-Pacific, including those in the informal Quad partnership – the United States, Japan and Australia – in the annual Malabar naval exercises. The Indian Navy press release called the carriers “floating sovereign airfields,” adding that “they provide our friends with an assurance that the Indian Navy is capable and ready to support our ‘collective’ security needs in the region.” “It should be remembered that the Indian Navy has always been a highly trained, tightly disciplined and very proficient force,” Schuster said. ![]() It has operated two aircraft carriers on two previous occasions, between 19, and between 20. India commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 1961 and added a second in 1987. Hawaii-based analyst Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, said India’s dual-carrier operations this week show “the rejuvenation of the Indian Navy.”Ĭombined operations of INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant. “The Indian Navy has had decades-long experience and expertise in aircraft carrier ops and this is probably the key advantage it possesses over the PLA Navy, its key rival in this field, despite the latter’s relative advance in its indigenous aircraft carrier program,” Koh said.Ĭhina has two aircraft carriers in service, the Soviet-built Liaoning and the domestically built Shandong, while a third carrier, the Fujian, has been launched but not commissioned. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said India’s naval history may put it ahead of China, whose People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is the world’s largest, in the current operating environment for aircraft carriers. Upon Vikrant’s commissioning last year, India joined only the United Kingdom and China in commissioning a domestically built aircraft carrier in the previous three years.īut while both China and the UK have more than one aircraft carrier in their modern fleets, neither has yet to perform dual-carrier operations with them, analysts said.Ĭollin Koh, research fellow at the S. The Indian aircraft carriers INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant lead combined operations in the Arabian Sea. India became capable of dual-carrier operations when the $3 billion Vikrant, India’s first domestically built carrier, was commissioned last September, joining Vikramaditya, which was bought from Russia and went into service in 2013. “The successful demonstration of two-carrier battle group operations serves as a powerful testament to the pivotal role of sea-based air power in maintaining maritime superiority,” the release said. The two aircraft carriers, INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant, led the exercise with more than 35 aircraft and an array of surface ships and submarines, according to a press release from the Indian Navy. ![]() ![]() “This is not a small achievement and underlines that the Indian Navy is one of very few in the world that operates more than one aircraft carrier,” said Nick Childs, senior fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). India’s two aircraft carriers led their battle groups in a combined operation in the Arabian Sea earlier this week, showcasing what the service calls its “formidable maritime capabilities” and ability to project power around the Indian Ocean and beyond.Īnalysts say it’s a big accomplishment and one that only the United States Navy has pulled off in recent memory. ![]()
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