#IndianNavy
-Sordid saga of Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya #India & #Russia
-India been buying #Russian weapons for 50 yrs, some good, some bad
-But story of Vikramaditya takes the cake
-Interestingly Russia’s latest offer of 3 K class subs at Rs1 could be another nightmare
-Soviet Union commissioned aircraft carrier Baku in 1988
-It was interesting mix of heavy cruiser & aircraft carrier
-It had an angled flight deck & a hangar
-1991 Soviet Union disintegrated, Baku came to Russia as Admiral Gorshkov and soon started rotting due to lack of funds
-On the other hand #IndianNavy was struggling with INS Viraat
-The only carrier #India had was to retire in 2007
-India had limited options
-#USA #France #Italy were costly options
-2004 Russia appeared as Guardian Angel & offered Admiral Gorshkov just for $974 million
-44500 T Admiral Gorshkov at $974 mil was unbelievable bargain
-But Russia had bitten more than it could chew
-Converting a helicopter carrier with partial flight deck into aircraft carrier was no mean task
-India wanted >900 ft flight deck to accommodate, 24 MiG-29K, 10 Kamovs
-New radars, boilers, arrester wires, deck elevators, 22 decks, 2700 furnished rooms & name of King Vikramaditya was abt to become a nightmare
-A year before 2008 delivery it became clear that Russia can't meet deadline
-Shipyard became greedy & demanded $2.9 bil for completion
-Sea trials cost balooned from $27 to $550 mil
-By 2008 ship was only 49% complete
-Sevmash shipyard had never worked on aircraft carriers but their demands were soaring
-They demanded market price of $4 bn for a decade old ship
-India pressured Pres Dmitri Medvedev to act
-We may never know if that was a #Russian trick but #India & #IndianNavy were stuck
-Medvedev made a show of publicly scolded Sevmash officials
-Deal was struck for $2.2 bn
-Magically ship was ready by 2012 & commissioned in 2013
-This was not end of the ordeal
-Ship was built with the help of 10 #Indian & 200 foreign contractors which makes getting spare parts difficult
-Troublesome boiler(courtesy poor-quality #Chinese firebricks)
-So advice to #IndianNavy never buy second hand, that too from #Russia
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