Spot the difference: (from top to bottom) the Kuznetsov, Liaoning, Vikramaditya. Photo: Sandeep Unnithan. Spot the difference: (from top to bottom) the Kuznetsov, Liaoning, Vikramaditya. Photo: Sandeep Unnithan.

With the commissioning of the 44,500 tonne INS Vikramaditya in Severodvinsk, Russia, the Indian navy gets its largest warship

Shiv Aroor reports from Russia:



The Vikramaditya will leave from Severodvinsk by the end of the month and dock at Murmansk, Russia, where it will celebrate Navy Day (December 4). From there it will be escorted by two ships INS Deepak and INS Trikand into the Mediterranean Sea, where two more Indian Navy frontline warships will meet it for the final journey home. The Navy is currently contemplating two options either go through the Suez Canal, or go all around the African continent. A decision on this will be taken in the next three-four days. Our graphic should show both the possible routes. The Vikramaditya's final destination is Karwar where she will be based.



The ship will be travelling without weapons and aircraft. But she will be escorted by four frontline Indian Navy warships, and therefore won't be vulnerable.



with an angled flight deck and distinctive ski jump

In the 1960s, Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, the father of the modern Soviet navy, envisaged a fleet of aircraft carriers that could be deployed across the globe to challenge NATO. His dream has finally taken steam nearly a half-century later, but in a manner even the farsighted naval genius would not have suspected.. The commissioning of the Vikramaditya in Russia's Arctic shipyard makes India only the third country in the world after the US and Italy to operate more than one carrier. It will also be a second life for a warship which began life as a Soviet aircraft carrying cruiser the 'Baku' in 1987.The Vikramaditya has a lot in common with China's first aircraft carrier the Liaoning, that was commissioned in September last year. Both carriers are symbols of great national maritime pride and manifest the blue water ambitions of the world's fastest growing economies. There is also a reason why these two carriers with their majestic bow ski-jump are nearly identical to Russian naval flagship, the Kuznetsov. All three carriers are designs of the St Peterburg-based Severonye design bureau. These designs were translated into reality at the only warm water egress of the Soviet empire: the Nikolayev South Shipyard on the Black Sea (now in Ukraine). Both Soviet products soon found their way into what one author called, 'the yard sale at the end of history.'The Vikramaditya, refurbished for India for $2.2 billion after 2003 contract, can carry 30 aircraft including MiG-29Ks and Ka-28 anti-submarine helicopters. The 59,000 tonne Liaoning, commissioned into the PLAN on September 28, 2012, flies the larger J-15 aircraft, Chinese copies of the Russian Su-33 carrier aircraft.The Vikramaditya in its earlier avatar as the 'Baku', a unique carrier-cruiser hybrid was a heavy cruiser. It had a truncated flight deck which allowed it to operate vertical-short take off and landing aircraft and helicopters. When it was commissioned at Nikolayev South in 1987, the historic shipyard was already building its successors: two full- deck aircraft carriers, the Kuznetsov and its sister ship, the Varyag designed to operate the heavier Su-33 (the maritime version of the Su-27). The new Russian navy adopted the newly-built Kuznetsov as its flagship soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. (The carrier saw two name changes, known first as the Leonid Brezhnev and then the Tibilisi) The Baku, now the capital of newly independent Azerbaijan, was swiftly renamed the Admiral Gorshov but saw only limited service in the new Russian navy. The unfinished hulk of the Varyag (earlier remained in the shipyard as its new owners, Ukraine, put it up on sale. The hulk of the Varyag, bereft of engines or electronics, was purchased by a Chinese company in 1998 for $ 20 million. The firm intended to convert it into a floating casino off Macau. China had already purchased the Kiev and the Minsk, decommissioned sister ships of the Baku/Gorshkov in the 1990s. Both carriers serve as floatings theme parks in Tianjin and Shenzen. Global navies, however, knew the Varyag was not going to become a theme park. India's naval intelligence monitored the extraordinary 28,200 km voyage of the derelict Varyag, sometimes referred to in code as 'Hathi' (the elephant). They puzzled over the excessive pains and secrecy surrounding what appeared to be a perfectly legitimate naval acquisition. One visiting Chinese admiral modestly told his Indian counterpart that China only wanted an aircraft carrier because most developed nations had one. The Varyag's casino ruse quickly collapsed when the hulk of the carrier was towed to a military shipyard in Dalian 2002. The warship was reconverted it into an aircraft carrier at a dry dock in 2005 from where she emerged for sea trials in 2011.The Indian navy, on the other hand, has been vocal about its plans for a force of three conventionally powered aircraft carriers. The Vikramaditya will be the first of two more carriers to be built at the Cochin Shipyard."In a sign of how the power dynamics of the world are changing," geopolitical analyst Robert D Kaplan writes in his seminal 2012 book 'Revenge of Geography, "Indian and Chinese strategists avidly read Mahan; they, much more than the Americans, are the Mahanians now: they are building fleets designed for armed encounters at sea, whereas European navies view sea power only in terms of constabulary action."The PLAN still classifies the Liaoning as a training ship, sees it as a step-up to a bigger, yet unrealized dream of Admiral Gorshkov: a Soviet supercarrier that could challenge the formidable USS Nimitz class. China is believed to have obtanied designs of and working on two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers based on the Soviet Union's abandoned Kremlin class aircraft supercarrier. The 85,000 tonne 'Ulyanovsk' began at Nikolayev South in 1992, scrapped after being 20 per cent completed. Admiral Gorshkov's last dream will fly a Chinese flag.