INS Vikrant (IAC1) & INS Vikramaditya - News & Discussions
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Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh aboard Indian Navy Ship INS Vikrant Today
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh aboard Indian Navy Ship INS Vikrant Today
Note Ka-31 - usually not seen aboard carriers.
Also the Fulcrum is probably in karachi hit configuration.
EW antenna. Looks similar to the Kora system from Rhode and Schwartz. Could be a local design/adaptation by DRDO too.
cant wait to see the iterational upgrades from all the learning of iac1 on iac2, whether its a vikrant reorder or a 65k ton ac carrier doesnt matter, upgrades will be lethal
That mast is a component of the Shakti EW suite. It is the jammer.
Shakti EW suite is an evolution of the Ellora EW suite which in turn is an evolution of the Ajanta EW suite. The Ajanta suite was first introduced with the Shivalik class frigates. Kolkata class destroyers got Ellora & the Vizag has got the latest Shakti suite.
Now the Vizag's Shakti EW is a bit different from the Vikrant's. Vikrant is a larger & slower ship making it more vulnerable. But the Vikrant's powerplant is more powerful than the Vizag's (88 MW vs 76.5 MW installed power). So, more electricity is available for the EW suite.
The photo below is of a Mid to High band jammer used on the Ellora EW of the Kolkata class. The Vizag class uses the same jammers but at slightly higher power & with improved back end.
The Vikrant probably uses the same back end as the Vizag but with a significantly more powerful jammer:
This jammer probably covers a much larger part of the EM spectrum. There are some indications that this jammer would be carrier over to the P-18 class but with GaN HEMTs. Remember the news about India trying to get the "Unicorn" mast from Japan. We don't plan on buying the electronics from the Japanese. We just want to know how they packaged this into a single mast & maybe acquire the radome for testing. Because there are some tradeoffs to having a unified mast. RCS reduces but EWs effectiveness also reduces.
Given the clear resemblance, what are the odds the antenna is sourced from R&S? You'd recall that earlier versions of Ellora/Shakti used Israeli origin multi-beam Tx/Rx elements which were later indigenized. Same strategy at work here?
I would say that it is unlikely that this is an imported kit. I imagine the similarity in appearance is largely driven by the fact that both systems are trying to do the same thing.
Notice how most 5th gen fighters look so much alike. That's because they are all trying to achieve geometric stealth. Same engineering problems leading to the similar set of solutions.
TR elements alone don't play a prominent role in the external appearance of an antenna.
HMS Prince of Wales and the Indian carrier INS Vikrant are joining forces to work together during Exercise KONKAN 25.
