India’s new armaments

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 12

India’s new armaments

From the “Economist,” London

Tire Indian Navy is proud of its ancient carrier Vikrant, in a way that many crusty British admirals would understand. True, the beast costs a lot, it is slow, it is creaking with age (as H.M.S. Hercules, it was all but completed in 1946, and then laid aside until it was sold to India in 1961, and it must have a major refit soon if it is going to stagger on for another few years. But despite ail the drawbacks, there are no plans to turn Vikrant into razor blades yet: quite the reverse.

This month the Defence Minister, Mr Jagjivan Ram, announced that after five years of inter-service wrangling, the Indian Navy would be allowed to buy British Sea Harriers —• the “marinised” version of the famous jump jet. This may shock Indian air marshals but it seems eminently sensible to most military men in India. Naturally it seems that way to Hawker Siddeley (now part of the nationalised British Aerospace Company), who make the machine.

At present Vikrant’s strike force is composed of a few antique British Sea Hawk

fighter bombers. While they did well enough in the 1971 Bangladesh war, striking deep into territory out of range to India’s land-based bombers, they are clearly at the end of any useful life. A year later Hawker Siddeley took a Harrier to Cochin, Vikrant’s southern base. The admirals were clearly impressed with the notion that they could continue to use the aircraft either from a new generation of modified cruisers, or from shore bases long after Vikrant had been sliced up and forgotten. Depending on how much foreign exchange Mr Desai will release, the navy will probably get about 20 Sea Harriers of the same sort as the R.A.F. has except for the addition of radar, some modernised electronics and anticorrosion treatment. The Government has not yet said what weapons it will buy for them, but the British air-to-surface missile, Sea Skua, is a possibility. Mr Desai felt obliged to say that India had no intention of becoming a superpower. But some Pakistani generals may begin to fidget at the way their old adversary is strengthening its naval authority.