The Vikramaditya was supposed to have been delivered earlier this year, but now they do not expect to make delivery til nearly the end of 2013.
India has been hoping to add it to their fleet in order to balance against growing Chinese naval power.
They still are heavily dependent upon former Soviet weapons, but now only sixty percent of their supplies come from Russia.
These delays have convinced them to further drop their dependency on Russia, and by the time they finally get the carrier they'll very likely be buying most of their weapons from the rest of the world.
India has yet to build their own carrier, their only ones in the past have been bought from Britain, but one has been decommissioned and the is quickly nearing it's own time.
China has increased pressure on much of the Asian Pacific rim, demanding it's claims to various islands be recognized, and by declaring it's first carrier to be operational.
No comments:
Post a Comment