Unlike India’s other aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya was not purpose built for the Indian Navy. In fact, the ship has a long history and dates back to the 1980s, where it was built and put into service by the Soviet Union. Officially entering service in 1987 under the name Baku, the ship was renamed Admiral Gorshkov in 1991 but was decommissioned just five years later due to expensive running costs.
This prompted negotiations with India over the sale of the aircraft carrier, with the Russian government agreeing in 2004 to give India the ship itself for free, although India would pay Russia’s Sevmash shipyard nearly a billion dollars to upgrade the ship for the Indian Navy’s needs. Cost overruns and several delays meant that the ship did not enter service in the Indian Navy until 2013, by which time the total price of the deal had exceeded $2 billion.
By the time that the INS Vikramaditya entered service, it was significantly larger and heavier than it was as the Baku in the Soviet Navy. Modifications were made to update the overall design of the vessel to allow for new systems and sensors. Meanwhile, the configuration of the flight deck was switched so that it could launch Mikoyan MiG-29K fighters as well as Westland Sea King helicopters, in addition to a number of other aircraft. At 932 feet long, the INS Vikramaditya has a loaded displacement of 45,400 tons, slightly more than the INS Vikrant.
[Featured image by Official U.S. Navy Page via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 2.0]
