At present, India has one aircraft carrier in service, namely the Vikramaditya purchased from Russia, and one is Vikrant about be commission next month.

Both Indian aircraft carriers are medium-sized carriers with a displacement of over 40,000 tons. In addition, India has planned a third aircraft carrier Vishal, which will be at least 65,000-ton powered aircraft carrier and will use the latest electromagnetic catapults.

At present, the carrier-based aircraft used in India is the MiG 29K, a proper medium-sized third-generation aircraft. At the same time, All the delivery of French Rafale to the Indian air force has been completed. As we all know currently US F/A-18 and French Rafale M is fighting to supply their aircraft to Indian Navy.

For India itself, equipping Rafale M will greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of its aircraft carrier. Different from the old MiG-29K, the Rafale had a deck-based version at the beginning of its development. The aerodynamic layout design of the canard layout makes the fuselage more compact. Even if the main wing of the Rafale M is not folded, the wingspan is only a little more than 9 meters, which is not only shorter than the MiG 29K (the wingspan of the MiG 29K is 12 meters). Many large carrier-based aircraft have short wings when folded. Moreover, the length of the fuselage of the Rafale M is just over 15 meters (the length of the MiG 29K is 17.3 meters), so the area on the aircraft carrier is smaller than that of the MiG 29K. By replacing the Rafale M, India’s aircraft carrier can carry more fighters, which will not only greatly improve its combat capability, but also be more flexible in tactical formulation and execution.

India his little behind in the aircraft carrier arms race with China. In terms of carrier-based aircraft, the 4th generation MiG-29K is also behind the J-15. At present, the J-15 equipped in China is roughly equivalent to the J-11B in terms of avionics level. It is a standard 4th generation avionics, and the radar also uses a traditional pulse-Doppler radar. Although it is a rare heavy aircraft among carrier-based aircraft, the radar size is also larger than the RBE2 active phased array radar of the Rafale M, and the corresponding radar detection distance may also be farther than the Rafale M. Also J-15 can carry only 5.5t of which is 2tons less than Rafale M. Rafale M is equipped with SECTRA and have low RCS while these things are absent in J-15.

During the Third Indo-Pakistani, India’s aircraft carrier Vikrant dispatched carrier-based aircraft the day after the to carry out continuous bombardment of ground targets of the Pakistani army in Chittagong, Bangladesh, allowing the Pakistani Air Force’s The eastern garrison quickly lost the ability to counterattack. It also directly locked Chittagong, causing the Pakistani garrison in Bangladesh to lose supplies and accelerating the collapse of the Pakistani army. Really made a great contribution to India winning the 3rd Indo-Pak.

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