Misses, waits & progress in naval missiles

The aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, formerly the Admiral Gorshkov, expected to join the Indian Navy later this year, is already late by five years and its price has risen three-fold, from $947 million in 2004 to $2.3 billion today.

And, it emerges now that for the next three years or so, Vikramaditya will function without effective defences against anti-ship missiles, a key threat to warships today.

For this, the Russians are not to blame; the Israelis are. The futuristic missile defence system supposed to be fitted on the Vikramaditya, called the Long Range Surface to Air Missile (LR-SAM), is also late by at least three years.

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