Can the Pakistan Navy sink the Indian aircraft carriers?
Aircraft carriers are the pride of a nation’s navy in case of India its INS VIKRAMADITYA with nearly 45000 tons of displacement built in Russia .
This aircraft carriers can hold up to 35 fighter jets ( 25 mig-29k)and few surveillance helicopters(10 kamok helicopters) . And armed it anti aircraft defence system like barak-8 .
Aircraft Carriers do not travel alone, they are always escorted/protected by other ships.
First of all it will be very difficult for Pakistani Navy to find where the carrier actually is, not many people know the exact position of an aircraft carrier for all we know it’s somewhere in 73.56 million km²area of the Indian Ocean.
Secondly, aircraft carriers have destroyers, frigates and submarines protecting it in addition to multiple anti-missile, anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems already installed on the carrier, not to forget a squadron of fighter aircraft’s on-board.
During war security would be increased multiple times, a no fly zone will be enforced several miles around the carrier, several hundred miles of airspace around the carrier will be heavily monitored.
Let’s assume a war starts with Pakistan tomorrow and INS Vikramaditya is deployed to enforce a blockade of Karachi.
Any attack by Pakistani air-force will first have to deal with this baby.
This Beauty is a Kolkata class stealth destroyer, it is equipped with state of art IAI EL/M-2248 MF-STAR AESA multi-function radar, Thales LW-08 D-bad air search radar, IAI EL/M-2238 L band STAR surveillance radar (don’t worry i also don’t know what that means), supersonic BrahMos missiles (BrahMos can hit a target 300km away in less than 5mins, that’s all you need to know), INS Vikramaditya in wartime will most likely be escorted by two of these beauties.
In addition to 2 destroyers the aircraft carrier will most likely be escorted by at least two frigates, few smaller vessels and a few submarines.
Oh did I forgot to mention these beauties?
It’s a MIG-29K, a 4.5 Generation multi-role fighter aircraft which is more than capable of intercepting any aircraft in Pakistani air force arsenal, any strike by Pakistani air force is likely to encounter at least 20 of these bad boys (there are 30 on the aircraft carrier) before they are even in the 200 miles radius of the carrier.
Let’s suppose that Pakistani air force ‘talented’ pilots and their ‘ultra modern’ aircraft are able to get past these defenses, then hundreds of these anti-aircraft missiles will be chasing them.
So yeah, there’s absolutely no chance of Pakistan ever sinking any Indian Aircraft Carrier.
Pakistani Submarine
The only chance , if PN submarines can do the job. But the carrier will be covered by at least 1 SSN , 1 Scorpene class diesel electric sub under surface. An above surface there must be 1 kolkata class destroyer , 2 frigate & 2 Corvette. The IN Kadmat class ASW corvettes are specially made for hunting ultra modern subs. Up in the sky there would be P8I and Ka 27 / 31 ASW helicopters. Thus any PN submarine would find it very difficult to come close to get it inside torpedo range. Next is the case of PN surface ships which will fall infront of Mig 29ks jumping out of the carrier and BrahMos Antiship missile firex ftom Destroyer and frigates of IN. So , Indian Carriers are pretty safe from Pak.
Pakistan has already tried sinking INS Vikrant but ended up losing their own leased submarine.
By the way, nuclear weapons are useless against ships; they could never hit a ship and by the time they strike nearby waters the ships will have enough time to get into a defensive position, contrary to popular belief nuclear weapons do not result in an apocalyptic winter.
And coming to the question can Pakistani navy can sink INS VIKRAMADITYA.
Source:- Quora
