Admiral Gorshkov Carrier

I thought I'd share a link that I came across recently regarding to the controversial Vikramaditya Carrier.

This link provides an album of the progress of Vikramaditya (aka Admiral Gorshkov) Aircraft Carrier. Looking at the photos from 2005, you can see what kind of condition it was in. It's kind of puzzling to think that India was convinced in 2004 that this ship can be refitted and handed over by 2009. Even the photos from 2007 showed that the refitting was far from finishing. Even with the new paint job seen in the recent photos, it appears that Varyag is in better shape. At this point, I'm skeptical that the Russians will be ready to deliver this ship by 2012. It's kind of interesting that even after this fiasco, the Indians are still negotiating for 30 more Mig-29Ks on IAC. And if that isn't enough, the Russians have now pushed the delivery date for Mig-29Ks to next year. This is after being told in May that the Mig-29Ks would be delivered in this past past September.

The Russian way seems to be make extraordinary promises on price and delivery schedule. When the other party is hooked onto the contract and looses leverage, then they keep on making excuses to raise prices and delay delivery. We saw this in their dealings with China and India. In the short run, it brings them more deals, but this is not likely going to help in the long run.