Dude - I say that it will be as little as 10 years from now.
It is not just carriers and SSNs that will allow China to bring in massive firepower, but also cruisers like
Type-55s that China is currently building. Each one of these will have the firepower of no less than 2 Indian destroyers.
Simply India cannot build as large or as many as China due to the fact that Chinese economy is larger and they also make their own stuff.
Not really.They don't have a operational carrier atm,its a showpiece by and large breaking down in training exercises.If u think they will go from that to 5 carriers in 10 yrs ur deluded.
As for the cruisers they are not as big a threat as carriers or SSNs.It only takes 1 brahmos from our entire brahmos equipped fleet to take out a cruiser.We can attack them from the air from andaman with sukhois and P-8I,from undersea with submarines and from the surface.Without carrier cover and SSN cover cruiser is kaput.Cruisers are great escort ships for carriers,but they are big.costly and vulnerable also.Especially when attacked from 3 dimensions.
As for firepower ..Our destroyers have better sensors -state of the art israeli AESA,latest German Active sonar ,better anti ship missile in brahmos than theirs and better SAM in active seeker barak-8 than the old hq-9 .And kolkata also has deckspace to hold double the number of VLS cells it holds now,but not has been equipped but can easily be if needed in mid life refits.So overall i'm not realy too worried.
Simply put ,u can't do much in the IOR with surface ships alone because you will get assaulted simultaneously from air,sea and underwater by IN and IAF around andaman.Especially with the whole fleet and sukhois being armed with brahmos.No flotilla can long withstand such punishment.You need silent modern SSNs in large numbers to create problems.
Finally chinese navy simply lacks enough fleet replenishment vessels to support the kind of grand armada you visualize away from their shores.
We do not need to build as many ships as china at all.Because we will be fighting in our backyard while the chinese thousands of miles away from home.And above all we have our unsinkable carrier in andaman to relentlessly pound any chinese surface flotilla that enters IOR with hostile intentions.On top of that your assumption is based on the fact that china will continue to lead while we will stay stagnant,whereas in reality chinese economy is currently stagnating while our growth has overtaken them.
Only USA can conter China in IOR in 15 years. India can beg us to protect them and we will think about it.
Come and enter the IOR with hostile intentions,not a single chinese ship will return.This is not philipines,your delusions of grandeur will end in humiliation before andaman.Better stay at home and worry about the samurai who you have awoken from a long sleep.
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