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Indian Brahmos missle crashes in Mian Channo

Apparently Indian army is being mocked all over the world:-

IAF has a lot to answer on BrahMos firing. It has dented India’s image of being responsible​


Military memes, circulated within the armed forces community, have mocked the ‘technical malfunction led to the accidental firing’ claim with a brutality that is unrepeatable here.​

MANVENDRA SINGH
16 March, 2022 09:29 am IST

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File image of the BrahMos missile | Ministry of Defence
File image of the BrahMos missile | Ministry of Defence
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The Government of India has been making as many twists and turns over the embarrassing BrahMos incident as had Pakistan claimed the missile made during its flight path toward Mian Channu in southern Punjab. After causing international embarrassment of the highest order, the government and its ‘sources’ have changed their position on the launch of the missile from the plausible to the fantastic. None of the positions taken does anything to redeem the damage done to India’s current image of being a technologically irresponsible military power. The shifting positions only underline inefficiency as well as shoddy command and control, which of course lies at the root of this incident.

The missile story and its glide path

The story began with complete silence despite Pakistan making an official statement and complaint. It was only on 11 March that the inexplicable reticence gave way to an official acknowledgement that something had gone wrong. “On 9 March 2022, in the course of routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level court of enquiry,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. Initially, it wasn’t even confirmed what missile it was, and that led to further speculation. Lack of clarity compounded errors.

This was followed by an extraordinary briefing from a ‘source’ who confirmed “accidental firing” but went on to share operational details which clearly call into question an appropriate sense of responsibility and prudence. Sources in the defence and security establishment told ThePrint that — contrary to Pakistan’s claims of the missile suddenly veering off from its flight path to Rajasthan’s Mahajan Field Firing Range from Haryana’s Sirsa and heading towards its territory — it followed the trajectory that it would have in case of a conflict, but “certain factors” played a role in ensuring that any pre-fed target was out of danger. Sources also said that the missile followed the correct trajectory.
The ‘source’ went on to declare, ‘that an inspection and protocol revision was being carried out at a secret satellite base, not Sirsa,’ when the missile was launched. To use ‘secret’ and ‘satellite’ in the same sentence is an act of extraordinary aplomb for in this era of remote sensing, there is nothing secret from a satellite anymore. Even if Pakistan didn’t know the location of this ‘secret satellite base’, that is not Sirsa, access to daily use algebra will give them sufficient idea where to find this covert facility. The only secrecy being maintained is from the people of India.
The defence minister has added another turn in the controversy by declaring that ‘the Indian missile, which had landed in Pakistan last week, was an “inadvertent release” during an inspection at a secret satellite base of the Indian Air Force’. Officially now there was no ‘routine maintenance’ or ‘technical malfunction’, just plain and simple accidental firing. He simply mirrored something already highlighted by a well-informed columnist who wrote, “On March 9, during a Directorate of Air Staff Inspection (DASI) exercise at an Indian Air Force (IAF) base in north India, a BrahMos missile got accidentally fired and landed in Pakistan. The missile was without a warhead, it crashed harmlessly.”

A grave error
Military memes, circulated within the armed forces community, mocked the ‘technical malfunction led to the accidental firing’ claim with a brutality that is unrepeatable here. For the armed forces know, above all, the gravity of any accidental firing. Even the inadvertent firing of a small arm is treated with the seriousness that it deserves, for the smallest bullet can take a life, accidentally. So within the military community, the BrahMos incident is being regarded as grave error. It is high time the Air Force takes the matter to its logical conclusion. As it is certainly not the first such in the recent past.

Even as it grapples with the Court Martial proceedings of the tragic Budgam friendly fire case, the Air Force has done nothing to answer questions about another near tragic incident. That was also reckless firing, but hasn’t led to any action taken. Such lapses when overlooked come back to haunt the Service, and now the Air Force has a lot to answer who and why one of their own pressed the launch button of supersonic cruise missile. For it has dented India’s image of being responsible, and technologically in control.
Manvendra Singh is a Congress leader and Editor-in-Chief of Defence & Security Alert. He tweets @ManvendraJasol. Views are personal.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)





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Didn't these trigger happy Indian shot down their own chopper during clashes with Pakistan? How unprofessional and poorly trained are these people?
 
Now that the Indians know the Brahmos will be picked over with a fine tooth comb, they will move onto to procuring and inducting, under whatever local name, the Onyx Missile. I hope we are studying that missile as well, especially if it is used in Ukraine to get ahead of the Indians and their future plans.

 
Hi,

Breaks my heart when I read your post.
You were prescient, while I was a dove. Maybe it was due to our divergent natures, but seeing the results I had to accept your opinion as correct. Leadership entails an ability to foresee & game different outcomes. Preparedness is the key. PA should have foreseen this & prepared to gain advantage with help of PAF. We could have escalated to our advantage, only if the leadership had guts & could have foreseen this. I blame both, the civilian leadership as well as the military leadership. Its like India provided us with an excuse to declare our nuclear status with bangs & we choose to do nothing but a cold test.

A prepared list of targets could have been engaged from Working Boundary all the way to Siachen to gain local advantages & prepare for the inevitable reaction. With a cowed IAF & a bewildered IA, Modi would have decided to escalate but the world powers would have intervened with long-term advantage to Pakistan. BJP could still have won, but Modi would have had a hard time clinging to power. Whatever that would come next would come but we would have been well-established & secure.

It was a squandered opportunity because generals were busy with managing their blue-eyed boy.

An alternative scenario would be that Bajwa had never played politics, Faiz Hameed would have done his actual job, our Western flank would be more secure, & our relation with USA & China would have been better. In this scenario, track-II diplomacy & engagement with Modi would not have given BJP government space to do what India did in 2019. The region & the world would have been a much better place.

All this talk of war & blood really is pointless. South Asia has huge challenges & the leadership (all kinds, most countries) is making idiotic decisions.
 
I believe india is planning a cold start attack
Facts we have determined

  1. The Brahmose land missile system is a version of the anti ship Russian cruise missile

  1. As it flys at high altitude to take advantage of its ram jet motor it is very detectable at longer ranges and can be shot down by most Pakistani air Defense systems in service today.the missile was tracked 300 kms (180km in India + Pakistani radar located 200 kms from the border). What this means is Pakistan is able to at least see 400-500 kms inside India!

  1. The missile is not very maneuverable as it losses significant fuel/ range with even basic maneuvers are established like a right turn into Pakistan as it “crashed” after 234 kms of flight with NO warhead meaning the system was 200 kg lighter

  1. India does not have full control over the missile beyond a certain range and has to rely on pre fed coordinates for attack a lot like most naval weapons. If this were nit the case they would have activated self destruct for the weapon

  2. It is clear from this action that Brahmose does not use cameras or satellite communication as is focused much more on pre fed coordinates or glasnos coordinates

  1. Brahmose in the Indian service is not nuclear capable and is not governed by Indian strategic command

  2. Pakistan defiantly has the ability to shoot this missiles down as the same ly-80 and hq-9p systems are placed on Pakistani and Chinese ships to provide air cover against incoming supersonic cruise missiles like brahmose


  1. Pakistani SOPs against a thread are solid. See what most people don’t realize is
    1. In a war India could fire a first salvo to see what systems we use to intercept the missiles and then launch a second strike to take those systems out! Then launch massive air strikes on Pakistani forward bases. To counter this one would guess that Pakistan would attempt to put as many aircraft up as possible as part of the first wave of defenders, prepare a second wave of air defense as they have another 6-8 minutes before the detection of the second strike and thirdly begin preparing long rang strike packages to take out Indian forward air bases this would need to be launched within 1 hour of the strike coordinated with Pakistani Babur cruise missile strikes to weaken Indian air defenses. Babaur has a 800 km range, flies very low and has a nuclear capable payload of 600 kg. Since it uses a turbofan engine it is extremely maneuverable
  2. We know india is conducting massive exercises with its best elements of quick strike force.
  3. The Indian navy tried to infiltrate a submarine in Pakistani waters
  4. Indians were conducting near live attack tests with cruise missiles with targets in Pakistan
  5. Indian airborne forces conducted training jumps recently
  6. India canceled its large air exercises to Reserve parts
  7. India knows that past April the monsoon season will start I,e May , June and July which will make it very difficult for tanks and armored formations to maneuver
  8. Pakistani acquisition of major systems like jf-17 block 3 , j-10c , hq-9p hq-16 hq 9b , multiple naval systems inclusive of ships, submarines , new tanks , sh-15 sp artillery and longer ranged rocket artillery are new and require at least a year of familiarization
  9. India war time supplies are dwindling as Russia is focused on resupplying its own army first and all the spare factories in Ukraine an alternate source for Russian weapons is no longer available. I estimate the supply of parts for a major operation will be consumed by peace time operations in 3-6 months. Indian has a large military.
  10. Modi sees that the next election maybe hard for him unless he can give an actual victory for his people. Inflation numbers and economical factors are not in his favor and as America is embroiled in Europe and may be willing to cut deals with the Chinese in return for favors against resupplying Russia . This would lead to the possibility of allowing China to arm its ally and attack a weak india is too great.
  11. Pakistani goverment is distracted due to political issues
  12. Insurgent operations via TTP and BLA have increased significantly tieing up Pakistani forces in the north west

What I believed happened
I believe india is conducting a short and quick insertion plan for a short and tactical war against Pakistan. In this regard significant training is being conducted of fast deployment units. To punish Pakistan and take a smaller area of Pakistan To stay within the nuclear threshold but gain concessions. In this process of realistic exercises one missile was launched due to incompetence of the army units in-charge of this . The Indians immediately informed the US which then passed the message to Pakistan and China so no retaliation takes place.

Pakistans response for to follow its SOPs as I would assume they expected a first salvo followed by a second salvo to take out our forward airbases.

I believe india is planning a cold start attack

What I think Pakistan needs to do

  1. use the international forums to continually raise the stink on india with allied countries
  2. India will not attack Pakistan while the OIC Confrence is in effect. The attack will be either be on or earlier than 23 March or after the 25 of March all the way till end of April.
  3. Immediate attention should be put on war preparedness
  4. Air Defences should be put on battle alert at the same level as when Rajiv Gandhi threatened war with Pakistan in the late 80s
  5. We should conduct our own drills and mobilizations, maybe a large exercise like zarb e momin
  6. Close the airspace to all Indian civilian and military traffic and order all AD units to shoot down any incoming threat from India. This will reduce the risk of Pakistan engaging any civilian threats from India.

Your opinion is welcome

K
One thing - traditionally India has attacked in the winter, mostly to keep the Chinese stuck in the snow up north. I wonder why they would like to attack in the summer this time.
 
Indian BrahMos cruise missile which accidentally penetrated into Pakistan was fired from Ambala and not Sirsa as Pak had claimed, thus proving Pak failed to track the missile: Bloomberg News.
 
I believe india is planning a cold start attack
Facts we have determined

  1. The Brahmose land missile system is a version of the anti ship Russian cruise missile

  1. As it flys at high altitude to take advantage of its ram jet motor it is very detectable at longer ranges and can be shot down by most Pakistani air Defense systems in service today.the missile was tracked 300 kms (180km in India + Pakistani radar located 200 kms from the border). What this means is Pakistan is able to at least see 400-500 kms inside India!

  1. The missile is not very maneuverable as it losses significant fuel/ range with even basic maneuvers are established like a right turn into Pakistan as it “crashed” after 234 kms of flight with NO warhead meaning the system was 200 kg lighter

  1. India does not have full control over the missile beyond a certain range and has to rely on pre fed coordinates for attack a lot like most naval weapons. If this were nit the case they would have activated self destruct for the weapon

  2. It is clear from this action that Brahmose does not use cameras or satellite communication as is focused much more on pre fed coordinates or glasnos coordinates

  1. Brahmose in the Indian service is not nuclear capable and is not governed by Indian strategic command

  2. Pakistan defiantly has the ability to shoot this missiles down as the same ly-80 and hq-9p systems are placed on Pakistani and Chinese ships to provide air cover against incoming supersonic cruise missiles like brahmose


  1. Pakistani SOPs against a thread are solid. See what most people don’t realize is
    1. In a war India could fire a first salvo to see what systems we use to intercept the missiles and then launch a second strike to take those systems out! Then launch massive air strikes on Pakistani forward bases. To counter this one would guess that Pakistan would attempt to put as many aircraft up as possible as part of the first wave of defenders, prepare a second wave of air defense as they have another 6-8 minutes before the detection of the second strike and thirdly begin preparing long rang strike packages to take out Indian forward air bases this would need to be launched within 1 hour of the strike coordinated with Pakistani Babur cruise missile strikes to weaken Indian air defenses. Babaur has a 800 km range, flies very low and has a nuclear capable payload of 600 kg. Since it uses a turbofan engine it is extremely maneuverable
  2. We know india is conducting massive exercises with its best elements of quick strike force.
  3. The Indian navy tried to infiltrate a submarine in Pakistani waters
  4. Indians were conducting near live attack tests with cruise missiles with targets in Pakistan
  5. Indian airborne forces conducted training jumps recently
  6. India canceled its large air exercises to Reserve parts
  7. India knows that past April the monsoon season will start I,e May , June and July which will make it very difficult for tanks and armored formations to maneuver
  8. Pakistani acquisition of major systems like jf-17 block 3 , j-10c , hq-9p hq-16 hq 9b , multiple naval systems inclusive of ships, submarines , new tanks , sh-15 sp artillery and longer ranged rocket artillery are new and require at least a year of familiarization
  9. India war time supplies are dwindling as Russia is focused on resupplying its own army first and all the spare factories in Ukraine an alternate source for Russian weapons is no longer available. I estimate the supply of parts for a major operation will be consumed by peace time operations in 3-6 months. Indian has a large military.
  10. Modi sees that the next election maybe hard for him unless he can give an actual victory for his people. Inflation numbers and economical factors are not in his favor and as America is embroiled in Europe and may be willing to cut deals with the Chinese in return for favors against resupplying Russia . This would lead to the possibility of allowing China to arm its ally and attack a weak india is too great.
  11. Pakistani goverment is distracted due to political issues
  12. Insurgent operations via TTP and BLA have increased significantly tieing up Pakistani forces in the north west

What I believed happened
I believe india is conducting a short and quick insertion plan for a short and tactical war against Pakistan. In this regard significant training is being conducted of fast deployment units. To punish Pakistan and take a smaller area of Pakistan To stay within the nuclear threshold but gain concessions. In this process of realistic exercises one missile was launched due to incompetence of the army units in-charge of this . The Indians immediately informed the US which then passed the message to Pakistan and China so no retaliation takes place.

Pakistans response for to follow its SOPs as I would assume they expected a first salvo followed by a second salvo to take out our forward airbases.

I believe india is planning a cold start attack

What I think Pakistan needs to do

  1. use the international forums to continually raise the stink on india with allied countries
  2. India will not attack Pakistan while the OIC Confrence is in effect. The attack will be either be on or earlier than 23 March or after the 25 of March all the way till end of April.
  3. Immediate attention should be put on war preparedness
  4. Air Defences should be put on battle alert at the same level as when Rajiv Gandhi threatened war with Pakistan in the late 80s
  5. We should conduct our own drills and mobilizations, maybe a large exercise like zarb e momin
  6. Close the airspace to all Indian civilian and military traffic and order all AD units to shoot down any incoming threat from India. This will reduce the risk of Pakistan engaging any civilian threats from India.

Your opinion is welcome

K

i think India tested its weapon system at a border where it is to be used sometime in future. it was planned and the trajectory it followed was given and maneuvered timely, the excuse was also talked about being an error even US was conveyed.

i go with ISPR of their statement, they picked up the flight path from the very beginning.

i think India will not attack the time frame you have given. these are presidential elections this year which BJP will conveniently win. in 2024 there will be general elections.

besides Modi need a false flag operation to execute such attack. time frame given above does not left room for any such incidence.

even if they do not require any such operation and just announce after an attack of eliminating terrorists or hideouts, which area do we look into that they would attack? please suggest.
 
Indian BrahMos cruise missile which accidentally penetrated into Pakistan was fired from Ambala and not Sirsa as Pak had claimed, thus proving Pak failed to track the missile: Bloomberg News.
We should take any & all information emerging out of Indian Establishment with a giant grain of salt. There is a major trust deficit. Moreover Ambala is not very far in land & I find it hard to believe that Pakistan failed at all. This story is not even a fig leaf.
 
Indian BrahMos cruise missile which accidentally penetrated into Pakistan was fired from Ambala and not Sirsa as Pak had claimed, thus proving Pak failed to track the missile: Bloomberg News.
Nah it was launched from the very same SU 30 which tracked Chinese J20 from 300km distance. Pakistan got everything wrong.
 
This is a quality post, though I wish formatting was better. I suggest that you use edit function.

There are two ways to look at the scenario:
1. The launch was a bungled affair that spilled beans before even the appetizer. So, in that India's failure is to Pakistan's advantage.
2. The launch was a calculated move to judge Pakistan's reaction for later reference. The missile was fired to deliberately not hit any target as such.

Any analysis would follow either of these options.

In the first case, we are forewarned & Indians would have a harder time executing their plans. The element of surprise is gone to a good extent as far as Brahmos is concerned. Pakistan has gotten data for reference & an idea to update SOPs accordingly.

In the second case, I hope we gave nothing away - no SIGINT, no reaction time, no actual AD assets' deployment, etc... I am glad that we lobbed nothing over the fence either, which would tell them our retaliation plans or even an idea/confirmation of our missiles' performance. Lack of a reaction was the best reaction in this case. Any further adventurism would certainly not be met with a lack of response. India will have to do something else to provoke a response and I think planners on this side must have already gamed alternatives for maximum effectiveness if & when an emergent situation demands.

In both the above cases we seem to have done well. In the bargain we have a stick to beat India with, diplomatically speaking. Any further action from India would be looked at unfavorably by the whole world.

The idea of timing that you have presented is a bit off. There are pre-monsoon rains sometimes in June. These can not be taken as an obstacle whatsoever. Proper Monsoon establishes itself in mid-July. So the window is a bit large here as far as weather is concerned & even the weather may not be a decisive factor.

I also agree with your point about the situation of Russian spare parts. An idea of how Indian weapons procurement works does not inspire confidence in Indian ability for on-time procurement, unless they have good deal of reserves built up. Any conflict that prolongs would be disastrous since it would draw in other powers & would spread to India's disadvantage in more ways than one.

Lastly, we know that Modi's go-to strategy to regain popularity is to target Pakistan to rally his base & get broad support. In cases he tries something like drama of Surgical Strikes, or Balakot Crow affair, Pakistan's response should be disproportionate. Do note that our responses to both of the above did not produce results that proved to have deterred Modi. He sold 26 Feb & 27 Feb as accomplishments despite them being duds. I agree with @MastanKhan when he said that PAF should not have let any SU-30 MKI leave the arena without a missile on its tail. Had we targeted them effectively, Modi could not have hid his failure and therefore would have paid the price - no matter how dim / dumb his supporters are.

I hope PAF stays vigilant & PA stays alert to deal with any misadventure from the East.
There were ample data available about Yankhot from Ukraine , and if Pak have to rely on this, then there is serious problem with intelligence in Pak.

And with almost 100% confidence I can , the flight profile the Pakistan showing is not true.

And it is not launched from Sirsa, there is no secret base in Sirsa. Actually it was far beyond from that.

On MKI, I think it is far better for us if Pak establishment believe this.
They really were expecting furball.
 
You were prescient, while I was a dove. Maybe it was due to our divergent natures, but seeing the results I had to accept your opinion as correct. Leadership entails an ability to foresee & game different outcomes. Preparedness is the key. PA should have foreseen this & prepared to gain advantage with help of PAF. We could have escalated to our advantage, only if the leadership had guts & could have foreseen this. I blame both, the civilian leadership as well as the military leadership. Its like India provided us with an excuse to declare our nuclear status with bangs & we choose to do nothing but a cold test.

A prepared list of targets could have been engaged from Working Boundary all the way to Siachen to gain local advantages & prepare for the inevitable reaction. With a cowed IAF & a bewildered IA, Modi would have decided to escalate but the world powers would have intervened with long-term advantage to Pakistan. BJP could still have won, but Modi would have had a hard time clinging to power. Whatever that would come next would come but we would have been well-established & secure.

It was a squandered opportunity because generals were busy with managing their blue-eyed boy.

An alternative scenario would be that Bajwa had never played politics, Faiz Hameed would have done his actual job, our Western flank would be more secure, & our relation with USA & China would have been better. In this scenario, track-II diplomacy & engagement with Modi would not have given BJP government space to do what India did in 2019. The region & the world would have been a much better place.

All this talk of war & blood really is pointless. South Asia has huge challenges & the leadership (all kinds, most countries) is making idiotic decisions.
I think the major shortcoming was in relation to the Prisoner release. It was unnecessary, is India going to start a Conventional war over it? Unlikely. However, what was on the forefront of decision makers minds was the ability of Pakistan to wage a war in their current position. Unfortunately the Pakistani economy was such that Pakistan would not fare well had a war broken out. With that in mind a decision was made in the face of India shifting its launchers and putting itself on a war footing to instead de-escalate immediately, thus loosing our bargaining chip.

But again, i am not privy to all information nor the contents of those meetings which made the final decision so there could be many more factors at play as well
 
You were prescient, while I was a dove. Maybe it was due to our divergent natures, but seeing the results I had to accept your opinion as correct. Leadership entails an ability to foresee & game different outcomes. Preparedness is the key. PA should have foreseen this & prepared to gain advantage with help of PAF. We could have escalated to our advantage, only if the leadership had guts & could have foreseen this. I blame both, the civilian leadership as well as the military leadership. Its like India provided us with an excuse to declare our nuclear status with bangs & we choose to do nothing but a cold test.

A prepared list of targets could have been engaged from Working Boundary all the way to Siachen to gain local advantages & prepare for the inevitable reaction. With a cowed IAF & a bewildered IA, Modi would have decided to escalate but the world powers would have intervened with long-term advantage to Pakistan. BJP could still have won, but Modi would have had a hard time clinging to power. Whatever that would come next would come but we would have been well-established & secure.

It was a squandered opportunity because generals were busy with managing their blue-eyed boy.

An alternative scenario would be that Bajwa had never played politics, Faiz Hameed would have done his actual job, our Western flank would be more secure, & our relation with USA & China would have been better. In this scenario, track-II diplomacy & engagement with Modi would not have given BJP government space to do what India did in 2019. The region & the world would have been a much better place.

All this talk of war & blood really is pointless. South Asia has huge challenges & the leadership (all kinds, most countries) is making idiotic decisions.
Well the blue eyed boy was not in favor pf releasing Abhinandan so early, it was the army who pushed him to.
 
There were ample data available about Yankhot from Ukraine , and if Pak have to rely on this, then there is serious problem with intelligence in Pak.

And with almost 100% confidence I can , the flight profile the Pakistan showing is not true.

And it is not launched from Sirsa, there is no secret base in Sirsa. Actually it was far beyond from that.

On MKI, I think it is far better for us if Pak establishment believe this.
They really were expecting furball.
Who are you? Spokesperson of Indian armed forces?
 

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