The excessively fast speed of the BrahMos is ironically its greatest weakness vs a modern AEGIS or PAAMS equipped warship.
Okay, so Indians and Russians are spending money on an inferior supersonic
Sea-skimming anti-ship missile, when India can spend the money on a subsonic system, or can buy any western system, as almost everything is available for sale to India.
Consider: BrahMos is non-stealthy, flies hot and high (in comparison to other sea-skimmers) and is more susceptible to soft-kill (I.e ship countermeasures etc) due to its high speeds limiting the ability of BrahMos to react. There is also the fact that the BrahMos' sea-skimming capabilities are severely impaired in adverse sea states! BrahMos is also useless in the littoral zones or high traffic sea lanes, again due to its high speed and lack of intelligence (I.e High risk of engaging neutral/civilian shipping target).
1. Brahmos has stealth features. In any case a small tubular thing has minimal RCS.
2. It can fly at 30 feet height (10 meters)...not good enough to avoid radars? Also see Anony's post #427 above on variable flight path and maneuverability.
3. Which missile fly cold? And heat signature is detected by IR systems, which have limited range. Brahmos will not give any time to react even after detection.
4. Which sea-skimmer's sea-skimming capabilities are not impaired in adverse sea conditions?
5. In addition to Anony's post, which high-traffic zone will remain busy in case of war in the region?
BTW, by your logic, a subsonic low-flying, propeller-plane is better than a hot and high flying fighter jet plane?
Scenario: An AEGIS or PAAMs system with its powerful long-range AESA radars will see the 'high-flying' BrahMos with its HUGE thermal signature at great distances, most likely before BrahMos has even had time to reach max velocity (est. 1.8 Mach). This would be an easy hard-kill for an AEGIS/Standard combo or a PAAMS/Aster combo. For arguments sake, lets say that the impossible happened and the AEGIS/PAAMS failed to prosecute BrahMos during its initial engagement, and continued to so, what then? Well, the AEGIS/PAAMS warship would deploy countermeasures, decoys etc in-order to lure/trick BrahMos away from the target. As I have said before, the speed of BrahMos denies it sufficient reaction time - therefore if the ships countermeasures succeed, we can pretty much guarantee a soft-kill. Beyond soft-kill we have CIWS as final defense, and western CIWS are tested and proven.
1. As discussed, you consider 10 meters as high flying? Isn't that enough for avoiding radar detection?
2. Which radar is tracking heat signature? Is there any new development that I don't know about? Heat signature tracking systems has a limited range.
3. Isn't Brahmos is 2.8 Mach? Isn't higher speed means lesser reaction time for enemy?
4. Read Anony's reply.
We also have to remember that no matter how fast BrahMos is, or how agile it is during its terminal phase, western missiles such as Standard or Aster etc are even faster, significantly more intelligent and much more maneuverable (in excess of 60Gs, TVing etc etc). Additionally, if third party targeting data is available, AEGIS/PAAMS will spot BrahMos at launch, and if it is within their engagement envelope (I.e 120 km), then they can engage BrahMos while its at high-subsonic or low-supersonic speeds.
1. We are not talking about Brahmos vs. western systems.
2. However, please provide a list of supersonic
Sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, that are faster than 2.8 mach.
Conclusion: BrahMos is just fast, but not really a great anti-ship missile. All the latest in-production anti-ship missiles in the west are intelligent, stealthy subsonic missile such as the Naval Strike Missile/Joint Strike Missile. The United States also favors a new stealthy subsonic anti-ship missile to replace its Harpoon missiles.
And why Brahmos is not qualifying as a intelligent missile? I mean whatever you claim, when it comes to weapon technology, Russians know much more than China.
Nonetheless, navies like China, Russia, India, Brazil etc are currently not-capable of defending against missiles like BrahMos - we do not operate naval air-defense systems as sophisticated and advanced as AEGIS/PAAMS. While destroyers such as the Kolkata-class and the Type 052D will improve the situation, they will still be vulnerable.
So, after all the tall claims: can I safely conclude that
at the moment China doesn't have anything to counter a supersonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missile ? More importantly, on the original question that I asked to @
Beast: "So, is your CIWS system capable of neutralizing supersonic/hypersonic sea-skimming anti-ship missiles?",
can I conclude that the answer is "NO"?
EDIT: Can I also mention this; There is nothing particularly impressive about BrahMos, it isn't a revolutionary design and it isn't a great feat of technological engineering by military standards. Western countries have had the technology to design and produce supersonic anti-ship missiles since the 1960s (at-least).
Okay, no need to be impressed about Brahmos. Please only provide a list of supersonic
Sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, that are faster than 2.8 mach....produced anywhere in the world since 1960s.