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News Update:
BrahMos Supersonic Cruise Missile Inducted Into Indian Army Ahead of Schedule
Ref: http://www.india-defence.com/reports-3348
Dated 21/6/2007
The surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was today inducted into the Army, making it the first force in the world to possess such a sophisticated system, as President A P J Abdul Kalam asked scientists to work to develop next generation hypersonic version of the missile within the next decade.
The missile, with a range of 290 km, has been developed in cooperation with Russia and was inducted a year ahead of schedule after all its four test firings, including two conducted by army personnel, were flawless. The early induction of the land version of the BrahMos has apparently been timed to counter development of a longer range but subsonic cruise missile 'Babur' by Pakistan.
With a launch trigger time of just two seconds, BrahMos is hard to detect because of its high Mach 2.8 speed, raising its efficiency to target enemy missile launching sites of the enemy. Handing over a replica of the missile to Army Chief General J J Singh to mark the commencement of delivery of the missile to the force, Kalam told defence scientists that they should develop the hypersonic version of the missile within the next decade. This would enable India to maintain force levels in the region as well as be the market leader in Hypersonic missiles, the missile-scientist President said, asking BrahMos Aerospace team to work on developing re-usable missiles.
The missile has pin point accuracy, shoot-and-scoot capabilities, short reaction time and is non-equipment and manpower intensive, according to A Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer of the Indo-Russian joint venture. The missile with cruising range of 15 km, dimension of 9000 MM, can attain speeds of Mach 2.8 and carry a conventional warhead mass ranging from 200 to 300 kg. The actual delivery of the missile would commence next month, almost a year ahead of the scheduled induction fixed earlier for July, 2008, when two mobile batteries and mobile command post would be handed over to the army.
"Early operationalization of the missile system has been advanced by one year," a Defence Ministry spokesman said.
India is the first country in the world to field a supersonic surface-to-surface cruise missile. The US, French and Chinese forces have only subsonic cruise missiles in their armoury. In initial stages of induction, army proposes to raise three regiments of the BrahMos missile system. Special BrahMos groups have already been trained to operate these missiles.
With the induction of BrahMos missile, Indian army is now operating three varieties of surface-to-surface missiles. The other two are short range quick reaction surface-to-surface Prithvi missile with a range of 150 to 250 km and short and medium range Agni group of missiles with capability to hit targets of over 700 to 1,500 km. However, while both Prithvi and Agni series of missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the BrahMos cruise missiles carry conventional warheads.
Kalam, who had himself worked on the country's Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Programme (IRBM), said "time has come for BrahMos Aerospace to work on Mark-II version of BrahMos" to make India a market leader in hypersonic cruise missiles. India should develop re-usable missiles within the next decade, the President said, emphasising that the three services should work as a team to evolve the qualitative requirements for such a system in a time-bound manner. "I visualise long range hypersonic cruise missiles not only delivering payloads, but also returning to base after the mission," Kalam said.
Supporting the idea of export of BrahMos missiles, he called for aggressive marketing of this world class product as the missile has a short shelf life of five years. Otherwise there would be competitors who wo uld be developing contemporary products, he said. Turning BrahMos into a hypersonic missile entails incorporating scramjet technology, on which Indian defence scientists are already working to give it capability to attain Mach 8 speeds and to enhance its range considerably.
"The missile has the distinctive capability to fire 12 unstoppable missiles at 12 different targets within 30 seconds," Pillai told PTI. Army has placed orders for one sub-group, 12 launchers distributed in four mobile autonomous launchers, each carrying three BrahMos missiles. India has already inducted ship-borne version of the BrahMos missile and defence scientists are working on developing submarine and aircraft launched version of the missile.
News Update:
BrahMos Supersonic Cruise Missile Inducted Into Indian Army Ahead of Schedule
Ref: http://www.india-defence.com/reports-3348
Dated 21/6/2007
The surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was today inducted into the Army, making it the first force in the world to possess such a sophisticated system, as President A P J Abdul Kalam asked scientists to work to develop next generation hypersonic version of the missile within the next decade.
The missile, with a range of 290 km, has been developed in cooperation with Russia and was inducted a year ahead of schedule after all its four test firings, including two conducted by army personnel, were flawless. The early induction of the land version of the BrahMos has apparently been timed to counter development of a longer range but subsonic cruise missile 'Babur' by Pakistan.
With a launch trigger time of just two seconds, BrahMos is hard to detect because of its high Mach 2.8 speed, raising its efficiency to target enemy missile launching sites of the enemy. Handing over a replica of the missile to Army Chief General J J Singh to mark the commencement of delivery of the missile to the force, Kalam told defence scientists that they should develop the hypersonic version of the missile within the next decade. This would enable India to maintain force levels in the region as well as be the market leader in Hypersonic missiles, the missile-scientist President said, asking BrahMos Aerospace team to work on developing re-usable missiles.
The missile has pin point accuracy, shoot-and-scoot capabilities, short reaction time and is non-equipment and manpower intensive, according to A Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer of the Indo-Russian joint venture. The missile with cruising range of 15 km, dimension of 9000 MM, can attain speeds of Mach 2.8 and carry a conventional warhead mass ranging from 200 to 300 kg. The actual delivery of the missile would commence next month, almost a year ahead of the scheduled induction fixed earlier for July, 2008, when two mobile batteries and mobile command post would be handed over to the army.
"Early operationalization of the missile system has been advanced by one year," a Defence Ministry spokesman said.
India is the first country in the world to field a supersonic surface-to-surface cruise missile. The US, French and Chinese forces have only subsonic cruise missiles in their armoury. In initial stages of induction, army proposes to raise three regiments of the BrahMos missile system. Special BrahMos groups have already been trained to operate these missiles.
With the induction of BrahMos missile, Indian army is now operating three varieties of surface-to-surface missiles. The other two are short range quick reaction surface-to-surface Prithvi missile with a range of 150 to 250 km and short and medium range Agni group of missiles with capability to hit targets of over 700 to 1,500 km. However, while both Prithvi and Agni series of missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the BrahMos cruise missiles carry conventional warheads.
Kalam, who had himself worked on the country's Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Programme (IRBM), said "time has come for BrahMos Aerospace to work on Mark-II version of BrahMos" to make India a market leader in hypersonic cruise missiles. India should develop re-usable missiles within the next decade, the President said, emphasising that the three services should work as a team to evolve the qualitative requirements for such a system in a time-bound manner. "I visualise long range hypersonic cruise missiles not only delivering payloads, but also returning to base after the mission," Kalam said.
Supporting the idea of export of BrahMos missiles, he called for aggressive marketing of this world class product as the missile has a short shelf life of five years. Otherwise there would be competitors who wo uld be developing contemporary products, he said. Turning BrahMos into a hypersonic missile entails incorporating scramjet technology, on which Indian defence scientists are already working to give it capability to attain Mach 8 speeds and to enhance its range considerably.
"The missile has the distinctive capability to fire 12 unstoppable missiles at 12 different targets within 30 seconds," Pillai told PTI. Army has placed orders for one sub-group, 12 launchers distributed in four mobile autonomous launchers, each carrying three BrahMos missiles. India has already inducted ship-borne version of the BrahMos missile and defence scientists are working on developing submarine and aircraft launched version of the missile.