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New
Delhi, 10 May 2005
The
formal induction of the BrahMos missile in Indian
Navy service is imminent.
BrahMos
Induction
The
Indian Navy is all set to formally induct the
Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic Anti-Ship Cruise
Missile (ASCM) adding a new and fearsome dimension
to its capabilities. The successful tenth and final
test of the missile, was fired from Guided-Missile
Destroyer (DDG) INS Rajput, acting as a test bed,
involved a combat prototype with a live warhead and
marked the imminent formal induction of the missile
less than four years after its first trial.
BrahMos is destined to be a "tri-service"
missile to be fired from surface ships, submarines,
airborne platforms, trucks and land-based silos.
Mass production of the missile has commenced and the
company expects to supply the Indian armed forces
with 1,000 missiles by 2015.
The
BrahMos is destined to equip all future major Indian
naval warships the three Project 15A
Bangalore class guided missile armed helicopter
carrying Destroyers (DDGH) and Project 17 Shivalik
class guided missile armed helicopter carrying
Frigates (FFGH) and will be retrofitted on
one existing warship each year. (It may also be a
prudent move to enable the Bangalore class DDGH to
operate maritime Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) from
the aft flight deck for reconnaissance and targeting
purposes.) The BrahMos promises enormous destructive
potential in littoral warfare operations in the
Persian Gulf area or in waterways of South-East
Asia, near the coastline or in narrow
"choke-points", where the movements of
enemy surface combatants are predictable and easily
locatable. The BrahMos also presents itself as a
formidable tool for enforcing a naval blockade.
BrahMos
Technology
The
BrahMos ASCM is a joint venture between Indian DRDO
and Russian NPO Mashinostroyeniya (NPO Mash).
BrahMos inherits a low Radar Cross Section (RCS)
with an Active Radar Homing (ARH) seeker to
facilitate fire-and-forget launch. Varieties of
flight trajectories including sea-skimming or
terminal pop-up followed by a deadly dive,
complicate the task of the adversary. Mid-course
guidance is inertial, developed and refined by
Indian scientists. A 290-km long flight range with
high supersonic (Mach 2.8) speed will lead to lower
target dispersion and quicker engagement and higher
destructive capability aided by the large kinetic
energy of impact. In most of the cases the target
warship will be denied sufficient time to react even
if alerted. The missile appears to have been
developed to defeat the increasing sophistication of
ship-based defences comprising of longer-ranged and
enhanced flexible phased-array radars in combination
with point-defence missile systems,
"closed-loop" Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS)
and smart decoys.
The
BrahMos will turn out to be an even more deadly ASCM
if the Indian software designers have by now matured
the already formidable guidance system of the
BrahMos predecessor SS-N-26 Yakhont which has
accumulated all the NPO Mash experience in
developing electronic systems of Artificial
Intelligence (AI). Thus in case of a salvo launch a
flock of BrahMos will be able to allocate and range
targets by their importance and choose the attack
implementation plan. The independent control system
will take care of the Electronic Counter Measures (ECM)
and Electronic Counter-Counter Measures (ECCM) data,
and also the methods of evading the fire of the
enemy's air defense systems. After destroying the
main target in a CVBG or surface action group, the
remaining missiles will destroy the other ships
eliminating in the process the possibility of using
two missiles on single target.
Air
Launched BrahMos
It
was announced that the air-launched version to be
developed would have a smaller booster and
additional tail fins for stability during launch.
Surprisingly, "without prior notice" as
part of Alfa next-generation airborne reconnaissance
and strike system, NPO Mash unveiled the Yakhont-M
air-launched supersonic ASCM at the MAKS 2003 air
show, which share elements with the Indo-Russian
PJ-10 BrahMos. The Yakhont-M is an air-launched ASCM
intended for Sukhoi-30 multi-role fighters,
Sukhoi-34 and Sukhoi-24M strike fighters with
multi-sensor guidance, to engage surface ships and
ground targets at up to 300-km. Reconnaissance and
target acquisition would be provided by radar and
electro-optical equipped Kondor low-Earth-orbit
satellites. The Indian Air Force (IAF) Sukhoi-30MKIs
will be capable of carrying three air-launched
BrahMos each while the Indian Navy (IN) Long Range
Maritime Patrol (LRMP) platforms will be armed with
the missile. The missile is also slated to arm the
Tupolev-22M3 Backfire-C reconnaissance bomber
if it enters IN service. The point of interest lies
whether the missile can be accommodated in the
internal rotary launchers of the reconnaissance
bombers ensuring carriage in multiples and
facilitating decent aerodynamic performance.
The
Strategic BrahMos
While
national media have reported a hypersonic Mach 8
variant of BrahMos to be developed in future, the
Western defence media circles are anticipating a
sub-sonic or transonic (near the speed of sound)
Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) variant with an
estimated range of 800-km to 1,400-km. In any case a
Mach 8 variant of BrahMos will indicate a major
technological breakthrough by the Russians in the
context of the propulsion components of solid
booster and liquid kerosene ramjet engine.
For
their part, Indian scientists have for at least a
decade, been working on solid-state lasers for use
as super-high-speed ignition systems to arm
missiles, although their present status is a closely
guarded secret. A Mach 8 passive radiation homing
BrahMos-2 if developed, will fulfil an Indian Navy
requirement of a formidable Suppression of Enemy Air
Defence (SEAD) LACM and also pose a deadly threat to
enemy warships sporting elaborate air defence radar
systems like the "AEGIS type" vessels
under construction for the Chinese People Liberation
Army Navy (PLAN).
The
quest for a Brahmos LACM variant was hinted at in a
test at Pokhran during December 2004, the missile
being equipped with special image processing
software for terminal homing. Although not
officially stated, it could well be a Digital Scene
Matching Area Correlator (DSMAC) variant, which uses
a zoom lens to collect images and matches them with
the snaps of the approach to the target stored in
the memory, to conduct precision strikes against an
array of enemy counter-force and counter-value
targets ranging from airfields to overland
communications, command and control centres and
powerful air defence installations.
The
United States Navy for their part has repeatedly
demonstrated this concept in the past two decades
over Middle East and Balkans with considerable
success. It is one of the prime reasons for early
accomplishments in operations and low US and allied
casualties. During the Pokhran test BrahMos
searched, located and destroyed a 50-cm thick
concrete bunker with pinpoint accuracy. The Indian
Army in anticipation of inducting the missile by
2007 has raised and begun training its first core
group to man the cruise missile.
Guidance
Systems
It
is now an open secret that for mid-course guidance
the Indians are working hard at enhancing and
refining the Inertial Navigation System (INS) with
possible Israeli assistance that keeps track of the
smallest change in velocity of the missile from its
launch. In fact, if the warhead is nuclear tipped to
cause wide-area destruction, the degree of accuracy
delivered by INS is sufficient. Indians are believed
to have obtained gyroscopes and other related items
from European nations and are said to have
successfully reverse-engineered them.
A
Global Positioning System (GPS) has also been made
to complement the navigational data computed by INS.
GPS is based on an array of low-earth NAVSTAR (NAVigation
Satellite Targeting & Ranging) satellites.
Computers onboard the missile, communicate with the
satellites to accurately determine their
instantaneous location. GPS mode enjoy few decisive
advantages over the alternative Terrain Contour
Matching (TERCOM) system as TERCOM is somewhat less
effective on say the flat deserts surfaces where the
average height of terrain does not vary over long
stretches for proper identification. However the US
monopoly over NAVSTAR satellites means signals can
be "degraded for other users" by United
States at their will. India thus should involve
itself with the rapidly expanding Russian GLONASS
GPS project or other suitable alternatives in terms
of scientific collaboration or financial resource
sharing.
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