Supersonic cruise missile BRAHMOS, successfully inducted into the Indian Army and Navy, will soon be deployed by Russian defense ser...
Supersonic cruise missile BRAHMOS, successfully inducted into the Indian Army and Navy, will soon be deployed by Russian defense services, for which modalities are being worked out, a top official of the Indo-Russian joint venture confirmed.
“A high power delegation, led by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, recently visited the company and reviewed and appreciated the induction and progress of Brahmos missiles into the Indian Army and Navy. After discussions, it was decided to induct them into Russian services,” A Shivathanu Pillai, CEO and Managing Director of Brahmos Aerospace, told on Saturday night.
The delegation would soon work out modalities to induct them into their services, particularly the Naval fleet, he said.
Pillai said plans are afoot to conduct underwater tests of the submarine variant of the missile. If successful, the company would seek the Government’s nod for its induction into all services and commercial production, he said.
The missile with pinpoint accuracy can be launched as far as 290-km from the target. It can be launched in either inclined or vertical configuration based on the type of the ship or user requirements.
The potential carriers are Frigate, Corvette, Offshore patrol vessel and any other type of ships.
The missile has successfully demonstrated its speed, precision and power a number of times from Naval ships.
The launches have been carried out in sea-to-sea and sea-to-land configurations successfully. The recent launch in the inclined configuration in sea-to-land mode was carried out from sea to a designated target built on an isolated island at Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It precisely hit the target, thus demonstrating its capabilities.
BRAHMOS has also been tested in vertical configuration from a moving warship. This has proved the missile’s vertical launch capabilities from a moving platform and also that of the Universal Vertical Launcher Module (UVLM), designed and developed by BrahMos.
UVLM, a next generation system far superior to the design concept followed worldwide, will be used for future ship installation in vertical configuration for BRAHMOS.
BRAHMOS can be launched in single or in a salvo from a ship towards single or different types of targets within an interval of 2-2.5 seconds in various trajectories. A salvo of 8 missiles can penetrate and destroy a group of frigates having modern anti-missile defences.
BrahMos, set up in 1998, produces three variants of the BrahMos missile, based on the NPO Mashinostroyenie 3M55 Yakhont (NATO SS-N-26) supersonic cruise missile.The missile have a range of 300 kilometers (180 miles).
BrahMos can fly as low as 30 feet (10 m) or attack its target from a high angle, combined with supersonic speed and evasive maneuvering. BrahMos can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg (660 lbs). It is the world's only cruise missile which can reach 2.8 Mach speed.
