Posted on 02/07/2008 10:24:19 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Russia and India perfect BrahMos
15:27 | 07/ 02/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov arrives in India on February 12 for the opening ceremony of the Year of Russia in India.
A joint project, years in the making, the Year of Russia in India will inject further momentum into military-technical cooperation between the two countries, an area that is already leading Russian-Indian business relations.
Military cooperation is based on the latest achievements in the defense industry. A case in point is the BrahMos-2, a new tactical cruise missile named after India's Brahmaputra River and Russia's Moskva River. In the coming five years the Russian-Indian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace, founded in 1998, will produce the missile for India's Defense Ministry.
At five times the speed of sound, the BrahMos-2 is fast enough to overcome any air defense system. More than 20 Russian plants and design bureaus, including the leading Russian missile producers Strela and Mashinostroyeniye research and production association, will be involved in the production of the new weapon.
The main feature of this missile is its versatility: it can be based on vehicles, ships, submarines and aircraft. In other words, the BrahMos missile can be supplied to every branch of the armed forces.
On June 21 of last year India's Ground Forces received their first BrahMos-1 missile, mounted on a Tatra truck chassis. A series of successful test launches had already confirmed the high combat qualities and effectiveness of the new weapon.
The Indian Defense Ministry announced on January 1 that the missile would be soon supplied to the Air Force for Russian-built multi-role Su-30MKI fighters. The Indian Navy received the BrahMos-1 in 2006.
The BrahMos-1 has a range of 290 kilometers, a cruise speed of 920 meters per second, and carries an up to 300-kilogram warhead.
The BrahMos is the descendent of a well-known Russian predecessor, the Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile developed by the Mashinostryeniye research and production association in the early 1980s. It was designed to fight against surface naval groups and single ships in conditions of strong enemy opposition and radio-electronic warfare.
Unlike previous Russian anti-ship missiles, which had a relatively narrow carrier specialization, the Yakhont was designed for launch from submarines, surface vessels, aircraft and shore batteries. In its versatility the missile was designed to surpass the American Harpoon, at that time the best foreign anti-ship missile.
The BrahMos missile has inherited all the best characteristics of its Russian predecessor: over the horizon (OTH) range, self-sustainability (fire-and-forget principle), a set of flexible ('low', 'high-low') trajectories, supersonic velocity at all stages of flight, full commonality for various carriers, and the ability to avoid detection by radar.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Doesn’t India worry about Russia cozying up to China?
They are all essentially allies or at least partners. Plus China will not have any desire to take on India’s rapidly modernizing military.
The Peace between Russia and the US was kept by the doctrine of M.A.D.
Neither country would launch an attack, because that would end up being national suicide.
Now the US and Russia have a potential enemy who has sworn to his God to commit national suicide.
And everything is being done to make sure that country, it’s rulers, have the right tools to do the job well.
Russia is close with India for precisely that... so that the Chinese are not given a situation where they can concentrate all their troops on the Sino-Russian border. With India taking advantage of that, it automatically becomes a worry for China’s southern borders, and China HAS to maintain a large number of troops at the Indo-Chinese border all the time.
The world is one crazy place.
Hmm, sounds like it doesn't really exist yet. More scary (booga booga) Russian military tech that exists only on paper -- and always will...
The original BrahMos is in production, I think (although maybe not the air or sub-launched variant. It can only reach Mach ~2.5. The article is talking about its follow-on.
I wouldn’t discount Russian missile tech. They led the way in anti-ship missile development, and a Russian AShM scored the first AShM kill (against the Israeli Eilat). The USSR’s defense industry has remained relatively strong in this sector IMHO. The discovery of the AA-11’s performance after the Cold War left the West scrambling to find a better short-range AAM, so it wouldn’t be unprecedented for them to field a superior product.
Plus, the USN’s offensive capability is centered on carriers and their aircraft. The USSR’s was centered on subs and, to a lesser extent, missiles by my understanding. While Russian boats don’t compare favorably to ours, they’ve been able to continue missile development at a comparatively decent pace.
Russia will cosy up to China only to a point — the Ruskies are worried about China’s plans wrt Siberia.
“On June 21 of last year India’s Ground Forces received their first BrahMos-1 missile, mounted on a Tatra truck chassis.”
Why would India and Russia chose to mount their weapon on a Czech designed and built truck? Both nations have a healthy truck manufacturing industry. Perhaps the copy meant to say Tata who are a very big truck maker in India?
Not as long as China wants to seize the resources in Siberia...
A point that is completely and utterly lost on an overwhelming majority of our population......
Well,what can India do about that??
Cozy up to the US?-but wait,they need the Pakis for the WOT.
Europe?They can’t wait to sell arms to the Chinese(& have already sold lots of dual-use systems).
India & China are about as friendly as the US & Russia.
The difference being that China still holds thousands of miles of Indian territory.
I think India has less to worry about the US selling out their secrets than the Russians. I think the Russians would sell out the Indians in a second to the Chinese.
Maybe not,but India can’t expect a perfect deal from anyone-that’s life.Neither Russia or the US will help India out of idealism.
India is going to have the US as its main weapons supplier by the end of the year, both through us directly and through Israel as a middleman. India is supposed to get the F-35 JSF.
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