Posted on 09/05/2010 2:12:10 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
BALASORE: In a first in the military world, the BrahMos cruise missile achieved a supersonic dive after being fired from a defence base in Orissa as part of the trials to fine-tune its capabilities, an official said.
'The missile flew in the designated complex trajectory conducting large manoeuvres and steep dive. This is the first time in the world that a supersonic dive has been realised by a cruise missile,' said BrahMos Aerospace spokesperson Praveen Pathak.
The Indian armed forces termed it a 'perfectly precise flight', he added.
The 290-km range BrahMos missile, which can travel 2.8 times the speed of sound, was tested for the army from the Integrated Test Range of Chandipur in here, some 230 km from Orissa capial Bhubaneswar, director of the test range S P Dash said.
'The launch met all mission requirements. It was a 100 percent fantastic launch,' Dash said.
Defence Minister A K Antony congratulated the armed forces and the defence scientists associated with the project for the 'success'.
The launch was conducted in the presence of Director General of Artillery Lt Gen Vinod Nayanar, BrahMos Aerospace CEO and MD A S Pillai, scientists from the Defence Research and Developments Organisation, industry representatives and officers from different units of the army.
The sophisticated cruise missile has already been inducted into the Indian army and the navy. The Block-II version capabilities to hit precisely a small target in a cluster of larger targets were demonstrated from Pokhran recently.
'This new capability has made it even more lethal,' Pathak said in a statement.
The BrahMos missile is a two-stage vehicle that has a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ramjet system. It can carry conventional warheads up to 300 kg for a range of 290 km.
The cruise missile is capable of being launched from multiple platforms based on land, ships, submarines and aircraft, and currently the focus in on for the development of its air-launched and submarine-launched versions.
India and Russia are jointly designing the BrahMos missile, named after the Brahmaputra (India) and Moskva (Russia) rivers.
A regiment of the BrahMos-I variant, consisting of 67 missiles, five mobile autonomous launchers on 12x12 Tatra vehicles and two mobile command posts, among other equipment, is already operational with the army.
Sounds like a pretty nasty carrier-killer.
I don’t know. I’m not expert, but I doubt 300 kg. of conventional explosives would take out a carrier. Plus, it’s slower than a fighter aircraft. The mach 5 version would be much more difficult to stop.
Yeah, the Mach-5 version is the one that worries me - in addition to the explosives, that is a lot of kinetic energy to add to the destructive power of the device.
“Prospective clients include 14 countries.”
Hypersonic version of BrahMos undergoes successful lab test news
http://www.domain-b.com/aero/mil_avi/miss_muni/20080513_hypersonic_version.html
New Delhi: India’s showpiece supersonic cruise missile, the BrahMos, has now been successfully tested in a hypersonic version, though under laboratory conditions, according to BrahMos Aerospace chief executive officer, Dr A Sivathanu Pillai.
‘’We have achieved a speed of Mach 5.26 in our laboratory tests of the hypersonic version of the BrahMos. However, it will take some 15-20 tests under controlled conditions before the missile can be actually test-launched,’’ Dr Pillai said.
The test was conducted at the Hyderabad-based Advanced Systems Laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which has developed the missile through a joint venture with Russia’s NPO organisation.
The BrahMos missile is currently available in a tri-sonic form (Mach 2.86) and can be described as belonging to the high supersonic class, which describes missiles in the Mach 3-4 category. Hypersonic missiles fly at speeds over Mach 5.
According to Dr Pillai, the Brahmos hypersonic version will not only have higher speed, but will also consume less fuel and require less operational time to deploy. These qualities are expected to provide the missile longer range, and also ensure less reaction time from the enemy.
High speeds also make the missile difficult to detect, and increase the kinetic impact on the target.
The velocity of the missile is directly proportional to the destruction it causes, with higher velocities causing higher damage, Dr Pillai elaborated.
Dr Pillai also said the hypersonic version was powered by a scramjet engine that is also used for launching satellites at low cost.
The Chinese have the SunBurn anti ship missile and its a pretty bad dude too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22
This weapon has a top speed of Mach 3[1][2], and is considered one of the most lethal anti-ship missiles in the world.[3] The high speed of the missile means typical flight duration of only 25 to 30 seconds, giving a target little time to react. Moskit can be armed with a warhead of 320 kg.[4]
We should buy some and make it 15 countries. Then we can test it and develop tactics against it.
A hit at Mach 5 would be lethal with or without explosives.
They are saying this can go max speed mach 2.8. We don’t have mach 2.8 fighters. We have mach 2+ fighters, but not that fast.
At Mach 3, 30 seconds translates into about 19 miles. I doubt the entire flight time is just 30 seconds. No surface combatant is going to get within 19 miles of a carrier battle group under wartime ROE. It may have an engagement envelope of only 25 or 30 seconds by the Aegis equipped CGs and DDGs protecting the carrier. However, depending upon flight profile, they will have it on radar long before then (in computer terms). A 20 second engagement envelope is an eternity for a system that can spit out interceptors at the rate of about 1 per second, per ship. Particularly when they can put Aegis into "auto special" mode where the computer engages without any human delays. A tough missile no-doubt, but not the end of the world. Just means a lot of business for whoever has the current contract to build SM-2s 'cause they'll shoot a lot of them....
The key of course would be accurate targeting. The Moskit was only deployed by a one of a kind, sea skimmer plane the D-160. Prinicpal is to get in close with the launcher to shorten response time. Hence the carrier group’s structure to include fast attack quiet nuke subs to take out the Sovremenny destroyers— which are NOT quiet. You don’t wait for a launch. Of course, they could do this in a “peace” footing and start something. We have quite a few items that could handle the attackers.
Even without the weapon, ANY single cruise missile will take out EVERY ship smaller than a carrier.
After any single hit by any single weapon, every cruiser-destroyer-frigate sized ship since WWII has been unable to fight, flee, and find: Every ship hit once has lost propulsion, combat and weapons systems, or navigation and control (rudder, keel, control etc.)
Technically a SAM, I bet the SM-2 is a faster missile, which also has a SSM capability, and the Aegis Cruiser could ripple fire a dozen.
There are very few things out there that can be termed as an 'carrier killer.' I personally do not know of any (short of a nuclear detonation), and even the conventional Chinese IRBM would be more of a capability kill (e.g. messing up the runway) than a true kill (although in warfare, taking out an asset's capability is close enough to taking out the asset as to not matter).
On the speed, it is faster than 99% of planes out there. There are very few manned aircraft in the history of flight to present that are able to go at Mach 2.8. Currently, I cannot think of one apart from the MiG 25 and MiG 31 that is in active service (that is assuming that the US did not come up with something to replace the SR-71 Blackbird). A cylinder moving at Mach 2.8, say 50 feet above the surface of the sea, and doing terminal maneuvers is something that will not kill a carrier ....but it will mess up anything else (e.g. a Destroyer).
The good thing is that India is an ally, and Russia (and India) are too concerned with China to be a bother to the US. I always say that the next great war will see India and Russia allied with the US and Japan against China.
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