Indian Missiles and Munitions Discussion - June'14

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 16 Oct 2015 21:56

Rout's sources are legitimate and from within ITR. Obviously, he/she has his/her opinion, which is okay. His glee/contempt is from being right in his reporting. Personally, although I don't prefer it, I can tolerate it.

Nothing to worry. It was a TEST. It failed, big deal!

akashganga · Post by **akashganga** » 16 Oct 2015 22:11

indranilroy wrote:Rout's sources are legitimate and from within ITR. Obviously, he/she has his/her opinion, which is okay. His glee/contempt is from being right in his reporting. Personally, although I don't prefer it, I can tolerate it.

Nothing to worry. It was a TEST. It failed, big deal!

Congratulations DRDO for nirbhay test. Failure is opportunity to learn from mistake and improve. I am sure we will see next nirbhay test soon. cheers.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Oct 2015 22:17

I think DRDO is ignoring lateral acceleration qualification for the RLG. Agreed axial or longitudinal acceleration is primary load, but when you have way-point turns/changes, the RLG gets high lateral accelerations. Not as much as Agni RV but still significant. ESSS of fuel tank could not be the cause.

So Rout and his source can pound sand.

Also advice to source. If you have issues bring up to your management not to reporters.
Or resign.

Sid · Post by **Sid** » 16 Oct 2015 22:26

At face value it looks like core issue found during first test flight was not completely fixed.

Or maybe due to lack of continuous GPS input, INS could not correct its position error over time and drifted.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 16 Oct 2015 22:28

indranilroy wrote:Rout's sources are legitimate and from within ITR. Obviously, he/she has his/her opinion, which is okay. His glee/contempt is from being right in his reporting. Personally, although I don't prefer it, I can tolerate it.

Its not about being right alone. Its about making news. He made up a lot of stuff about Akash as well. Turned out later he was cooking up stuff.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 16 Oct 2015 22:29

Sid wrote:At face value it looks like core issue found during first test flight was not completely fixed.

Or maybe due to lack of continuous GPS input, INS could not correct its position error over time and drifted.

One issue with DRDO's testing methods is that to save cost, they qualify a lot of new stuff in each flight (more with less). Which means risk/flight goes up despite all the ground based testing.

This test failure (IMHO) is no big deal. Million $ question is the engine and its localization.

Gyan · Post by **Gyan** » 16 Oct 2015 22:33

IIRC Russian Club series also had a problem about getting lost. Anyway test is a "test"!

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 16 Oct 2015 22:54

ramana wrote: Also advice to source. If you have issues bring up to your management not to reporters.
Or resign.

Absolutely, exactly my thought.

A more well-written article, where a journalist expresses the facts, and let's the reader draw his/her conclusions.
Nirbhay missile fails; mission aborted after 700 seconds of flight

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 16 Oct 2015 23:31

That One India article is like a breath of fresh air, factual, zero sensationalism and objective!!

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 17 Oct 2015 00:17

It's our very own Tarmak007.

Sid · Post by **Sid** » 17 Oct 2015 00:20

Does Nirbhay only uses GPS/INS combo or there is more to its nav system?

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 17 Oct 2015 00:28

Ramana Garu: Rout covered his ass by stating 2 things from his DRDO leak

(1) Weld performance under stress: agree with you. That's not the root cause
(2) Flight control software wasn't independently tested: that *could* be related to the root cause

Only a low level douche like Rout would feel happiness that the test failed because he could claim "I told you so". DRDO needs to crack the whip on the leak source. I am sure the insiders know who is talking to Rout.

You are spot on: if a disgruntled DRDO scientist leaks to media rather than work with his team, he needs to be let go or demoted.

Indranil/Karan: though Tarmak's report is better than Rout's, it has the same rudaali about how how this is a *litmus test* blah blah blah. See quotes below. I expected better from him

The third test was critical for DRDO's top brass, who are put under the scanner by the Modi government during the last one year.

The missile makers at ADE too were under pressure, making the Nirbhay test results extremely crucial

Today's failure will certainly be a bolt to ADE

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 17 Oct 2015 01:29

Give some elbow-room yaar! Their can be more PoVs than one!

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 17 Oct 2015 01:32

PK saar, above is somewhat unavoidable. If ADE has consistent issues then the DRDO leadership will hold them accountable and the top brass are definitely under some pressure (like all brass in GOI currently are) so one can live with such minor stuff. At least he didn't do the mega-rudali and glee-nautanki like Rout.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 17 Oct 2015 01:33

India forget elbow room, the media has the palace to themselves and the people of india are their bonded labor forced to listen to their every whim and fancy..

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Oct 2015 01:39

In tarmak's report

During the turn towards the second way point in azimuth plane, Nirbhay developed a snag and lost its control and fell within the notified area.

Waypoint turn induces lateral accelerations on the guidance system. Looks like first flight issues not completely resolved.

I don't see what else DRDO top brass can do!

Most reviews go:
Did you do everything you know off?
Yes saar.
then, ready for flight.

---

My saying:
"You don't know what you don't know till you know!"

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Oct 2015 01:41

Prem Kumar, Agree knives are out! Read the complete para after bolt to ADE.

Aditya G · Post by **Aditya G** » 17 Oct 2015 01:55

modi must explain

John · Post by **John** » 17 Oct 2015 02:47

Gyan wrote:IIRC Russian Club series also had a problem about getting lost. Anyway test is a "test"!

Off topic but that has not been confirmed by anyone incl nato other than supposed anonymous source in pentagon. And considering how iranians and kurds have tweeted videoes of missile flying through their area there are no images of crash.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 17 Oct 2015 04:14

John wrote:
Gyan wrote:IIRC Russian Club series also had a problem about getting lost. Anyway test is a "test"!
Off topic but that has not been confirmed by anyone incl nato other than supposed anonymous source in pentagon. And considering how iranians and kurds have tweeted videoes of missile flying through their area there are no images of crash.

modi must explain that too

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 17 Oct 2015 05:04

Screengrab from a book called "Death by Moderation". read the last para

ramdas · Post by **ramdas** » 17 Oct 2015 05:16

Failures by themselves would not be worrying. What is worrying is the slow rate of testing: 1 per year. Each critical missile system in development like Agni-5, K-4 and nirbhay should undergo at least 3 tests per year. Inducted systems like Agni-I-IV must have 1-2 tests a year at the mimimum.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 17 Oct 2015 06:08

ramdas wrote:Failures by themselves would not be worrying. What is worrying is the slow rate of testing: 1 per year. Each critical missile system in development like Agni-5, K-4 and nirbhay should undergo at least 3 tests per year. Inducted systems like Agni-I-IV must have 1-2 tests a year at the mimimum.

This has been a complaint on BRF for the last 15 years. In the early days the complaint was that Prithvi missiles were not being tested often enough. What we do not see is the analyses and testing of subcomponents. it is only when the entire system is tested and they choose to publicize it that we see it.

Let me state another suspicion I have - just a hunch and maybe I am wrong. This Nirbhay test was given great publicity. Not only was it given publicity it seems that information has been leaked that it was a hasty and ill prepared test. It almost looks like an invitation for observers to watch out for it. And guess what - there is also a quiet announcement that Arihant was to test fire a missile. It is possible that this test was a cover for some other test? I don't know. Rout may be a DRDO tool. Everyone is looking at Odisha whlle something else happens near Antarctica?

I keep mentioning that I read this great book on Indian Navy Foxtrot Submarines by a Commodore Franklin. One story in that book is how the sub stealthily positioned itself in a restricted area of ocean when there was intelligence information that a certain country in the neighbourhood was going to test a missile. The sub was to watch and record something related to that missile test. No further details are given other than that the desired recordings were obtained.

JayS · Post by **JayS** » 17 Oct 2015 11:29

ramdas wrote:Failures by themselves would not be worrying. What is worrying is the slow rate of testing: 1 per year. Each critical missile system in development like Agni-5, K-4 and nirbhay should undergo at least 3 tests per year. Inducted systems like Agni-I-IV must have 1-2 tests a year at the mimimum.

Yes, extremely slow rate of testing. But to be fair, DRDO is short of funds and man-power. In past 5 years there has been only one significant recruitment I have seen (200 odd jobs), The SET is suspended since 2009 IIRC. Reportedly UPA froze all the recruitments and there are vacancies of over 2000 scientists to be filled. I was in fact expecting some serious recruitment after Modi came to power. But it ain't happening. DRDO head recently publicly requested more funds as well.

SJha tweeted about down morale in DRDO due to handling of Avinash Chander sacking issue. Don't know how true is this. But the sacking was indeed very abrupt and unexpected.

Some serious money needs to be thrown in R&D. I think DRDO should start some publicity campaign like our armed forces have started for attracting good talent. A good NatGeo style documentary series on DRDO programs would be nice PR for starter.

kit · Post by **kit** » 17 Oct 2015 11:55

I suppose DRDO needs to a better job at retaining people ..seems like quite a few are leaving..one can imagine what that can do in middle of a program !

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 17 Oct 2015 18:12

Arun Menon wrote:^Anyway, not much reason to worry about Nirbhay, because natashas can't hawk a alternative due to its 1000 km plus range. Right?

Sorry to break this story or CT, since you asked, (for those who sees things as only black and white may take this as outlandish)

You know JV starting with B and ending with S known as joint partnership with India and Russia and as a model for other projects to follow.

For long there is a requirement for B...S with reduced weight. Fulfilling that requirement crawled to the prospects of what is know as B...S -A with limited scope. While other variants were maturing at break-neck speed, it just crawled.

When the coalescing and aggregating happened that came out as Nir-b from our desi stable for the requirement above mentioned, it threatened the prospects of B...S monopoly & strangle hold it had on us.
Nir-b can be highly flexible with more scope, can be launched from any platform ( both sky or undersea ) without modification to the platform. So came B...S-M , M for mini with less weight and size. As you see, it is reported to do the same as what Nir-b planning to do. You can often see, this -M getting reported along with Nir-b. Well, what we know about natashas or black lentils....

Another similar incident, late pres with K went with his pet theme of missile returning to base to B...S. That received a rebuke how that it will not materialize. Our stable carried out testing on this theme on their own. Once there is enough aggregate on that front, B...S did a u-turn

and mentioned B...S-II can also do a u-turn

.

Speaking of natashas, anything can happen!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Oct 2015 19:40

ramdas wrote:Failures by themselves would not be worrying. What is worrying is the slow rate of testing: 1 per year. Each critical missile system in development like Agni-5, K-4 and nirbhay should undergo at least 3 tests per year. Inducted systems like Agni-I-IV must have 1-2 tests a year at the mimimum.

two thoughts in para causes confusion.

Why do we flight test?

Development programs:

- Vehicle integration : sub-systems ground test is not enough. Requires quite a few trajectories.
- New sub-systems on existing vehicles : guidance, RV, control actuators etc.

So need time between tests to evaluate and make changes.

3 successful tests of same flight path will establish confidence. Heck even one if all parameters are nominal with no one sigma deviations along the way.

Deployed systems tests
- SFC personnel practice
- Unearth hidden issues
- RV and fuze functioning Note its same RV system for all.
- Political chain of command

Recall its second strike system and doesn't need that much practice.

So do we need so many tests as you want?

I think you want a political message of strong India.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 17 Oct 2015 22:07

^^ramana expressed that well

After an accident or failure a lot of time must be spent analysing the possible causes. Simply testing again and hoping for the best is useless. It may take 6 months to analyse the data and simulate all that can be simulated without a test flight.

Gyan · Post by **Gyan** » 17 Oct 2015 22:44

John wrote:
Gyan wrote:IIRC Russian Club series also had a problem about getting lost. Anyway test is a "test"!
Off topic but that has not been confirmed by anyone incl nato other than supposed anonymous source in pentagon. And considering how iranians and kurds have tweeted videoes of missile flying through their area there are no images of crash.

I was referring to failed tests at the time we placed an order for such missiles for our subs.

sudhan · Post by **sudhan** » 17 Oct 2015 23:05

Also quite a few tests are not revealed to the mango population. Remember how k-15 was tested 10+ times before the much publicised underwater pontoon launch? There were barely 3 or 4 test flights known to public till then.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 18 Oct 2015 03:40

One year for full understanding and fixing root cause. First 3 months for identifying.

ramdas · Post by **ramdas** » 18 Oct 2015 07:46

Ramanaji,

I agree evaluation has to be done between tests. Even granting this, our rate of development testing is slow. Compare the Agni-V and PRC DF-41 programs. A-V started testing in April 2012. DF-41 in July 2012. They have had 4 DF-41 tests till now: two in the last year. We have had only 3 A-V tests, with a 16-17 month gap between tests. Note that DF-41 is a MIRVed ICBM as well. Their DF-31 now routinely undergoes 3 tests a year.

Testing is important to fully operationalize the deterrent. A launch during war is different from a launch in tame conditions like the space launches in Shriharikota. The initial dev. tests in Wheeler island are in tame conditions. For deterrence, we need that a system, say Agni-V can be launched by the armed forces without DRDO personnel monitoring every step. Such a system should be capable of launch under a variety of conditions. For this, 3 launches a year are required at least in the first few years after completion of a sequence of 3 successful dev. tests. This would also help identify flaws in the production process/quality control and iron out such issues of they arise.

Note that the Trident II still undergoes at least 4 tests a year. During development, it underwent over 25 launches. The first 17 or so from land were successful and then there was a series of sea launches, the first few of which failed. The defects were identified and ironed out easily. The whole process from start to operationalization took them 3 years. Testing was roughly done once a month. If a handful of tests were sufficient, why this rigor ?

ramdas · Post by **ramdas** » 18 Oct 2015 07:46

Ramanaji,

I agree evaluation has to be done between tests. Even granting this, our rate of development testing is slow. Compare the Agni-V and PRC DF-41 programs. A-V started testing in April 2012. DF-41 in July 2012. They have had 4 DF-41 tests till now: two in the last year. We have had only 3 A-V tests, with a 16-17 month gap between tests. Note that DF-41 is a MIRVed ICBM as well. Their DF-31 now routinely undergoes 3 tests a year.

Testing is important to fully operationalize the deterrent. A launch during war is different from a launch in tame conditions like the space launches in Shriharikota. The initial dev. tests in Wheeler island are in tame conditions. For deterrence, we need that a system, say Agni-V can be launched by the armed forces without DRDO personnel monitoring every step. Such a system should be capable of launch under a variety of conditions. For this, 3 launches a year are required at least in the first few years after completion of a sequence of 3 successful dev. tests. This would also help identify flaws in the production process/quality control and iron out such issues of they arise.

Note that the Trident II still undergoes at least 4 tests a year. During development, it underwent over 25 launches. The first 17 or so from land were successful and then there was a series of sea launches, the first few of which failed. The defects were identified and ironed out easily. The whole process from start to operationalization took them 3 years. Testing was roughly done once a month. If a handful of tests were sufficient, why this rigor ?

MN Kumar · Post by **MN Kumar** » 18 Oct 2015 08:45

Offtopic.
Went to a well-known and old Punjabi hotel in town with friends last night. Couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Dr.Avinash Chander standing at the bill counter. Surprised at the humbleness as he himself came to take a parcel. Went and wished him. Had to curb my anxiety of asking questions as it wasnt the proper.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Oct 2015 10:14

ramdas wrote:If a handful of tests were sufficient, why this rigor ?

Maybe we are just that much behind China and the US in terms of technology, manpower and funding? That's not so difficult to understand is it? We may still be in the process of developing capability which is denied to us but available to the club members.

kit · Post by **kit** » 18 Oct 2015 10:23

shiv wrote:
ramdas wrote:If a handful of tests were sufficient, why this rigor ?
Maybe we are just that much behind China and the US in terms of technology, manpower and funding? That's not so difficult to understand is it? We may still be in the process of developing capability which is denied to us but available to the club members.

true .. china has quite a few parallel programs running on in UAVs and cruise missiles

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 18 Oct 2015 10:53

Italy Blocks Indian Application to MTCR

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Oct 2015 11:22

Austin wrote:Italy Blocks Indian Application to MTCR

Well
Time to start exporting a few missiles. MTCR fellows will come around.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 18 Oct 2015 13:00

find the nearest customer near italy and sell them agni-I. at a discount.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Oct 2015 13:07

Austin wrote:Italy Blocks Indian Application to MTCR

Only matter of time before the fading powers tuck their tails between their legs.They will have little relevance even if they want to have a say.