Indian Missiles News & Discussions - 17 Dec 2018

[nam]

Another brahmos test today by IA. Yesterday was Southern command and today was by western command.

[jamwal]

Do we have coastal brahmos deployments?

Yes.
https://thediplomat.com/2019/08/indias- ... -missiles/

The Indian Ministry of Defense’s (MoDs) Defense Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by the country’s defense minister, Rajnath Singh, cleared the procurement of an unknown number of long-range Next Generation Maritime Mobile Coastal Batteries (NGMMCB, Long Range), armed with BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, on August 8, according to local media reports.

The DAC did not reveal an induction schedule or where the new weapons systems will be deployed. According to IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly, the NGMMCBs could be stationed at INS Trata, a missile battery base of the Indian Navy at Mumbai, tasked with the coastal defense of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The trade publication also revealed that acquisition costs for the two NNGMMCBs are estimated at around $140.37 million, although the MoD did not publicly disclose the number of batteries to be procured.

The BrahMos, a derivative of the Russian-made P-800 Oniks over-the-horizon supersonic anti-ship cruise missile with a range estimated at between 300 to 400 kilometers, is considered be one of the world’s fastest cruise missiles currently in operational use.

[Kanson]

Why not? Indian scientists are continuously improving the Bhmos missile.
Proposal for 800km version came atleast a decade back frm russian side. It is not hard to guess that the tech behind this proposal is that much old.

So it is natural to see the Bhmos extended further by current standards. Whichever form it takes, nothing is beyond the reach.

viewtopic.php?p=2465879#p2465879

While the missile has been in India’s arsenal for long, it is continuously upgraded and updated with new hardware and software systems. This is what necessitates periodic tests of the missile. DRDO scientists said that in every such test of a specific variant of Brahmos, different parameters are put to examination. Though the exact details are rarely disclosed, additional hardware and software systems are tested based on the inputs from the user, against more complex targets, and under different atmospheric conditions. The test results and observations are important for future analysis and further advancement, scientists said.

viewtopic.php?p=2466485#p2466485

[Prem Kumar]

Its not a question of capability but whether such a plan exists. If so, Brahmos CEO, who discussed every other variant & plan, wouldn't have forgotten to mention this.

[John]

1500 Km Brahmos seems bogus. Sudhir Mishra, in his Livefist interview, makes no mention of it. He talked about the program in detail and its a must-watch

Even a torpedo-tube-launched Brahmos is nowhere in the works, which is a bit unfortunate IMO, because it means that we can't take a Brahmos-mini and retrofit into our existing sub fleet.

The next goals seem to be: indigenous seeker and longer ranged variant. For hypersonic, he said they'll piggyback on HSDTV tech development. Even Brahmos-mini seems a few years away.

Brahmos-M was designed with sub launch in mind. Don’t need specifically spell it out every time as the diameter will allow it to be fitted in tubes.

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/24322 ... 8FCteQ8IlQ

[Igorr]

Now if it is taking 30 minutes to reach its target plus considering that it is a infra red hog and will use high altitude for most of 1500 kms travel, it will stand a good chance of being detected. where is the surprise? Infact within this time frame, the enemy can even mobilise every SAM telar, every AA gun system and every C-RAM truck in the near vicinity. I wonder what will be the effectiveness of Brahmos in such a situation. There is a reason why US chose stealthy subsonic templates for aircrafts and missiles over SR-71 and derivatives. .

NG Brahmos will be both 8 Mach hypersonic and stealthy. Indeed it already exists under the name zircon. Look this video:

[brar_w]

NG Brahmos will be both 8 Mach hypersonic and stealthy.

Other than having a wedge shaped BGV descend from high altitude (and deny a top down view (even that has signature suppression limits)) how do you make a hypersonic missile stealthy?

[John]

NG Brahmos will be both 8 Mach hypersonic and stealthy. Indeed it already exists under the name zircon. Look this video:

That is Brahmos II not Brahmos NG which will be smaller and slightly faster but achieve same range.

[Igorr]

NG Brahmos will be both 8 Mach hypersonic and stealthy.

Other than having a wedge shaped BGV descend from high altitude (and deny a top down view (even that has signature suppression limits)) how do you make a hypersonic missile stealthy?

Plasma shield technology. Indeed even Putin said the missile is melting in the fly, which is an indirect notion of this technology.

[Rakesh]

https://twitter.com/KUNALBI25146617/sta ... 67008?s=20 ---> Here's an awesome snap of Indian Air Force Akash SAM fired at night. IAF ordered 15 squadrons of Akash. It has a range of 30 km & ceiling of 20 km. Deployed at Maharajpur AFS, Hasimara AFS, Tezpur AFS, Jorhat AFS and Lohegaon AFS. Indian Army deployed it on the LAC at Ladakh in 2020.

[SSridhar]

Anti-ship version of supersonic cruise missile testfired from Andaman Nicobar Islands

India on Tuesday testfired the anti-ship version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory, sources confirmed.

The test was conducted as part of the trials being conducted by the Indian Navy, they added.

A land-attack version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was also successfully test-fired from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory earlier this week.

"The test was conducted by the Indian Army which has many regiments of the Defence Research and Development Organisation-developed Missile system. The strike range of BrahMos missile has now been enhanced to over 400 km," sources said.

[Aditya_V]

Indian Army conducted a test of "Anti-Ship" version of Brahmos, hmmm I thought coastal defense batteries were with IN.

If this is a new series of Inter-Service partnerships I am all for it, Combined Land attack and Anti SHip missiles in Army Batteries, From say Bhuj suddenly an anti ship missile is fired at PN ships catching them by surprise.

[jamwal]

Is this written by ramana ji?
http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/arc ... 07mian.pdf

Bringing Prithvi Down to Earth: The Capabilities and Potential Effectiveness of India's Prithvi Missile
z. MianO, A.H. Nayyarb and M. V. Ramana
-
Prelude: The following paper was written prior to Pakistan's test of the Ghauri
missile in April 1998 and also India and Pakistan's May 1998 nuclear weapon
tests.
In recent years, the development, testing and ambiguous deployment stat

[Karan M]

No.

[Philip]

Some unconfirmed reports earlier said that the actual range was in the 500km figure.We've also had reports that an 800km ER BMos is to be developed. Even 500km today is great going.

[Rakesh]

https://twitter.com/TheWolfpackIN/statu ... 93122?s=20 ---> Order book for Astra BVR missile (mk1, mk2 & mk3) likely to reach 1500-2000 before the end of this decade. Worth remembering that since the 90s, IAF has ordered 1800+ R-77 & 1000+ R-27 along with 700+ MICA and 150-250 Meteors.

[JTull]

https://twitter.com/TheWolfpackIN/statu ... 93122?s=20 ---> Order book for Astra BVR missile (mk1, mk2 & mk3) likely to reach 1500-2000 before the end of this decade. Worth remembering that since the 90s, IAF has ordered 1800+ R-77 & 1000+ R-27 along with 700+ MICA and 150-250 Meteors.

How many of the newer versions of R-77, R-27 were ordered after Feb 19?

[Vips]

300 R73 and 400 R77 were ordered.

and

Also ordered were 300 R27

[Rakesh]

https://twitter.com/ThingsNavy/status/1 ... 51363?s=20 ---> The Barak 8 /LR-SAMlong range surface-to-air missile.

[Rakesh]

As per this tweet, this is a K-15 SLBM.

https://twitter.com/ThingsNavy/status/1 ... 65184?s=20 ---> K-15 or B-05... submarine-launched ballistic missile.

[jamwal]

It's land based version, Shaurya.

[ashishvikas]

India working on next ‘Astra’ missile with 160 km range as Mk1 is integrated in IAF & Navy

https://theprint.in/defence/india-worki ... vy/566699/

Mk 2 by May 2022

As of now, with a range of over 110 km and a maximum speed of Mach 4.5 (over 5,500 kmph), the Astra Mk 1 is seen as a game-changer, which can bring back India’s air-to-air combat superiority over Pakistan.

While India now also has European developer MBDA’s Meteor missiles with the Rafale’s induction, they are much more costly (Rs 25 crore each) compared to the Astra (Rs 7-8 crore).

For the second version of the Astra missile, called Mark 2, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is working on dual-pulse rocket motor to extend the range up to 160 km by May 2022, sources in the defence and security establishment told ThePrint.

Work is also going on to replace the Russian radio frequency (RF) seekers’ on the missile with indigenous ones, a source said.

“Three air launch and captive flight tests have been completed with indigenous RF seekers. The indigenous seeker will be proven by June 2021. Subsequently, Astra Mk-1 & Mk-2 missile will be using the indigenous seeker in production,” the source said.

At present, all subsystems, except the RF seeker and the inertial measurement unit (IMU), are indigenous. The seekers are being indigenised by Bharat Electronics Limited, Bengaluru, and will be inducted by June 2021, sources said, adding that efforts are on for the development of the indigenous IMUs too.

[venkat_r]

Mugambo Khush huwa.. very happy to see the news and timeline about Astra Mark2.

Some gurus have to correct me, I think Astra 1 does not give us the edge over Pakistan, but Astra 2 does in terms of reach compared to the missiles in their inventory

[venkat_r]

300 R73 and 400 R77 were ordered.

and

Also ordered were 300 R27

Worth every penny spent on it, is there an Indian program to develop a air to ground missile like Spice?

[ramana]

300 R73 and 400 R77 were ordered.

and

Also ordered were 300 R27

Worth every penny spent on it, is there an Indian program to develop a air to ground missile like Spice?

Yes. Its Gaurthma, 1000kg >100km glide bomb.

It has completed development trials. And could be in user trials.

[andy B]

Mugambo Khush huwa.. very happy to see the news and timeline about Astra Mark2.

Some gurus have to correct me, I think Astra 1 does not give us the edge over Pakistan, but Astra 2 does in terms of reach compared to the missiles in their inventory

Full disclosure no guru sense here. Saar range is but one criterion in a plethora of factors that influence bvr combat.

An indigenous weapon system with a 110km reach out that can be equipped in numbers and suppliment existing bvr aams' is a major change for the force. The mk2 will incrementally build upon and improve various sub systems while expanding the engagement envelope with the dual pulse motor.

Whereas the mk1 astra enables local production in numbers post these first batches being delivered allowing a broader range of platforms to employ them.

You also need to consider that aerial combat especially on western front may never materialise the same way as what we have seen with khan. Given the close proximity of bases on both sides once you are airborne its fangs out essentially. Here in more so than the range its the quality of your radar and ecm/eccm and similar functions within the weapon systems that hold greater importance.

I would happily bet that a 110km range with good eccm resistance and strong kinematic performance will make astra quite a strong stick for the lads to use.

[hnair]

Some gurus have to correct me, I think Astra 1 does not give us the edge over Pakistan, but Astra 2 does in terms of reach compared to the missiles in their inventory

At 110km declared range Astra-I maintain raw range parity with the version of AMRAAM (C5) the pakis lug around. But as they realized during their comical “raid”, things like raw range hardly matters, as the AMRAAMS seem ineffective at full range and did not prevent someone from sneaking close and firing a short range AAM. A longer burn motor helps tremendously, but seem to be just one among many factors that affect the outcome of modern air combat.


Edited: Guru Andy Bae has already spoken!

[venkat_r]

Thank you Andy and hnair sirs,

I heard the reason PAF even attempted the raid was their thinking that they out ranged IAFs BVR missiles, but makes sense that they should have learned their lesson.

Also, 110 I believed was the max range and at a medium altitude the range is going to be less and the effective range is going to be smaller than that, assuming it is going to be the same with AMRAAM, which is why it was not effective in the raid.

Need to read up on Astras Ecm/eccm capabilities

[nam]

The BVR game is all about two cases: Target doesn't know what hit him and if he does, target doesn't have enough time to run away.

So you fire a BVR outside the radar envelope, datalinked third party guidance, flying higher than the target, clutter the adversary's radar etc. A longer range, face to face combat is typically useless.

But a longer range BVR allows you to fly even further away your adversary's radar envelope. If the target radar is seeing 150KM and your BVR can fly 160KM, you have that 10KM gap to fly silently and fire one off.. If the target is busy doing something or his radar is not good enough to track a Mach 4 missile coming at him, he will be hearing a massive ping from his RWR, when the BVR seeker switches on... but it will be too late for him.

[nam]

PAF fired off C5's at long range 50-60KM, giving time for our boys to evade. But more importantly, our boys knew there is a BVR coming at them.

That is the most important capability. The only tool I can think of, which can do that is the Bars radar.

[andy B]

PAF fired off C5's at long range 50-60KM, giving time for our boys to evade. But more importantly, our boys knew there is a BVR coming at them.

That is the most important capability. The only tool I can think of, which can do that is the Bars radar.

Nam ji are you saying that its the platform's radar that sees incoming aams'?

AFAIK its the job of maws, rwr, esm and ecm to detect fire control radars and depending on how their threat libraries are prgrammed they can discern type or radar emission and possibly identify change in modes from TWS (track while scan) and other modes. It maybe that a super duper low probability interecept radar like the apg77 may be able to provide azimuth and bearing for incoming air rounds. Besides given the miniscule relative radar signature of generally all aams (exception maybe the monster ruskie ones) how much power would you need to pump to have that sort of detection capabiltiy.

Happy to be corrected onlee.

[nachiket]

But a longer range BVR allows you to fly even further away your adversary's radar envelope. If the target radar is seeing 150KM and your BVR can fly 160KM, you have that 10KM gap to fly silently and fire one off.. If the target is busy doing something or his radar is not good enough to track a Mach 4 missile coming at him, he will be hearing a massive ping from his RWR, when the BVR seeker switches on... but it will be too late for him.

His RWR is going to detect your own fighter radar at longer distances than you can effectively track the target. Unless you are approaching from an aspect where his RWR is completely blind and the aspect does not change for the entire duration of the engagement. Highly unlikely scenario.

This is of course not considering the presence and impact of AWACS.

[Prem Kumar]

I think this is where AESA radars with their LPI (Low probability of intercept) modes will help the attacker. The enemy's RWR will not be able to detect and classify the agile, frequency hopping signals of our own Uttam. They will not know they're being painted. They will not detect an incoming Astra until Astra's own RF seeker goes active.

If the Astra's NEZ >= its RF seeker range, the F-16 is toast

[nam]

His RWR is going to detect your own fighter radar at longer distances than you can effectively track the target. Unless you are approaching from an aspect where his RWR is completely blind and the aspect does not change for the entire duration of the engagement. Highly unlikely scenario.

This is of course not considering the presence and impact of AWACS.

Yes, his RWR will detect your radar, but what if it is not the one who is tracking him? I will have a Su30 track a F16, while have LCA flying out of F16's radar envelope with a 160KM Astra 2 in some corner.

Su30 datalinks the F16 position to LCA to fire the Astra2. Su30 then provides mid course updates. The F16 jokey wouldn't know a BVR is on his way, while he is busy watching the Su30.

It becomes even more lethal if the LCA manages to fire the astra 2 all the way on the blind side of F16's radar.

Without AWACS cover, you will be ambushed left right and center. Even with AWACS, we have himalayan mountains, which will allow jets to hide...

[nam]

I think this is where AESA radars with their LPI (Low probability of intercept) modes will help the attacker. The enemy's RWR will not be able to detect and classify the agile, frequency hopping signals of our own Uttam. They will not know they're being painted. They will not detect an incoming Astra until Astra's own RF seeker goes active.

If the Astra's NEZ >= its RF seeker range, the F-16 is toast

Specially the wide band ones, where the RWR receiver may be receiving frequency outside it's reception range.

As far I know, unless you have a AESA RWR & Jammer, you cannot deal with AESA radars.

[nam]

Nam ji are you saying that its the platform's radar that sees incoming aams'?

AFAIK its the job of maws, rwr, esm and ecm to detect fire control radars and depending on how their threat libraries are prgrammed they can discern type or radar emission and possibly identify change in modes from TWS (track while scan) and other modes. It maybe that a super duper low probability interecept radar like the apg77 may be able to provide azimuth and bearing for incoming air rounds. Besides given the miniscule relative radar signature of generally all aams (exception maybe the monster ruskie ones) how much power would you need to pump to have that sort of detection capabiltiy.

Happy to be corrected onlee.

All that only tells you that you are been tracked and a BVR "may be" on it's way. What if the platform firing the BVR is not the one tracking you? A AWACS can datalink your position to a fighter which your RWR cannot see..

MAWS cannot detect a BVR at 100KM.. if it could, we wouldn't be using a radar on fighters. MAWS would be perfect to detect enemy fighter.

You need something to look out for a object flying at Mach 4 or 5 towards you. The only way is if your radar is smart enough to notice a low rcs object flying at Mach 4, from all the clutter..

[andy B]

All that only tells you that you are been tracked and a BVR "may be" on it's way. What if the platform firing the BVR is not the one tracking you? A AWACS can datalink your position to a fighter which your RWR cannot see..

MAWS cannot detect a BVR at 100KM.. if it could, we wouldn't be using a radar on fighters. MAWS would be perfect to detect enemy fighter.

You need something to look out for a object flying at Mach 4 or 5 towards you. The only way is if your radar is smart enough to notice a low rcs object flying at Mach 4, from all the clutter..

Boss, i never said that maws is the key system that detects bvr. I noted it as part of a collection of sub systems.

In your previous post you note about a su30 targetting and an lca firing off an astra. Based on my limited knowledge, once the targets rwr (and obviously there are very sophisticated sets of rwrs available that include esm meausers) detects FCR why would the target not initiate immediate evasive maneuvers? No one would wait to find out. What am i missing here saar?

Also the f16s radars job isnt to identify a bvr munition coming its way. Thats again the job of the rwr/ecm/esm measures. Afaik their antennas are distributed across the airframe in order to avoid blind spots.

Based on public information available we are far away from deploying any capability where awacs start acting as targeting platforms given operating frequencies are different. Are you saying that your fighter would lob a bvr using LOAL mode based on awacs data? I dont think this would work but happy to be corrected.

I would imagine first we would need to harmonise and deploy a fleet wide data link right?

Specially the wide band ones, where the RWR receiver may be receiving frequency outside it's reception range.

As far I know, unless you have a AESA RWR & Jammer, you cannot deal with AESA radars.

This is most interesting, i was aware this was an issue with apg77 and the like but didnt realise this was an aesa wide issue. Please share if you have any public info would love to read up on it

[andy B]

Double post deleted

[Vips]

Per a Defence AV, 3 upcoming tests of Missiles in the next 1 week. Agni 4 on Dec 18th and there after tests of MR-SAM and Prithvi-II(Night Time).

[andy B]

Edited: Guru Andy Bae has already spoken!

Malik kahan bhai se bae bana diya nice to be back in the jungle onlee!