Indian Missile Technology Discussion

[k prasad]

x-posting from AI thread

OK, talk by Dr. Saraswat:

This was a hurried talk, and Dr. Saraswat had to leave out many of the juicy, electronics and seeker related parts, and only give an overview of the missiles. Pity really.... anyway, what I did take down is here:

Advances in Indian Missile Technology
- Dr. VK Saraswat

Indian Missile development today are under two groups

- Tactical missiles, such as the Brahmos, Astra, LRSAM and the SRSAM
- Strategic missiles such as Agni 3, Agni-5, AAD, AD-1, etc.
- There is also the HSDTV {{it appears to be for missile use, but not sure}}

The initial missile technology programs began with Devil and Valiant - at this stage, up to the 1980, we were fully reliant on imports for our missiles. After the IGMDP, we have reduced the need for imports to around 50-70%. By 1990, when the IGMDP technologies began to mature, these numbers also dropped... by 2010-2020, our technology requirements should be complete, and we should be able to develop any class of missile on our own, although we will continue to have JVs to gain more technology.


A. Current Missiles:

Prithvi:

The first missile developed under IGMDP... Gave us the following capabilities:

- INS
- Rivets in Aluminium
- Liquid Propulsion Technology
- Digital Electronics
- Control and Guidance

- 3 Variants - P1, P2 and Dhanush (which requires a stabilized platform that can be stable to +/- 5 degrees even in rough seas)

Agni:

- A3 Flight tests are complete
- Production will start soon
- Is road mobile
- A5 in 2010

Astra:

- 3712 mm long, 78 mm diameter(or should it be 178 mm??), 160 kg weight
- Dual Pulse smokeless motor
- Low Observable wings
- Flight evaluation underway

BrahMos:
- Canisterized
- Homing head

Akash:
- 27 km range
- 30m - 18 km engagement {{altitude??}}
- Multi-target handling

Nag (Helina):
- Will have a FCS and a data link
- 7 km range

- 2 guidance modes being looked at - LOBL and LOAL
- LOBL will have a High res IIR seeker, with Fire and forget capabilities
- LOAL will use an RF data link and will have two modes, one of which is a Fire, observe and Guide mode (I didnt write down teh other mode)


B. Future Missiles:

1. LRSAM:

- JV between IAI and BDL
- 70 km range
- 4.55 m long, 225 mm diameter, 275 kg weight
- Boost to HTK (someone decode plz)
- Solid rocket pulse motor
- GPS + data link midcourse correction
- 4 Array PA radar seeker for terminal guidance (I think PA = Patch Antenna).

- Work under progress.

2. SRSAM:
- 15 km range
- 3-10 km altitude
- VLS launched
- Multitarget capable
- Will have Jet Vane TVC control - Jet vanes were used on the AAD, and will be used here as well. they are also developing the Si-SiC materials and ceramics reqd for the Jet vanes.
- Smokeless Solid Rocket motor
- Tri-service will be users
- Enabled for NCW ACCS

{{Please decode this info and the abbreviations}}

Currently under design - not mentioned if it was a JV or if we are going it alone.


C. Project AD:

We are looking at a layered defense engagement of incoming BMs. This can be done in 3 regions:

1. Boost Phase - 180-300 sec reaction time
2. Midcourse phase
3. Terminal phase - <30 sec reaction

We are going in for a late-midcourse & terminal engagement layered BMD system (PAD + AAD). This choice means that we need to give up the Shoot-look-shoot policy and go for a shoot-shoot-shoot doctrine.

The design is for a 2 layered TMD system, with first engagement at 70-100 km exo-atm altitude, and <30 km endo-atm engagement.

This calls for a wide area netwoork entailing distributed IP based WAN n/w., with Triplex communication redundancy, and a latency time of less than a few milliseconds.

All of this is highly advanced and complicated technology that we have developed.

Additionally, the maneuvering AD missiles need terminal RF seekers and 25-30G maneuverability.

1. PAD/AAD
- 2000 km assets
- 40-100 km (PAD) & 30 m to 30 km (AAD) engagement,.

2. AD-1/2
- Meant to kill 5000 km range assets
- Will have an IR seeker
- 5-6G eng manueverability
- Piff-paff solid motor {{I assume that this isn't some kids toy, so someone plz explain}}

3. Multiple Kill Vehicles (MKV)
- FOr MIRV kills
- will have autonomous terminal kill capability
- IR telescope dispenser and guided KVs
- High fire power approach
- Will attack at the exo-atm altitude

4. Cruise Missile Defense
- while missiles like AAD can easily handle CM threats at heights of 30 m, there is a need for different sensors, such as Space/airborne sensors, including satellite radars, UAVs, and AWACS. These Network of sensors must feed read time info to the mission control centre.

5. Counter-counter measures:
- Development of Counter-counter measures is also ongoing
- classified, so no info given.

D. Future Thrust Areas:

1. Airframe & materials:

- Accuracy and Reliability,
- Lighter missiles - while Indian missiles are state of the art in terms of performance, they are relatively heavier.
- High performance nanomaterials - Carbon Nanotubes
- Composite Casing

2. Propulsion:

- New propellants - high perm {{I wrote this, but cant seem to decode it now :-( }}
- Conical Rocket motors
- Carbon- Carbon thin nozzles
- Liquid fuel Ramjet

3. Guidance and Seekers:

- PGMs
- PGMS require cheap mini IIR/mmW seekers {{Rakall, you must be happy}} AND
- microminiature INS control.
- All our missiles have the indigenous INS,
- We are also coming up with System on chip INS in the near future.
- A Star Tracking Guidance is also under development - {{I wonder if this is for A5 or AD. It is not for BrahMos}}.

Seekers, a lot of work has been done on IIR, RF and laser seekers. However, we still do face issues.

- AAD has an indigenous RF seeker
- 20 kg weight
- AAD seeker can detect a 0.3 m2 RCS object at 30 km range.


- EO/IR seekers are also under development, in terms of dual mode MWIR and LWIR seeking {{I've written ladalar or something like here.... can someone decode??}}


4. Electronics:
- Electronically scanned array is required for RF seekers and other uses
- Smart Skins
- Conformal antennas

5. MIRV and Decoys:
- Are being developed
- Need active Em jammers
- Also need Thermal signature manipulation

E. Hypersonics:

- HSTDV will be a Hypersonic Cruise missile
- It will have Kerosone scramjet engine
- Travel at 6.5 Mach
- 32.5 km {{altitude??}}
- Has a scramjet flight duration of ~ 20 sec

It will have a solid rocket boost launch, after which the scramjet will kick in, to take it to 6.5-8 Mach. It will travel around 20 sec at this speed at the cruising altitude, before descending and being guided to the tawrget.

Propulsion requires a hydrocarbon based dual mode motor development. Other materials requirements are:

- Ti Superalloys are needed,
- So are TBCs
- And Thermal Paints


- Star Tracking could be for the HSTDV {{Could it?? I mention it because the star tracking slide was jst after HSTDV}}

F. Directed Energy Weapons:

We are also developing a High Energy Laser Weapon, similar to the American ABL, for Boost phase intercept.

This is a JV between LASTEC and RCI {{I spoke to some LASTEC guys about it, but there was absolutely no info that they'd give - in fact, they were even surprised how I even knew, till I mentioned saraswat... Will give a report on Lastec later. Have also sent a brochure of Lastec to rakall to scan}}

They have to factor in for guidance, changes in direction and attenuation. A continuous wave laser has been developed and has generated 10-15 kW of power.


Qns??

[Gerard]

Lighter missiles - while Indian missiles are state of the art in terms of performance, they are relatively heavier.
- New propellants - high perm

So, assume an Agni-5 with stated 5Mm range, conveniently just 500km short of true ICBM class
What does both higher energy solid propellants and a full carbon composite airframe do?

[k prasad]

Lighter missiles - while Indian missiles are state of the art in terms of performance, they are relatively heavier.
- New propellants - high perm

So, assume an Agni-5 with stated 5Mm range, conveniently just 500km short of true ICBM class
What does both higher energy solid propellants and a full carbon composite airframe do?

I think Arun Saar would be able to answer that best...

[ajay_ijn]

thanks for the info prasad. any update on Nirbhay?

[Rupak]

PIF-PAF are thrust vectoring motors that allow high speed ~45G manuvering without airframe disintegration. See the Aster missile for example.

[ramana]

K prasad, thanks for the notes.

Everyday I open the thread hoping that the Brahmos test with the SCAN reciever is completed.

[Arun_S]

Lighter missiles - while Indian missiles are state of the art in terms of performance, they are relatively heavier.
- New propellants - high perm

So, assume an Agni-5 with stated 5Mm range, conveniently just 500km short of true ICBM class
What does both higher energy solid propellants and a full carbon composite airframe do?

I think Arun Saar would be able to answer that best...

Shri Saraswat is mentioning "relatively heavier" w.r.t smaller / older missiles and not newer / bigger (E.g. PAD, Agni-III) that is already using high mass fraction design based on Composite case and Maraging steel. IMHO SAMs will move to composite case and more energetic fuel.

[Kailash]

So, assume an Agni-5 with stated 5Mm range, conveniently just 500km short of true ICBM class
What does both higher energy solid propellants and a full carbon composite airframe do?

5000Km is the declared range on the public domain. They may not be able to reveal the actual range due to political restrictions. Hopefully the range is much greater than that.

[ajay_ijn]

DRDO is talking about four interceptors. I hope AD-1, AD-2 are improved versions of PAD & ADD otherwise the costs of development and deployment of four different Interceptors is going be prohibhitive. AAD can fit into role of cruise missile interceptor but there is a competitor to it: Barak-2 which already Navy is committed to and same missile for AF means easier logistics and cheaper price.

[AdityaM]

5000Km is the declared range on the public domain. They may not be able to reveal the actual range due to political restrictions. Hopefully the range is much greater than that.

One 'Duh' question from my side:
What sort of political restrictions force us to hide the range? 5K is already hitting china & too short for hitting any other nuke power, so what is the benefit in hiding another 500-1000 KM?

[p_saggu]

^^^

[SaiK]

MTCR, NPT, FMCT, and a whole lot more .. why say when are onlee getting there. let it happen, and lets not put this under this current political setup.. it needs change to challenge a p5. bottom line, we are not there yet.

[vsudhir]

Apols if posted already:

India developing Medium range SAM with Israel

Indian is developing a medium-range surface-to-air missile (MR-SAM) in collaboration with Israel for protecting its important cities and installations from enemy aircraft.

"We are jointly developing a 70-km range MR-SAM in partnership with Israeli companies," Senior DRDO scientist Prahlada told reporters on the sidelines of a DRDO function here.

"We may take around 12 years but the requirement of the services is that they want it (MR-SAM) fast. The only way to make it four to five years is to partner with a country which has already developed some of the hardware. If they have have got some hardware and we have got some knowledge, we can do it in 4-5 years," Prahlada said.

He added that the DRDO has already developed air defence systems such as the Trishul and the Akash.

He said the Akash did not fit the bill for the MR-SAM as its range was only 30 km and the services wanted a missile system with a range of 70 km.

He said MR-SAM systems can be deployed for the security of cities such as Delhi and also for securing nuclear installations across the country.

[ajay_ijn]

5000Km is the declared range on the public domain. They may not be able to reveal the actual range due to political restrictions. Hopefully the range is much greater than that.

One 'Duh' question from my side:
What sort of political restrictions force us to hide the range? 5K is already hitting china & too short for hitting any other nuke power, so what is the benefit in hiding another 500-1000 KM?

may be Uncle is the restriction, may be he has clearly specified a cap on missile range/payload, which is enough for Cheena. because of unkil, Agni TD program was closed, So we can easily suspect Unkils role.

He said the Akash did not fit the bill for the MR-SAM as its range was only 30 km and the services wanted a missile system with a range of 70 km.

would anyone call a 70km range missile as MR-SAM. I mean most MR-SAMs would be range less than 50km like SA-17, Aster 15, ESSM, Hawk, Akash, SM-1, Apside etc.

[sum]

If MR-SAM range is 70 kms, how much is the LRSAM range?

[ramana]

I guess you dont know about goa's range. ~ 150km.

[Austin]

I guess you dont know about goa's range. ~ 150km.

If you are reffering to SA-3 ( Goa ) i.e Navalised SA-3 , then it has a range of ~ 32 Km

[babbupandey]

If MR-SAM range is 70 kms, how much is the LRSAM range?

I was browsing through SAM sites in the world, there are sites around Beijing having SAM of 300km range. I guess, that is the range of LRSAM.

[p_saggu]

Those are the HQ-9 SAM and the S-300 5V55 systems that they've deployed in a 50-100 Km ring around Beijing.
The HQ-9 is the Chinese-d copy of the Russian S-300 system. They are alleged to have incorporated 'ideas' from the US Patriot missile system for guidance.

In this ring, the missiles to the north of Beijing, which are supposed to defend from attacks originating from Russia, they have deployed the HQ-9s (Presumably because the S-300 is of Russian lineage) the rest of the place there is a mixture of HQ-9s and S-300 systems.

[babbupandey]

Are HQ-9 different kind of missile, why have they deployed HQ-9 instead of SA-300, is it because Russians have a counter for their own missile or because of IPR issues...
I am sorry for my ignorance.

[Rahul M]

PRC has no SAM of 300km range. 200 km is the max range quoted.

[vavinash]

Israel is supposed to have counter for S-300 missiles. Does it mean India will also have some knowledge?

[andy B]

Are HQ-9 different kind of missile, why have they deployed HQ-9 instead of SA-300, is it because Russians have a counter for their own missile or because of IPR issues...
I am sorry for my ignorance.

The HQ9 is the so called indigeneous version of the s-300 that supposedly has improvements included from the patriot (knowledge that they gained through under the table means).

They would like to convert to HQ9 so that they dont have to depend on the russians for any associated support for the sams.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HQ-9 - this will give u a very basic idea abt the HQ9 look up google for more details.

Cheers.

[Ajay K]

k prasad wrote:
OK, talk by Dr. Saraswat:

Folks, where does the Barak 2 come in the plan? Do not think it is either LRSAM or SRSAM.
Is it the navalised version of the LRSAM?

[narayana]

This could be the long denied Arrow-2 program,this is made public to Avoid any derailment by next Government supported or lead by Commies,just my guess

But if memory serves right arrow-2 range was to be around 100+ kms

[Rahul M]

B. Future Missiles:

1. LRSAM:

- JV between IAI and BDL
- 70 km range
- 4.55 m long, 225 mm diameter, 275 kg weight
- Boost to HTK (someone decode plz)
- Solid rocket pulse motor
- GPS + data link midcourse correction
- 4 Array PA radar seeker for terminal guidance (I think PA = Patch Antenna).

- Work under progress.

this is barak-8. ajay k, it's called barak-8 not barak-2.

point is, I've seen reference to this same 70km range project as LRSAM and MRSAM.

..........
narayana, which one do you think is the arrow-2 ?? I can find no similar project.

[narayana]

Israel boosts Indian missile defence hope

While South Block is tightlipped over the Israeli proposal, the security establishment here sees this as a tremendous opportunity to secure its defence against the threat of short- and medium-range nuclear capable missiles in the neighbourhood. The threat perception has increased after reports of ‘‘missiles-for-nuclear-technology’’ nexus between Pakistan and North Korea.

[Rahul M]

and you checked the date of that report ?

my question was related to this specific comment by you :

This could be the long denied Arrow-2 program,this is made public to Avoid any derailment by next Government supported or lead by Commies,just my guess

which is this ?

[narayana]

which is this ?

I was refering to the new Missile Announcement by DRDO made today
India developing surface to air missile

Yes Rahul i checked the date,and as i said earlier Work on this Missile could have been going on from few years back,and was a hush-hush deal,the short period development time of 3 years(many news channels were flashing that missile could be ready in 3-4 years) could point to the same.

Contradiction on Missile Range could be misleading,After all Nuclear Installation will be protected from both BM attacks and rougue Aircraft,and Arrow-2 can handle both

[Rahul M]

that one ?
that is the land version of barak-8. I thought I had already mentioned it.


added, here was the thing I got by email. I have posted this earlier.

MRSAM is just a land based variant of the same system developed for the Navy. Range should be similar, around 70 odd km. Radar will be the longer range variant of the Elta EL/M-2084 Multi Mission Radar. Mission S/W, TEL etc will be developed by India using the standard Tatra/ AL chassis. Model to be used will be similar to the Brahmos model.

[ajay_ijn]

This could be the long denied Arrow-2 program,this is made public to Avoid any derailment by next Government supported or lead by Commies,just my guess

But if memory serves right arrow-2 range was to be around 100+ kms

Israel would not risk sharing anything about Arrow-2 missile without US permission.

this is barak-8. ajay k, it's called barak-8 not barak-2.

point is, I've seen reference to this same 70km range project as LRSAM and MRSAM.

for the moment, we can assume LRSAM, MRSAM, Barak-2, Barak-8, Barak NG are all the same.

[KiranM]

Where does this leave Akash? If minimum range of this Indo-Israeli system is around 15-20 km then its the death knell for Akash. Services may then look at Maitri, Barak and AAD for Air Defence.

[Raj Malhotra]

IIRC the IAF version of Barak-2 or 8 or NG etc was supposed to have a booster to increase the range to 100-150km. So is there a change??


Also the missile weight of just 275kg would make LRSAM a pretty small-light missile. Am very doubtful that "effective range" would be 70km. The normal test is to check a range against cross moving low level aircraft with speed of around 800-900km. Me think, that 70km would be max aerodynamic slant range against slow moving mid altitude targets. Akash missile motor fires for around 5+30 seconds so it can use its full range of 24-30km for effective engagement. Also if an active seeker is put in Akash missile then I think the range would increase to 70-100km in lofted profile

[Austin]

IIRC the IAF version of Barak-2 or 8 or NG etc was supposed to have a booster to increase the range to 100-150km. So is there a change??

Yes thats right Raj , IN version of Barak-8 will have a range of 70 Km.

IAF road mobile version will have a range of 120Km , I suspect the IAF will get this range increase by using an additonal big fat booster as the 1st stage of the missile.

Akash missile motor fires for around 5+30 seconds so it can use its full range of 24-30km for effective engagement. Also if an active seeker is put in Akash missile then I think the range would increase to 70-100km in lofted profile

I dont think a lofted profile will give a tremendous increase in range , as it is powered all the way flight , the loafting profile along with coasting is what gives Solid fuel missile an increase in range.

JMT , I dont think one can shut and start ramjet engine in flight , as this will help it coast using the imparted energy and using aerodynamic properties of Akash to get lift at higher altitude impacting range

The way they will increase the range of Akash to ~ 50 Km is by using large dia booster as its first stage and increasing its ramjet burn time , this was some something stated by the then SA to RM Shri APJ Kalam in mid 90's in an interview to Janes.

Using active seeker or a dual mode seeker will be a good idea and can make it autonomous , but this will imact the cost of system , something the defence service will then start whining about.

[ramana]

SCAN must have blinked again to not resume the test yet.

[Austin]

SCAN must have blinked again to not resume the test yet.

Ramana , I can understand your anxiety over the Brahmos test with new SCAN seeker
My money is still on SCAN as an RF seeker with Imaging Capability , the scientist working on SCAN states about imaging capability , that was a dead give away , may be DRDO does not want to admit it at this stage and news report claim linking to its GPS capability , which again recently as DRDO stated none of its missile uses GPS , falls flat on claim that new Seeker is GPS enabled.

My thinking is its a small MMW RF seeker co-developed with Russia , Russia has already developed such seeker for multiple systems including I remember the only MMW guided Smart Shell with Anti Tank capability which was advertised as having MMW seeker something unique then.

The EO seeker may also be EO IIR seeker co-developed with israel , to give Brahmos a all passive or multiseeker capability.

[ramana]

I dint know thuis

Russia has already developed such seeker for multiple systems including I remember the only MMW guided Smart Shell with Anti Tank capability which was advertised as having MMW seeker something unique then.

Wonder how they get enough power for the seeker.

Austin, Check Sep 2007 DRDO Newsletter. A scientist from LRDE is mentioned for SCAN. And he is radar person.

[Gerard]

India's BrahMos air-launched cruise missile operational by 2012

[ajay_ijn]

SCAN must have blinked again to not resume the test yet.

Ramana , I can understand your anxiety over the Brahmos test with new SCAN seeker
My money is still on SCAN as an RF seeker with Imaging Capability , the scientist working on SCAN states about imaging capability , that was a dead give away , may be DRDO does not want to admit it at this stage and news report claim linking to its GPS capability , which again recently as DRDO stated none of its missile uses GPS , falls flat on claim that new Seeker is GPS enabled.

My thinking is its a small MMW RF seeker co-developed with Russia , Russia has already developed such seeker for multiple systems including I remember the only MMW guided Smart Shell with Anti Tank capability which was advertised as having MMW seeker something unique then.

The EO seeker may also be EO IIR seeker co-developed with israel , to give Brahmos a all passive or multiseeker capability.

In case of the MMR, how would the seeker detect and identify the target?, it must have preloaded target information to make comparisions, so how can we acquire that information before and in what form it would be.

[Austin]

Wonder how they get enough power for the seeker.

This was the 155 mm projectile I was mentioning with MMW seek 155-mm-NIMI-Smart-anti-tank-submunitions

Austin, Check Sep 2007 DRDO Newsletter. A scientist from LRDE is mentioned for SCAN. And he is radar person.

Yes I am aware of it , I had posted it some time back , which is the only evidence to prove that SCAN is an Imaging Radar.

But we are not yet sure on the maturity of the Ka band seeker technology in India , compared to operational systems deployed by Russia , so it is possible that this is a joint development by Indo-Russia or better our own seeker.

If I am not wrong the current seeker for Antiship Brahmos is from Russia.

In case of the MMR, how would the seeker detect and identify the target?, it must have preloaded target information to make comparisions, so how can we acquire that information before and in what form it would be.

Well the MMW is an imaging radar seeker which can discriminate against small target in all weather condition and jamming environment , so if you have a high resolution SAR or RF image of the target , you feed it to the missile and the image in missile compares to the RF image the seeker obtains and once confirmed it homes into it , atleast thats my thinking how it will work , unless the gurus think its otherwise.

The key thing is how will you obtain such target information at times of war for mobile target , that would be a challenge , not only useful information on the target has to be obtained , but also fed to missile in near real time or real time condition , Brahmos can be very useful to take on time sensitive target , provided you do have real time intelligence and real time hig res sar/isar image of the target.

Not a simple task considering than in all the modern war we have seen even US had difficulty in tracking and pinning down mobile targets with multiple assets it had.

Not to mention that the enemy would also be very smart and would try to camouflage the target or keep it mobile knowing well the capabalities of Brahmos.