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parshuram wrote:IN News report in TOI rajat pandit's source is is quoting that test was carried to test missile with new guidance system & nuclear warhead on board
I see no problem in that reporting, because that will be one of the first few tests. And they will test the nuclear warhead with a dummy pit.
If you recall amongst the first few Agni-II tests, couple of tests involved warhead without the Pu pit to verify "Safing, Arming and Fusing" worked correctly. One of those test had a modified warhead that was less sensitive to ESD. On BrahMos "Safing, Arming and Fusing" requirements will be even more stringent due to its low altitude flight and shorter range.
I am thankful to TOI's Rajat Pandit for reporting that in his brief.
I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
ramana wrote:I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
Isnt it extremely destabilizing and doesnt it erode our conventional edge ? IMHO Brahmos should have been used only with conventional warhead, should be advertised only as a conventional missile. Else using Brahmos as a conventional missile to take out a command center would cause a major browning of pants in paki jernails, who might then press the button.
Between Aircraft, Agni I,II and III, (apart from shourya) don't we have enough delivery options ?
ramana wrote:I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
Isnt it extremely destabilizing and doesnt it erode our conventional edge ? IMHO Brahmos should have been used only with conventional warhead, should be advertised only as a conventional missile. Else using Brahmos as a conventional missile to take out a command center would cause a major browning of pants in paki jernails, who might then press the button.
Between Aircraft, Agni I,II and III, (apart from shourya) don't we have enough delivery options ?
correct me if i am wrong but land based version was always quoted as nuclear capable
Arun_S wrote:
I see no problem in that reporting, because that will be one of the first few tests. And they will test the nuclear warhead with a dummy pit.
If you recall amongst the first few Agni-II tests, couple of tests involved warhead without the Pu pit to verify "Safing, Arming and Fusing" worked correctly. One of those test had a modified warhead that was less sensitive to ESD. On BrahMos "Safing, Arming and Fusing" requirements will be even more stringent due to its low altitude flight and shorter range.
I am thankful to TOI's Rajat Pandit for reporting that in his brief.
I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
Look again the same Zeenews and you can see in some frames the missile nose cowl is no more circular but has jagged edge and black material, clearly a RF stealth design.
ramana wrote:I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
Isnt it extremely destabilizing and doesnt it erode our conventional edge ? IMHO Brahmos should have been used only with conventional warhead, should be advertised only as a conventional missile. Else using Brahmos as a conventional missile to take out a command center would cause a major browning of pants in paki jernails, who might then press the button.
Between Aircraft, Agni I,II and III, (apart from shourya) don't we have enough delivery options ?
When I deliver my punch on the jaws of sadak chaap mawali, it had 5 fingers of different size and shape, and not a unicorn; each finger has a role in forming the punch. Many years ago at Aero India the BrahMos marketing person was explaining the Nuclear warhead options, and that was after 2 years of BRF discussion on BrahMos's nuclear warhead!
What is new to be destabilizing? Just like IAF's WACs(western Air Command) basing duel role aircrafts in Chandigarh, Ambala, Pathankot, Jodhpur, Jamnagar or Nallia.
ramana wrote:I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
Isnt it extremely destabilizing and doesnt it erode our conventional edge ? IMHO Brahmos should have been used only with conventional warhead, should be advertised only as a conventional missile. Else using Brahmos as a conventional missile to take out a command center would cause a major browning of pants in paki jernails, who might then press the button.
Between Aircraft, Agni I,II and III, (apart from shourya) don't we have enough delivery options ?
In such case,Pakistan shouldn't use any Missile on India in any conventional war at all, because all its Missiles are Nuke capable.
parshuram wrote:correct me if i am wrong but land based version was always quoted as nuclear capable
hmm..yes. But I always assumed "nuclear capable" was a term invented by DDM that they apply without fail to India's and Pakistan's missiles (if you think about it, even a gadha is nuclear capable. I fully expect the next DDM story to be "Tatas finish acquisition of nuclear-capable land rovers". The pakis on the other hand talk about "Nuclear capable JF bandaar", nuclear capable this, nuclear capable that).
Arun-saar,
I did not think that the IA or the MoD had a doctrine to fit our bum on every launch platform. If the land attack version of Brahmos was meant to serve as a precision strike weapon for high value targets, why integrate it with our bum ? Movement of Brahmos (for some future punishment-type scenario) may be interpreted (or atleast exploited by pakis) as nuclear sabre rattling (followed by the usual "south asian envoys" and travel advisories). Plus you dont want to give any reasons for the trigger happy, jannat seeking paki jernails.
ramana wrote:I saw Zeenews in hindi. It also repeatedly said it was nuke capable. So some sort of fusing test was done. Looks like army has another delivery vehicle.
Isnt it extremely destabilizing
er- destabilizing to a US viewpoint that seks to "hold the ring" and balance power "in the region"
The armed forces' eventual plan, of course, is to have nuclear-tipped LACMs, with strike ranges in excess of 1,500 km. Unlike ballistic missiles, cruise missiles do not leave the atmosphere and are powered and guided throughout their flight path.
What does it mean? Does it mean the test was also for extended range?
Nitesh, In 1998 there were reports that the Israelis tested their sub launched long range cruise missile in Bay of Bengal. Most likely an extended range vehicle would be tested there and not at Pokhran.
NEW DELHI: A day after BrahMos missile was test fired, DRDO on Wednesday said there were some minor hitches during the trial which they were looking into.
There were small hitches in the last stage of the missile during the test, which was conducted in the Pokhran ranges of Rajasthan on a new version of BrahMos missile yesterday, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officials said.
They indicated that the missile did not hit the target and scientists are looking into it, they said.
The army yesterday test-fired a new version of the nuclear-capable BrahMos missile.
The missile, with a 290-km range and capable of touching a speed 2.8 times that of sound, was launched during the trial in its vertical mode, DRDO officials said.
BrahMos is a missile that India is developing in collaboration with Russia and is named after the river Brahmputra and Moscow.
During the visit of Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to India late last year, an agreement was reached between the two countries for development of a hyper-sonic BrahMos missile, an improvement on the already-developed supersonic missile, termed as "the most advanced" in its category.
in some frames the missile nose cowl is no more circular but has jagged edge and black material, clearly a RF stealth design.
interesting observation.
btw the newer versions of CFM56 engines have a wavy sine curve type
cowl over the tailpipe which is said to reduce noise significantly. maybe
something similar can be tried on our cruise missiles (brahmos, nirbhay)
as a enhancement.
^
This is the standard nosecone configuration, I am talking about a changed design of the nosecone which was black in colour and its shape suggested a Stealth design employed
why would they reduce the noise signature of a CM?, or add stealth to a supersonic missile that TSP can't intercept? for deniability? they could do something spectacular than Mariott if TSP radars can't pick its signature or prove it. This could also reduce warning time to turds fleeing the ISI headquarters on missile alert
so, they did the test in Pokhran under the watchful eye of Phalcon (delayed test firing) to simulate user (Army) scenario instead of at Chandipore with a sea background? This helps in determining Phalcon's performance against 'stealth' objects with ground clutter
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Last edited by SSridhar on 21 Jan 2009 19:59, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:Do not discuss irrelevant things here.
p_saggu wrote:^
This is the standard nosecone configuration, I am talking about a changed design of the nosecone which was black in colour and its shape suggested a Stealth design employed
Do these black nose indicate any alternate terminal guidance test , like IIR or a dual IIR/RF guidance ?
ramana wrote:So other than the launcher which seems to have worked ok what else was different in this version? And if it was for vertical launch proofing then why was it only the Army gen in attendence? Was navy there too?
Most likely navigation/flight control system issue. The news reports are not talking of targeting problem. That (is any) will come later. RF seeker based homing has its limitations. The desert area the ground penetration of beam is many times higher. This metal shreds (reflectors) from previous target practice hidden few feet below surface will give false positive signature.
Sir, is land attack brahmos also having terminal RF Seeker? almost every land attack missile has electro-optical guidance. will it be possible to detect and identify structures with Radar seekers in a better way compared to electro-optical?
Last edited by ajay_ijn on 21 Jan 2009 18:33, edited 1 time in total.
How much noise can be reduced for a missile that is streaking at treetop level and going faster than sound?
The sonic boom after the missile has passed should be audible for miles. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a supersonic missile would not be audible when it is coming in, its only after its passed that the boom comes.
Shiv,
That post was off topic, it should have been in the Pak Sales and doctrine? regrets.
"The missile performance was absolutely normal till the last phase, but the missile missed the target, though it maintained the direction," Pillai said.
Stating that the main objective of the test was to evaluate new homing scheme in a multi-target environment to an identified specific target, the BrahMos chief said the complicated mission called for an advanced algorithm and intelligence embedded in the missile.
"The cause of the malfunction has been analysed by a group of scientists. The new software used for this mission will be revalidated through extensive simulations and a flight trial will be carried out in a month's time to prove the augmented capabilities of the missile," Pillai said. {It looks like they have already found out the problem and that's why the next test within a month}
As an upgradation for enhancing the system capabilities in the land attack configuration, the missile with 290-km range and speeds touching 2.8 times that of sound, was tested on Tuesday from a Mobile Autonomous Launcher.
He pointed out that the BrahMos weapon system had already been proved successfully and inducted into the Navy and the Army after meeting user requirements.
p_saggu, may be the cm can do dual speed mode.. one sub sonic, and get that extended range you want.. and then go for the super sonic terminal mode to kill. i dunno!~ in sub sonic mode, the rf stealth designs can help.. may be they can throw away the nose cone, and go bare finally satisfying your wish.
Stating that the main objective of the test was to evaluate new homing scheme in a multi-target environment to an identified specific target, the BrahMos chief said the complicated mission called for an advanced algorithm and intelligence embedded in the missile.
"The missile performance was absolutely normal till the last phase, but the missile missed the target, though it maintained the direction," Pillai said.
Stating that the main objective of the test was to evaluate new homing scheme in a multi-target environment to an identified specific target, the BrahMos chief said the complicated mission called for an advanced algorithm and intelligence embedded in the missile.
"The cause of the malfunction has been analysed by a group of scientists. The new software used for this mission will be revalidated through extensive simulations and a flight trial will be carried out in a month's time to prove the augmented capabilities of the missile," Pillai said. {It looks like they have already found out the problem and that's why the next test within a month}
As an upgradation for enhancing the system capabilities in the land attack configuration, the missile with 290-km range and speeds touching 2.8 times that of sound, was tested on Tuesday from a Mobile Autonomous Launcher.
He pointed out that the BrahMos weapon system had already been proved successfully and inducted into the Navy and the Army after meeting user requirements.
Sridhar, interesting. BTW that was amongst gut feel when the first failure report came out and I posted this in previous page.
Arun_S wrote:RF seeker based homing has its limitations. The desert area the ground penetration of beam is many times higher. This metal shreds (reflectors) from previous target practice hidden few feet below surface will give false positive signature.
So false positives in desert environment will pose algorithm challenge, specially in low contrast target environment. The fix is in both Radar DSP (Digital Sig Processing) and targeting/homing DSP. Back to MATLAB analysis and simulations.
i would like to ask, what type of targets are usually prescribed for this kind of a missile under LACM role? depending on this, target isolation/determination could get complex.
I don't like the BRAHMOS team coming into the main media with what they were testing and what went wrong.
BRAHMOS should be a super hush hush system, no one should be releasing anything more than saying
'a minor software glitch' which has been identfied and corrected and will be retested very soon.
We are releasing a little too much info on the seeker capabilities, which I find discomforting.
ajay_ijn wrote:Sir, is land attack brahmos also having terminal RF Seeker?
Yes terminal RF Seeker hardware of BrahMos remain unchanged for land attack version too.
almost every land attack missile has electro-optical guidance. will it be possible to detect and identify structures with Radar seekers in a better way compared to electro-optical?
Every other land attack missile is also subsonic, thus electro-optical guidance (that are almost all of them IR based) is not a big challange. The high skin temperature of Mach 3 flight makes EO sensor a challange and cost issue.
p_saggu wrote:^
This is the standard nosecone configuration, I am talking about a changed design of the nosecone which was black in colour and its shape suggested a Stealth design employed
Do these black nose indicate any alternate terminal guidance test , like IIR or a dual IIR/RF guidance ?
IMHO no new seeker hardware, just makes it impossible to detect this craft by Aegis class radars. BrahMos has otherwise very small RCS, there will be some narrow peaks in frontal section and this new slanted + jagged edge nose rim abates even that RCS. So for all practical purpose the missile has negligible probabelity of radar detection.
If you recall recent US military reports fear brahMos type missile easily breaching their air protection bubble, and till now their impenetrable defense of fleet is now exposed to BrahMos class missiles that will eventually be in the hand of untouchables. Airbourn AESA is now being pressed to protect fleet from low observable supersonic missiles that has many hundred km range.
If F22 and JSF are asymmetric RMA edge of air dominance (impunity), a stealth Brahmos is RMA edge of attack missile dominance. That is the significance of BrahMos that military war fighters would like to build into their war game.
vasu_ray wrote:why would they reduce the noise signature of a CM?, or add stealth to a supersonic missile that TSP can't intercept? for deniability? they could do something spectacular than Mariott if TSP radars can't pick its signature or prove it. This could also reduce warning time to turds fleeing the ISI headquarters on missile alert
so, they did the test in Pokhran under the watchful eye of Phalcon (delayed test firing) to simulate user (Army) scenario instead of at Chandipore with a sea background? This helps in determining Phalcon's performance against 'stealth' objects with ground clutter
-- Deleted --
It's of always great advantages to be in stealth mode!!, As the saying goes: Do not underestimate your enemy; which your write up seems to be pretending (Again nothing personal mate . One more thing if our scientists are able to achieve this feat with the current version of missile then they might utilize in longer range too, which would give edge over our "Chincom" friends too:) .
CHENNAI: A software glitch during the terminal stage of the flight of supersonic cruise missile BrahMos on Tuesday led to the missile falling short of its target. The Army fired the missile at the Pokhran range in Rajasthan.
It was a modified BrahMos with a new software to make it “more intelligent” and hit a given target (a structure) out of a number of small buildings but it missed the target, said A. Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace.
New software
Two regiments of the Army already have Block I version of the missile. BrahMos Aerospace had come up with a Block II version without changing the missile’s major systems that were proven in the previous 17 flights. But the Block II version had new software to improve the missile’s operational capability.
The software aimed at making the missile more “intelligent” so that it possessed a sense of “discrimination.” In other words, it would “select” the given target out of a number of small targets and pulverise it.
“Beautiful take-off”
Dr. Pillai said the missile had a “beautiful take-off” and “performed well” but a problem occurred in the new software. “So the target was not hit. It just missed the target. When we do something new, it can go either way,” he pointed out.
The flight involved a lot of terminal-stage manoeuvres, which were difficult to perform at a supersonic speed of nearly three times the speed of sound. The issue, which was identified and analysed, was “not serious.”
“The new algorithm has to be re-validated through many simulation runs and we will get foolproof software so that such complicated mission requirements are met …We are confident that we will do another launch within a month.”
Small targets
Asked about a similar mission being successful in a previous flight at the Pokhran range, Dr. Pillai said the targets then were bigger buildings. But in this mission, the missile had to pick and hit “a small, hidden” building out of “multiple targets.”
Dr. Pillai denied that the missile was reconfigured to carry nuclear warheads. It would carry only conventional warheads, he asserted.
==
quite silly of the ToI lady to have said that.. besides the need for such accuracy for a nuke!
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Arun_S wrote:
IMHO no new seeker hardware, just makes it impossible to detect this craft by Aegis class radars. BrahMos has otherwise very small RCS, there will be some narrow peaks in frontal section and this new slanted + jagged edge nose rim abates even that RCS. So for all practical purpose the missile has negligible probabelity of radar detection.
Thanks Arun , will it be possible to have an approx figure for RCS of Brahmos ?
Yogesh wrote:
It's of always great advantages to be in stealth mode!!, As the saying goes: Do not underestimate your enemy; which your write up seems to be pretending (Again nothing personal mate . One more thing if our scientists are able to achieve this feat with the current version of missile then they might utilize in longer range too, which would give edge over our "Chincom" friends too:) .
long term view is very much fine, no issues there, if Brahmos can evade Phalcon AESA at close ranges even better, both can serve as a bench mark against each other, and both CABS AEW and Stealthy Brahmos evolve...
the second part, setting aside perceptions, what are TSP defenses against Brahmos, seriously? is it camouflage? quick reaction SAMs? emergency evacuation? or just counter missiles which are after the fact?
while we are racking our heads and investing in quick reaction systems and hopefully perimeter defense systems
vasu_ray wrote:
the second part, setting aside perceptions, what are TSP defenses against Brahmos, seriously? is it camouflage? quick reaction SAMs? emergency evacuation? or just counter missiles which are after the fact?
We are in time when we are aspiring to become a major player. Then why we are restricting our missile capability in term of TSP defense/reaction.
May be as long as stage 1 goes we may design a weapon to counter TSP but our main and long term goal must be to design and evolve to a system which has global reach. And when we are considering Brahmos then we must remember that it is infact started a whole new era in cruise missile concept. And we must perfect it to the point where it must has a high success rate to breach any defense.
And its high time now we must consider to enhance the range of the Brahmos.
. One more thing if our scientists are able to achieve this feat with the current version of missile then they might utilize in longer range too, which would give edge over our "Chincom" friends too:) .
