Reinventing a proven indigenous missile?
Ashok Parthasarathi and Raman Puri
Reported moves by the Ministry of Defence to outsource abroad a Rs. 10,000-crore project for an air defence system raise many questions.
There have been press reports recently about the Ministry of Defence awarding Israel a Rs. 10,000-crore contract to develop and produce an “Advanced New Generation Surface to Air Missile (SAM) System.” This is to be an extension of the Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. (IAI)-Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) project (in which the DRDO’s work share is insignificant) that is under way. It involves a price of about Rs. 2,800 crore. The objective is for the DRDO and the IAI to jointly develop, and for the IAI to then produce, three 70-km-range Barak 2 missile systems for the Indian Navy.
Concurrently, the IAI is to develop, manufacture and supply to the Indian Air Force (IAF) another SAM System. This system is stated to have the capability to intercept both missiles and manned aircraft at a range of up to120 km. It is reliably learnt that about a dozen such SAMs are to be purchased by the IAF from the IAI at a price of around Rs. 10,000 crore.
At the same time, the success of the DRDO’s own project to develop, make a prototype of and prove on the field a high-performance SAM, called Project Air Defence (AD), for a far superior, much more demanding application, namely, to shoot down ballistic missiles at ranges much greater than 120 km, has been widely reported. The press release issued by the DRDO on December 15, 2007 regarding SAM said: “The Indian drive to realise a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system took a significant step forward with the country joining the elite club of the USA, Russia and Israel when an endospheric (within the atmosphere) interceptor missile developed by the DRDO successfully targeted a hostile missile twice in early December 2007. The Air Defence interceptor missile developed by the DRDO destroyed the target missile. An exospheric (beyond the atmosphere) interception of a target Ballistic Missile had already been achieved earlier.”
This home-grown missile system in which the radar hardware too is now being indigenised (the software, in any case, was written entirely by Indian teams earlier) has all the capabilities sought from the Air Defence Missile System to be developed and then productionised by the IAI — and indeed much more. Why, then, should the IAI “offer” be even considered?
It does not require rocket science to infer that a missile system that can intercept a ballistic missile does so at ranges far greater than the 120 km asked for from the IAI by the IAF. Similarly, the DRDO’s Ballistic Missile Defence System which has successfully intercepted enemy/target aircraft right up to the limits of endospheric altitudes can effectively intercept any aircraft at ranges of 120 km-plus.
Countries that have developed such air defence systems do not compartmentalise their roles as being strategic or tactical, or limit their utilisation against either offensive manned aircraft on the one hand or missiles on the other. Doing so would be technologically and operationally illogical. What is more, it will lead to significant wastage of human and financial resources. Why, then, the IAF and the Navy have not drawn this obvious interference, or the DRDO has not clearly highlighted and emphasised the capability and relevance of the Project (AD) for Tactical Air Defence of its proven Ballistic Missile Defence Missile (BMD) system, is unclear — although the DRDO press release did state that the successfully demonstrated BMD had all the features necessary to double up easily as a tactical AD missile.
Incidentally, it has been reported in the media that besides firing to destroy a ballistic missile, the DRDO’s interceptor missile engaged a simulated air target and a naval ship at ranges of 100 km-plus and intercepted them. What is more, neither the Navy nor the IAF is willing to recognise or acknowledge, much less accept, these capabilities of the DRDO’s Project AD missile systems despite the numerous joint committees they are members of. At such committee meetings, all these developments and concrete achievements of the DRDO have been presented by it and discussed in detail by senior representatives of those defence services and senior DRDO scientists.
The AD system developed and proved by the DRDO in record time and at record cost by world standards is, in concept, like the French Astra 30 and the U.S. PAC 3 recently introduced in those countries. However, in terms of design and performance, the DRDO’s AD system is superior to the French and U.S. systems. Basically, such modern AD Systems deploy Multifunction Active Aperture Radars (Long Range) and Medium Range Multifunction Radars to determine multiple target positions in space, and communicate over secure, real-time links to the interceptor missiles or launchers. The interceptor missiles themselves meanwhile have the intelligence to determine their trajectories and engage enemy aircraft or missiles at long range. The systems to be procured from Israel will necessarily have the same concept and components as the Project AD missile — or so it is to be hoped.
What is more, while the Project AD missile not only exists but is proven in the much more demanding BMD role, the IAI AD missile has yet to be developed. So, if the Rs. 10,000-crore contract for the 120-km range Barak NG AD missile for the IAF is signed, it will be a true case of reinventing the wheel abroad at exorbitant cost and at the expense of existing and proven indigenous missiles of the DRDO that offer better performance. So much for the policy of self-reliance and indigenisation that is stated at every defence forum.
One may rightly then ask: why did this not apply to the Naval Systems? In our view, the Rs. 2,800-crore contract with the IAI in this regard was also a hastily signed one. Project AD’s radar system would possibly have required re-engineering to downsize the Medium Range Multifunction Radar to be mounted on a naval ship’s mast, and some developmental effort to deal with stabilisation issues at sea (using capability already available with L&T, R&D Engineers, Pune, and BEL).
Clearly, however, no such re-engineering and stabilisation effort is required for the IAF’s ground-based systems. The Medium Range Multifunction radar of Project AD has been extensively used by the IAF in exercises even with foreign air forces. As for the interceptor missiles, India has the total design, technology and production capabilities thoroughly proven in repeated BMD field trials conducted over the last two years.
Therefore, while there would be no justification for the IAF going in for the so-called “Advanced New Generation, Air Defence System Programme” with the IAI, in the case of the Navy, too, the systems under development by the IAI should be the last systems to be ordered abroad.
The so-called joint IAI-DRDO project for Barak-2 is one in which the DRDO, surprisingly, has a small-to-insignificant contribution to make. Therefore, the reason for the DRDO joining this programme under such circumstances, and even more when its own technically and operationally superior Project (AD) SAM has been proven in the field, is not clear. Is this yet another case of the DRDO being pressured, not only by a defence service but by the Ministry of Defence itself?
In view of the foregoing, while we ponder over these issues, there should be no “develop & buy” or “buy & make” orders for the IAF’s AD systems. Instead, both the DRDO and the IAF must be directed by the Defence Minister to jointly use the DRDO’s established and proven capability and actual AD missiles to meet the IAF’s AD requirement. And the proposed procurement from the IAI of Israel should be dropped forthwith.
There is a Central Bureau of Investigation enquiry in progress against the IAI. It will therefore be a gross and serious violation of government rules and regulations to place fresh orders for any systems whatsoever with the IAI until the CBI enquiry is over and the IAI is cleared. But a recent news item (Indian Express, November 17, 2008) cited government sources as having told the newspaper that “the Defence Ministry has gone to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) for approval of this multi-million dollar procurement of a Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM) project between Israeli defence contractors and the DRDO” — even before the CBI enquiry is complete.
(Ashok Parthasarathi was Science and Technology Adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for nine years in two spells in the 1970s and the early 1980s. He has been closely involved with India’s air defence system, overseen and directed as it was even then by the Radar & Communication Board chaired by the Prime Minister. Vice-Admiral Raman Puri retired as Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman, Committee of Defence Service Chiefs and was deeply associated with the inter-services weapons procurement process from October 2003 to February 2006.)
According to the authors, DRDO has negligible technical inputs for the barak-NG. Is this true, guru-log?
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