First test of BrahMos land-attack variant from the sea
India Today (March 05, 2008) Print This News
The Indian navy on Wednesday moved towards acquiring a pin-point ability to attack targets on land with its first test of the land-attack variant of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.
The 15th successive successful launch of the supersonic missile took place at sea off the Andaman and Nicobar islands at 10.30 am on Wednesday. This is the first time a land-attack variant of the missile is being fired from a warship and also the first sea-to-land missile test in the country.
The missile fired from INS Rajput squarely hit the specially created land target created in one of the islands of Andaman a d Nicobar. According to officials of the Indo-Russian BrahMos corporation, the missile met all flight parameters during its flight where it selected the designated target among the group of targets, hitting it precisely and destroying the target with its tremendous kinetic energy.
The navy has already inducted anti-ship versions of the BrahMos on its warships including the Rajput and is integrating them into two other ships of the class. The missiles will also equip the three 7000 ton Kolkata class destroyers currently under construction at the Mazagon Docks Ltd, Mumbai.
"This mission is very important as it has established the sea-to-land attack capability of the formidable weapon system," a BrahMos corporation official said. The naval maritime doctrine speaks of influencing the outcome of the land battle from the sea calls for precision strikes on enemy command posts, airfields and infrastructure hubs from the sea.
The BrahMos being fired from the INS Rajput.The launch of the 300-km range missile took place off the coast of Andman Nicobar Island with the support of Andman Nicobar command. The command deployed ten ships, three aircraft and three helicopters for mission support. The parameters set for the mission were kept extremely difficult including the positioning of the target to achieve maximum output. The 100 per cent success of the launch once again demonstrated the tremendous capability of the weapon system, BrahMos corp officials said.
The 'universal cruise missile'-thus called for its ability to be launched from warships, submarines, vehicles and aircraft has already been inducted into the navy and the army. The air force variant will start to undergo tests next year while the submarine launched variant is still further down the road.
The launch was witnessed by Dr.A.Sivathanu Pillai CEO & MD of BrahMos Aerospace along with the officiating Commander in Chief of the Andman command Rear Admiral PK Nair along with other senior naval officers and defence scientists. The Defence Minister congratulated the Navy and team of scientists for the successful launch.
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Shri Atul Dinkar Rane is an outstanding defence scientist renowned for his decades of sustained R&D contributions in the indigenous design & development of mission critical Onboard computers (OBC), hardware in loop simulation studies, Systems analysis, development of mission software and avionics technologies for defence applications.
