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26.06.2006 15:37:32
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Флот; ВВС;
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Индусы испытали "Барак" и углубились в перспективы "Брамоса"
Краткое содержание статьи в индийской газете Индиа Таймс - после успешного перехвата советской ПКР П-21 израильским ЗРК "Барак" с авианосца Вираат индийские госдеятели заинтересовались закупками ПКР "Брамос" (сиречь "Яхонт"), проталкиванием ее на рынки третьих стран. Сам ПМ Индии в сопровождении президента Индии и бывшего начальника DRDO Абдул Калама посетил СП, где "делают" эти ракеты и т.д.
Rajat Pandit
[ Sunday, June 25, 2006 11:59:56 pm India TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is now giving the original missile man, President A P J Abdul Kalam, a run for his money. From the economics of prices, he is now turning his attention to the physics of warfare.
After watching the Israeli Barak anti-missile system successfully intercept an incoming Russian P-21 missile from aircraft carrier INS Viraat last month, the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile has now popped up on the PM's radar.
The PM will be visiting the BrahMos Aerospace complex in Delhi Cantonment on Wednesday to learn about the lethal missile, which has been jointly developed with Russia and was tested for the first time in June 2001.
Sources said BrahMos chief A Sivathanu Pillai and other top officials will brief the PM on the capabilities of the air-breathing missile, which flies at a 2.8 Mach speed (almost three times the speed of sound) to distances up to 300 km at present.
Capable of being launched from a variety of land, sea, sub-sea or air-based platforms, BrahMos (acronym for Brahmaputra-Moscow) has already been installed in some frontline warships like destroyer INS Rajput, as reported by TOI earlier.
With contracts worth Rs 3,500 crore already being signed for its mass production to begin, the Army is now raising a special BrahMos regiment to use it as a precision land-to-land weapon. Moreover, work is well underway to configure it for the Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jets.
The economist in Manmohan Singh, of course, should be pleased with BrahMos' "superb" export potential. With India and Russia having decided to export it to "friendly countries", negotiations with several countries like Chile, South Africa and Malaysia are in progress.
It's estimated that there will a $10-billion demand for missiles like BrahMos — since all other current anti-ship missiles either fly at subsonic speeds or have a much shorter range — in the coming decade.
What adds to the punch packed in BrahMos is its 'fire-and-forget' principle of operation, low radar signature, variety of flight trajectories and high-destructive capability with multiple warheads.
The government, incidentally, has allocated more funds to BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between the India's Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russian NPO Mashinostroyenia, to work towards more than doubling the missile's speed, to almost Mach 8.
Pakistan, of course, has also come up with its own cruise missile, called Babur, with China's help. Pakistan has already conducted two tests of Babur, touted as being capable of carrying nuclear warheads to a 500-km distance. While Babur may score over BrahMos in terms of range at present, the Indian missile travels at much greater speeds.