IAF To Gets Its Own Aircraft Carrier Buster Air-launched Weapon
By
Colonel Awadhesh Kumar, Special Forces
The air-launched BRAHMOS cruise missile will soon be operationalized with the Indian Air Force (IAF). This will be India’s most lethal conventional air-to-ground missile, a virtual Aircraft Carrier buster when launched as a salvo.
As per news the air launched version is undergoing a set of Users trials. Technical Trials have already established the efficacy of the missile in its new avataar. The missile is very accurate and lethal and will soon be operationalized. So IAF will have not only Laser Guided bombs and stand-off weapons like the Spice 2000 and the Crystal Maze which go (across) a much longer range but also a missile with 450 km range.
The BRAHMOS presently will have a range up to 450 km but which soon will be extended to 800km. The next version will be much lighter in weight but equally lethal. However then each SU30 MKI will be able to carry at least two BRAHMOS missiles instead of present one. So imagine the IAF capability today. May be even IAF Rafaels and Mirage 2000s will get armed with the lighter version.
The range of the BRAHMOS missile was always 450 km. However so as not to embarrass Russia as an MTCR member it was officially kept at precise 295 km, just 5 km below the MTCR limit of 300km. Though if ever it had been fired in anger then it would have travelled full 450 km regardless of MTCR.
The MTCR was created to thwart Indian achievement in missile field , when we started with Prirhvi . Ironically India was accepted as a full member of the MTCR in 2016, after the success of India’s missile programme.
After the success of indigenous PRITHVI, AGNI etc, BRAHMOS was co-developed with Russia and is produced in India.
A total of 42 Sukhoi-30MKI fighters of the IAF will be armed with the air-launched BRAHMOS. The availability of this weapon not only increases India military options of precision attacks from a stand-off range of 800km but also extends reach to 3800 km ie range of SU30MKI + 800km.
Imagine a Scenario of a Chinese Carrier Battle Group ever challenging the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region. Then will the CBG survive if say 8x SU30 MKI fire simultaneously a Salvo of 16 BRAHMOS at it? This formidable weapon which is difficult to detect and intercept in terrain-hugging flight mode at speeds up to 2.8 Mach.
For that matter will any other CBG from anywhere else, trying to challenge Indian Navy, go unscathed against the above salvo?…..food for thought.
