Indian BRAHMOS Missile Tested For 450 Km Range
The Indian military this time carried out an Users Trials with help of DRDO scientists to check the extended range of the Indian manufactured BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missile from a ground launcher at an integrated test range off the coast of Odisha.
India has been seeking to extend the range of the missile further and may soon test its capability of hitting a target around 500 km. The range of this missile built jointly by India and Russia had been deliberately kept at 300 km due to Russia being a MTCR member. India could have extended the range with its own research and thus thumbed its nose at MTCR but kept the Russian request in mind.
After all MTCR was formed to thwart Indian attempts at becoming a world leader in missile technology.Increasing the missile’s range openly will now cause no problems to Russia as the MTCR regime had to finally welcome India into the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 2016.
The first test of the extended range variant of the BrahMos was successfully tested on 11 March 2017 using the mobile autonomous launcher deployed in full configuration.
India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has declared that another version of the missile with a strike range of 800 km has been under development. The missile could be tested within a year.
The 800-km range would be achieved by optimizing the cruise performance of the missile’s ramjet engine and through the use of composites to reduce missile’s weight to allow for an enhanced fuel load. However, the changes will not impact the external dimensions of the missile.
After going through all the data collected from previous tests and studies, India has once again commenced testing its weapons systems for further refinement. On Tuedasy, it was the BrahMos’ turn, considered to be world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile. The latest BrahMos missile test is part of ongoing user trials for its extended range of around 450 km, with the version of the missile used in the launch having an upgraded guidance system as well.
With the Indian parliamentary elections over, India now in fast forward mode has test-fired an air launched version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile which incidentally was followed by Pakistan launching its surface-to-surface Shaheen-II ballistic missile. Two days later, India test fired a 500 kg guided bomb near its border with Pakistan.
