Extended range BRAMHOS Supersonic cruise missile

-Varad Gaidhani  

 

On the 18th of September 2020 the Defence Research and Development Organization successfully test fired the Extended Range Brahmos Supersonic Cruise missile that was launched from INS Chennai. The missile was tested with its maximum range of 450 km and at the top speed of Mach 3 thus being the fastest missile of the world with no parallel in this world.

 

 

The Defence Research and Development Organization also conducted successful trials of the army variant of this missile with a domestically-manufactured booster on 30th September 2020 from a test facility off the coast of Odisha. The Brahmos Aerospace is now developing the Air Force variant of this upgraded supersonic missile which is being estimated to be 600kg lighter than the army and naval versions so as to fit the air force standards.

 

The Brahmos missile is being developed and manufactured by the BRAHMOS Aerospace a joint venture of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) of India and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) of Russia. The Brahmos missile was developed as a derivative to the P-800 Oniks cruise missile. The basic version of the Brahmos missile was tested on 12th July 2001 and it has been ever since being upgraded and the latest version that was tested on 18th of September 2020 has been developed with a Ramjet engine because of which it achieves this speed that makes it the only one in the world.

 

The missile was tested from INS Chennai the third ship from the Kolkata class stealth destroyers of the Indian Navy. INS Chennai was constructed in the Mazgaon Dockyard Limited, Mumbai. These three ships were built under the code name Project 15A. The upgraded Brahmos missile is so reliable that anywhere in the Indian sovereignty that has been threatened the missile regiments of the army, attack ships of the navy and the fighter squadrons of the air force are readily armed with the Brahmos missile and are immediately inducted as the first responders to the enemy be it in the Ladakh standoff, the ever-increasing threat of the Chinese Navy (PLAN) in the Indian Ocean or any kind of threat from any of the ten directions.

 

This deadly weapon of India is turning even more formidable as previously this missile was capped to only 290 kilometers due to international restrictions but, according to latest reports this missile has shown the capability to cover the range of 500 kilometers during the tests conducted in 2019 and 2020 while the BRAHMOS Aerospace is trying to hit the targets beyond the range of 600 kilometers. After this successful test the joint venture of Indian DRDO and Russian NPOM are working on an air force version which would be 600kg lighter than these two variants. Also, the joint venture is focusing on the development of the next-generation Brahmos-II missile which is going to be a hypersonic missile.