India First To Build a Supersonic Cruise Missile

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "India successfully tested Sunday a 'maneuverable' version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile which it has jointly developed with Russia, news reports said. The vertical-launch version of the 290-kilometer range BrahMos was tested from a warship in the Bay of Bengal off India's eastern coast, the PTI news agency reported. 'The vertical-launch version of missile was launched at 11:30 (0600 GMT) hours today from Indian Navy ship INS Ranvir and it manoeuvred successfully hitting the target ship. It was a perfect hit and a perfect mission,' BrahMos aerospace chief A Sivathanu Pillai was quoted as saying. 'After today's test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory,' Pillai said."

Comments

Russian P-500_Bazalt was online in 1973

[schwit1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-500_Bazalt

Misleading headline

[Waffle Iron]

Possibly first to deploy, but not the first to build, by a good 50 years.

Headline wrong, as is the article

[category_five]

The headline says, "India First To Build a Supersonic Cruise Missile". In order to even accurately reflect the article, it should read, "India First To Build a manoeuvrable Supersonic Cruise Missile". But even so, the article is wrong;

from wikipedia, P-500 Bazalt

The P-500 Bazalt (Russian: -500 ; English: basalt) is a liquid-fueled, rocket powered, supersonic cruise missile used by the Soviet and Russian navies. Developed by OKB-52 MAP (later NPO Mashinostroyeniye), its GRAU designation is 4K80[1]. Its NATO reporting name is SS-N-12 Sandbox. It entered service in 1973 to replace the SS-N-3 Shaddock. The P-500 Bazalt had a 550 km range and a payload of 1,000 kg, which allows it to carry a 350 kT nuclear or a 950 kg semi-armor-piercing high explosive warhead (currently only the conventional version remains in service). The P-500 Bazalt uses active radar homing for terminal guidance, and can receive mid-course corrections by the Tupolev Tu-95D, the Kamov Ka-25B and the Kamov Ka-27B.

So many levels of fail in this submission

Re:Headline wrong, as is the article

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an aerospace engineer...in our jargon, a course correction compensates for drift, so we are talking about correcting for very low angular rates that come about because of gyro drift, winds aloft, etc. The engineers who designed the P-500 for course correction likely used small angle approximations (cos(theta) = 1, sin(theta)=theta -- first term from a Taylor series expension) because the correction values for theta were very small.

A maneuver is a large deviation from the initial flight path, where theta (flight path angle deviation) is large enough that the first order Taylor series approximation does not work. What this means is that your controller becomes highly nonlinear, and requires significantly greater amounts of computing power.

Re:Really?

[Trepidity]

The summary (and article) are better than the headline. This isn't either: a) the first supersonic cruise missile; or b) the first maneuverable cruise missile. But it is, apparently, the first maneuverable supersonic cruise missile.

Re:Indian jokes

[tftp]

Hitler's German was prohibited from making weapons prior to WWII (part of the WW1 peace treaty), so he outsourced the industry to Russia

Of course - Schmeisser, Krupp, Junkers, and Messerschmitt are all Russian names :-)

With regard to Treaty of Versailles, it was officially broken in 1932, with implicit approval of many important countries. Development of arms also was done under "dual use" cover.

Not about Pakistan

[Goonie]

Weapons like the BrahMos are primarily aimed at ships. Yes, you could also use it as a precision-guided land attack cruise missile, but Pakistan's navy is small and almost irrelevant for conflict with India.

This weapon - and, indeed, much of India's military development - is about maintaining military competitiveness with China, and to some extent the ability to discourage the US from interfering if India conducts military operations in areas it regards as its sphere of influence.

The US Navy is apparently upgrading its cruise missile defences on its ships, replacing the Phalanx gun-based system with a missile-based version, because of missiles like the BrahMos.

Re:Not about Pakistan

[jollyreaper]

Personally, I don't see why something like Phalanx wouldn't be the right system to use against really fast missiles. The energy released when a DU bullet hits a missile coming in at mach 2.8 (or mach 5.2 for Brahmos II) must be absolutely enormous. Sure, you'll get crap all over the deck, but that's not the end of the world.

Because of the engagement envelope. It's very, very tiny. Against a supersonic target it would be a second or two at most. Scoring a critical hit against a cruise missile doesn't do much good if you do so only a hundred feet out. In the Falklands War, the Brits almost lost a ship to a dud Exocet. The warhead didn't go off but just the impact and burning fuel was almost enough to sink the ship. Just how bad could this be? I don't think we've ever conducted live fire tests. We really should.

Your primary defense against incoming cruise missiles is blowing them up before they're launched, be it ground or air-based. Failing that, your next best bet is knocking them down at range with your SAMs. A CWIS system is only meant to be the last line of defense.

It's not the first maneuverable supersonic CM eith

[melted]

It's not the first maneuverable supersonic CM either. Russian P-500 Bazalt missile was both supersonic and maneuverable and it entered service in 1973 (!). Brahmos is an adaptation of previous generation Russian missile technology, and not even the most advanced variant of that. Russians don't export their latest stuff, particularly the kind of stuff that if push came to shove could be efficiently used against them.

amen!

[Weezul]

I don't think India has ever faced any credible direct security threat from the U.S., well aside from aid to Pakistan, and the threat of war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. India has very strong ties with Britain, vibrant trade with the U.S., developed nuclear weapons early, plays amongst the big boys economically, we idealize Gandhi, etc.

India projecting sea power more effectively definitely impacts China's trade routes however, especially with the middle east. India causing an increase in China's manufacturing costs would benefit industry in India, the U.S., and Europe.. and generally be cheered by all non-tools.

Re: Death to...

[colinnwn]

I was watching a recorded Rick Steves episode the other day about traveling in Iran. I'd actually like to go there now. He said the people were more friendly than many European towns. People kept saying "We love Americans" and that they wish our countries governments could get past our disagreements.

During a fundraising break, he mentioned he was sitting in a cab in horrible traffic and the cab driver said "death to traffic." He asked the cab driver what he said, and the driver said they say "death to..." when they are irritated by something. It was at this point, Rick realized when they say "Death to America," what they mean is "Damn America!" And given what we have done to the political situation in the middle east, especially by deposing their democratically elected government in 1953 to keep the oil tap open, it is hard to argue with them.

Re:Cruise at supersonic speed?

[MechaStreisand]

No, cruise missiles are cruise missiles because of their flight profile. Ballistic missiles travel in a ballistic arc, like rocket artillery, and don't fly like airplanes. Cruise missile, however, do: they fly through the atmosphere like airplanes do, with wings, with a most of their journey being level flight as they cruise to their targets. They are airplanes, in fact, just expendable ones.