India First To Build a Supersonic Cruise Missile 319
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."
Russian P-500_Bazalt was online in 1973 (Score:5, Informative)
Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
Possibly first to deploy, but not the first to build [astronautix.com], by a good 50 years.
They're not the first... (Score:4, Informative)
...Soviets had supersonic air to surface cruise missiles and surface to surface missiles. It's where the Indian tech comes from. Kitchen and Sunburn were the ones that spring to mind immediately.
Headline wrong, as is the article (Score:5, Informative)
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:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org], it was officially broken in 1932, with implicit approval of many important countries. Development of arms also was done under "dual use" cover [wikipedia.org].
Re:Headline wrong, as is the article (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Headline wrong, as is the article (Score:5, Informative)
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:Misleading headline (Score:4, Informative)
Not the first to deploy [astronautix.com] either.
Not about Pakistan (Score:5, Informative)
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:Russian P-500_Bazalt was online in 1973 (Score:4, Informative)
Not to mention the more recent P-700 Granit [wikipedia.org] cruise missile which can go mach 4.5.
It's not the first maneuverable supersonic CM eith (Score:5, Informative)
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! (Score:5, Informative)
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... (Score:5, Informative)
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:Not about Pakistan (Score:4, Informative)
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.
1. The Phalanx is a secondary line of defense against [everything]. The primary defense for cruise missiles is missile based.
2. There is a missile system being tested to run alongside the Phalanx system (SeaRAM), but not to supplant it.
Maybe you could give us a bit more information to explain what you're talking about
Re:Indian jokes (Score:3, Informative)
Here is something to start if you want to educate yourself on the topic: http://www.feldgrau.com/ger-sov.html [feldgrau.com]
Your link says:
"By 1932, and certainly by 1933, the end of German-Soviet military co-operation efforts were in clear sight. Hitler and his Nationalist Socialists were not in a mood to co-operate with the Soviets in secret on military matters. Communism was after all seen as one of the main enemy's of the German people. In the end, it was the Soviet Union, which officially asked the Reichswehr to close all of its facilities and depart the Soviet Union in August of 1933"
Note that Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933. Spanish Civil War started in 1936, with Germany fighting on the Nationalists' side and USSR [covertly] fighting on the Republican side. While it may be correct to say that Stalin didn't see the World War coming, he was probably the only one with such an opinion. For example, this movie [maxifilm.ru] was released in 1940, and it is full of premonition of war with Germany.
Re:Not about Pakistan (Score:3, Informative)
Because supersonic missiles travel so fast and phalanx-type systems have such a short range that in the time it takes the phalanx to reacgt and engage the missile, it'll be so close that it'll blow right next to the defender.
It might not sink the target ship, but all that 'crap on deck' (more like shrapnel) could easily disable most sensors and cripple the ship, leaving it out of combat anyway.
Re:Headline wrong, as is the article (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
According to the Wikipedia entry for the BrahMos [wikipedia.org], its payload capacity is 300kg, 1/10 the missile's mass, giving it about 3/5 of the Tomahawk's payload capacity while weighing twice as much. Its range is also only 290km, while the Tomahawk has a range of 2,500km. So not only do you have to carry around twice as much missile, but you have to get eight times as close to use it. I expect that the primary purpose of the BrahMos is similar to that of the P-270 Moskit (NATO SS-N-22 Sunburn), which is to have an extremely fast missile that passes through the engagement zone of a target too fast to allow effective engagement by hard- and soft-kill systems.
Re:Not about Pakistan (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Misleading headline (Score:3, Informative)
Before you embarrass yourself further, you might want to actually read up on the various definitions of cruise missile.
(Hint: Launching platform and intended target are irrelevant.)
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/cm/index.html [fas.org]
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Glossary/Glossary2.shtml [atomicarchive.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile [wikipedia.org]
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Putting up a defense will require a lot of devices that, while possibly made small on radar/IR/visual, will still be additional vectors of detection. Couple all that with the possibility of passive terminal phase warheads, and surface ships will have to be constantly blasting away with their phased arrays. So much for low EM emissions.
The situation keeps looking worse as you start considering the possibility of saturation attacks with multi-warhead launch vehicles from long ranges at high speeds. Any defense mechanisms will eventually get overwhelmed. It's as easy as increasing the number of inbound warheads.
Navies can either try to go stealth and battle with the issue of hiding massive targets from increasingly cheap and effective sensors or they can put a little water in between themselves and what might be out there.
In terms of cost effectiveness, Naval vessels will fall behind missiles every time. Especially when you start looking at the cost of constructing small lines of ships in specially equipped dry-docks, like those used to build nuclear powered carriers. Mass-produced missiles packaged in sealed rounds on mobile launchers will drive carriers 3000km from the coast at one hundredth the cost of the carrier.
Few aircraft, and almost no carrier-born aircraft, have the capability to operate at that range without giving up all of their payload weight fraction. Either the Navy adapts to emerging threats fast or the US is going to be trying to negotiate foreign policy with billion dollar paper-weights.
Re:Cruise at supersonic speed? (Score:5, Informative)