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."
Bad for Pakistan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks, India (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard-liners in the middle east don't give half a shit about what India does. The Pakistanis do sure, but they already are nuclear. The hard-lines in the middle east want to go nuclear because of Israel.
Re:Really? (Score:1, Insightful)
Torpedos hit submarines. When missiles try to hit submarines they explode on the surface. And it is a lot harder to go supersonic underwater (for two reasons).
Re:Bad for Pakistan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, don't give him a hard time.
Personally, as a guy from a military background, and enjoying military strategy games, etc, I agree with him completely, I don't see much advantage of SS cruise missiles over a ballistic missile, at least for most countries and most situations.
The advantage a subsonic cruise missile has over a ballistic, is primarily payload fraction. Consider a tomahawk that weighs 3000 pounds of which 1000 pounds is warhead. Put another way, if you want 1000 pounds of boom on target, and want to use a subsonic cruise missile, you get to haul an additional 2000 extra pounds of missile around, instead of an additional 2000 pounds of aircraft fuel or food on a submarine or whatever.
In comparison, lets consider an ancient ballistic missile, a Polaris carrying a W47. A W47 only weighs 700 pounds or so, in comparison to 1000 pounds of "boom" on a tomahawk. Yet, a Polaris weighed freaking 28000 pounds. So, you can VERY QUICKLY deliver a mere 700 pounds of boom on target, if you're willing to haul around an extra 27300 pounds of missile.
Supersonic missiles combine the fuel efficiency of a ballistic missile, with the simplicity, reliability, and low cost of a cruise missile. Note the slight sarcasm. Pretty much a total failure EXCEPT that they can deliver extremely quickly.
If you dominate the air land and sea, you get quick delivery by stationing a boring old fashioned B-52 directly over the target and dropping a simple iron bomb straight down. Or, if you're not planning a pre-emptive nuclear strike, you simply don't need that capability to reach your goals. India, on the other hand....
Re:Thanks, India (Score:5, Insightful)
The hard-lines in the middle east want to go nuclear because of Israel.
I'm guessing by 'hard-liners' you mean Iran and Syria, since no one else really seems interested in acquiring nuclear weapons in the middle east, and I'm further going to suggest that they aren't so afraid of Israel (who doesn't really have a history of aggression) as they are of the United States (who definitely has a history of aggression, in particular against Iran).
I don't even particularly blame them, either. If I were Iran, I would be working very hard to build nuclear weapons as a defense, it's only logical. On the other hand, I am not Iranian, I am American, and I don't particularly favor a country who has an official chant "Death to America" getting nuclear weapons. I am aware that it is not entirely 'fair' for America to have nuclear weapons and Iran not, but in this case my self-preservation instinct over-rules any desire for fairness.
If I were Iran (Score:3, Insightful)
> If I were Iran, I would be working very hard to build nuclear weapons as a defense, it's only logical.
A lot of the Arab world looks up to Iran as a country willing to defy the US. As for nukes, they sometimes make sense as a deterrent, but almost never as a defense. Setting them off in almost any circumstance is also a violation of international law.
Biggest problem in Iran isn't so much the Iranians as it is the government, AFAICT. (As far as I can tell.) If they could get a government in power which weren't run by a couple of psychopaths, then maybe having a nuclear deterrent would make sense. But as long as the government is threatening to wipe other governments off the face of the earth, NOBODY should let them NEAR a nuke. Same holds true for every other government. You should not get a nuke if you're someone who would seriously consider using it when there were less than a few million lives at stake.
Re:If I were Iran (Score:4, Insightful)
Biggest problem in Iran isn't so much the Iranians as it is the government, AFAICT.
Biggest problem in {Iran, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Turkey, Russia, China, The UK, America, etc.} isn't so much the {Iranians, Egyptans, Syrians, Israelis, Turks, Russians, Chinese, Americans, etc.} as it is the government, AFAICT
It's the unrecognized irony that kills you... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is ironic that the technology that goes into such a missile, from the computers and materials to the social networks that plan and test such things could instead bring abundance to everyone in the world. Yet people still build such things from a scarcity-based mindset, not recognizing the total irony. The tools of abundance all around us now (robotics, computers, networks, biotech, chemistry, nanontech, nuclear technology, and so on) are so powerful -- we will destroy ourselves if we use them from a scarcity mindset. If used from an abundance mindset, we could instead make the world into a much happier place.
As Albert Einstein said, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind."
We need to change our hearts towards providing abundance for all, before we all die of the unrecognized irony.
Re:It's the unrecognized irony that kills you... (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to change our hearts towards providing abundance for all
People fight each other because there is natural scarcity of materials. Oil is one, most popular example, and wars are being fought right now over that. Another popular, highly desirable and scarce object is power over other people.
It is possible to leave those mental rudiments behind and live peacefully; but to get there you will need a mind reprogramming technology, because humans come into this world hardwired for violence, competition and survival at any cost to others. Humans aren't on top of the food chain for nothing.
Re:Really? - NO (Score:2, Insightful)
The first?
This is incorrect. In the late 1950's the US developed the 'Hound Dog' AGM-28 (GAM-77/GAM-77A under the designation system at the time). In Service in 1960, the Hound Dog was unique in that the turbojet that it carried could be run off of the carrying B-52's fuel, practically allowing the use of the engines on Both Hound Dogs during takeoff. While not as fast as BrahMos, the Hound Dog could fly Three and a half times further, and could carry a nuclear weapon (no doubt in my mind that the Indias have a nuclear BrahMos in the works).
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-28_Hound_Dog [wikipedia.org]
Re:Headline wrong, as is the article (Score:3, Insightful)
India didn't even get the good version, they got the crappy one that only holds 200kg with a 290km range. FAIL
The Russians have stricter export controls on anything with greater than 300km range. The Indian missile is intentionally limited to under that range to allow for continued technical support from Russia.
Re:Thanks, India (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, most of Irans ruling council is not actually Persian, they are Arabs mostly originating from southern Iraq (hence the large Shia influence in Iran). The Persians and Arabs don't exactly get along, this is why the Islamic Republic maintains a large well equipped private military, the Basij (religious police and republican guards fall under the Basij) which is almost exclusively comprised of Lebanese (Hezbolla) and Palestinian (Hamas) Arabs.
Also there have been a lot of protests against the Iranian government recently and things have not gotten better. Huge racial issues are cropping up in Iran fanning the flames of old Persian/Arab hate. The acts of the Iranian government are not representative of the desires of the Persian people.
The biggest reason the Iran will never invade (or try to kill) Israel is because the Persians and Jews get on like a house on fire. There are several Persian members of the Knesset as well as the headquarters of the Baha'i religion being located in Israel (Baha'iism originated in Persia (Iran) in the early part of the 20th century). A lot of the Persians that fled Iran in the 80's did so through Israel. Any invasion would be an unmitigated disaster for the Iranian government as Persians simply refuse to fight or worse yet, get reunited with old friends from before the Islamic revolution. Even today most Iranians who travel east (to Asia) do so through Israel's Ben Gurion airport due to few nations allowing Iranian airliners to land and even fewer international airlines willing to land in Iran.
Re:Bad for Pakistan (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt Pakistan can be happy at all about this development. It's one thing to have a nuke, another to be able to deliver it. This makes a first strike weapon from Hell. About the time you figure out the war is on....it's over.
What keeps them to shoot each other then? IMHO is the effect that a first strike would cause on the striker itself, for example, if India strikes first, all the islamic world will come down on India, and if Pakistan launches it first, all the rest of the world will come down on them. As it alway has been, Nukes are more like a strategy weapon than a tactical one. You only have it to be able to threat your enemy not to kill him.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
My parent worked at a (insert military systems company) and told me quite a lot too, as an amateur I know a fair deal and I can assure you supersonic targets are easy to take down with the new tech coming forth.
(Yes I'm kidding but without proof, decent info to check you do realize its just hearsay?) :P