Brahmos Supersonic Cruise Missile : News, Updates and Discussions

[Rajput Lion]

Future of Indian Armed Forces is going to be full-on Net Centric. Ultra long range BrahMos would be either
guided by our space based assets or even by our in-development HAPS. HAPS also would be more survival as any peer level enemy would destroy most of our space based satellites.

 

[Saaho]

I doubt that would be the case and in such easy permutation. Some form of blockade will be there of course, but not in such extent of Brahmos use case.

Brahmos is for warships. For civilian ships, Indian coast guard ships and drones are enough to deter.

Anyway, I was pointing out in technical part mainly ie whether a ramjet can keep functional for such very long duration use or the existing seeker, guidance capacity, ECCM feature etc without any compromise of the unique usp that the original concept offered. 800-900km is very good ability itself, plus you have it on su30 means an extended reach anyway. Stretch it more to 1500km under current DRDO ability and you might lose its sharp effectiveness. Anything over 1000km band should go to LR-AShM jurisdiction, which is what it is being built for.

Why will ramjet NOT work?
Have you met Lockheed D-21? Lockheed D-21 - Wikipedia
It was a ramjet powered recce drone while flew at 3.35 mach over distancs of 5000+ KM.

And this is from 1964.

Also why will guidance have issues? INS works over several 1000 KMs. INS with GPS augmentation works very precisely. And this is not fighters we are chasing. This is massive ships! Destroyers, Aircraft carriers. There is no reason why seeker will fail!

 

[Hydra]

Speed don't bring you invincibility. Even 800 km range is stretch for supersonic cruise missiles.
Ukrain managed to down two tsirkon missile.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772228253006078337

 

[Saaho]

Speed don't bring you invincibility. Even 800 km range is stretch for supersonic cruise missiles.
Ukrain managed to down two tsirkon missile.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772228253006078337

Individual missiles not need to be invicible. Volleys after volleys of missiles will certainly hurt an aircraft carrier battle group. Remember, on an island we can store way more missiles. Any one single destroyer destroyed is enough to offset 100s to 1000s of brahmos.

What will China do if it sees 50-100 brahmos coming at its destroyers and aircraft carrier at a 3 mach speed and volleys that never end? At somepoint all their VLS will be depleated and refilling them will take way long. Then the missiles will hit. If we sink their aircraft carrier, we have done enough damage to put 100 missiles on it.

Its the asymetry that will work in our favour.

 

[Hydra]

Individual missiles not need to be invicible. Volleys after volleys of missiles will certainly hurt an aircraft carrier battle group. Remember, on an island we can store way more missiles. Any one single destroyer destroyed is enough to offset 100s to 1000s of brahmos.

What will China do if it sees 50-100 brahmos coming at its destroyers and aircraft carrier at a 3 mach speed and volleys that never end? At somepoint all their VLS will be depleated and refilling them will take way long. Then the missiles will hit. If we sink their aircraft carrier, we have done enough damage to put 100 missiles on it.

Its the asymetry that will work in our favour.

If it is in short range,then difficult to intercept. If it is at long range,relatively easy to intercept using electronic deception method. I remember once US Navy successfully did similar things on a houthi missile,it splashed in to the ocean.

 

[Asterion Moloc]

Speed don't bring you invincibility. Even 800 km range is stretch for supersonic cruise missiles.
Ukrain managed to down two tsirkon missile.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772228253006078337

proof of downing? random twitter account beyrektar_love cat profile. lol,

 

[Saaho]

If it is in short range,then difficult to intercept. If it is at long range,relatively easy to intercept using electronic deception method. I remember once US Navy successfully did similar things on a houthi missile,it splashed in to the ocean.

There is a difference between houthi using GPS (public) and India using multiple navs including its own. India has seen that in tests and have fixed it.

 

[Hydra]

proof of downing? random twitter account beyrektar_love cat profile. lol,

It was not part of recent events, few years old.

There is a difference between houthi using GPS (public) and India using multiple navs including its own. India has seen that in tests and have fixed it.

It's not mere by interfering GPS, if needed target can mimic it's own mirror image electronically somewhere and missile will home towards it.

 

[Hydra]

https://news.usni.org/2021/09/27/this-is-what-a-chinese-stealth-warship-looks-like-on-radar

If you can get a missile lock on such target at 800+ km range Brahmose, I will call it an alien technology.

If you wanna target a stealth ship at extremely longer range, then I will prefer a missile with technology similar to NSM of Norway.

 

[Asterion Moloc]

https://news.usni.org/2021/09/27/this-is-what-a-chinese-stealth-warship-looks-like-on-radar

If you can get a missile lock on such target at 800+ km range Brahmose, I will call it an alien technology.

If you wanna target a stealth ship at extremely longer range, then I will prefer a missile with technology similar to NSM of Norway.

thats a catamaran hull shallow water missile boat, why do you want to waste a BrahMos or NSM for it, that too from long ranges,
btw the article you quoted is saying opposite about it stealth claims and no large warship is true stealth(VLO) barring Zumwalt class DDGs of USN, everything else employ LO shapings with still open gun and other weapons and sensors protruding out.

In this case, if the Type-022’s stealth ability can be called into question — at least from the angles and radar frequencies used by the satellites. The radar picture may look very different to a regular surface search radar, or the homing seeker of a missile.

 

[screambowl]

My question is mostly centered on payload part, would it not be better to trade some range for a bigger 500kg class payload? current conflict shows us the need for high level damage.

If you launch a ballistic missile that's huge escalation and could be mistaken as a nuclear strike. And Brahmos type of missile works well even without payload due to it's high kinetic energy. More over it will fill the gap of Nirbhay in case it doesn't come up with good engine.

 

[Saaho]

It's not mere by interfering GPS, if needed target can mimic it's own mirror image electronically somewhere and missile will home towards it.

You can have multiple type of seeking mechanism and mix and match of seeking mechnisms. You have brahmos with milimeter waves and you have Klub with electro optic IR seeker with terminal supersonic stage.

 

[Saaho]

thats a catamaran hull shallow water missile boat, why do you want to waste a BrahMos or NSM for it, that too from long ranges,
btw the article you quoted is saying opposite about it stealth claims and no large warship is true stealth(VLO) barring Zumwalt class DDGs of USN, everything else employ LO shapings with still open gun and other weapons and sensors protruding out.

I highly doubt anyone can make an aircraft carrier "VLO" or "LO". Damage and sink the damn carrier and you have entire package lost with its ability to project power. You can also use missile launched torpedoes in groups for added area denial. Let them try to be stealth against both underwater and airborne threats. Cripple them in water and given they are this far from their home port, you can take your time to sink them.

 

[Rajput Lion]

I highly doubt anyone can make an aircraft carrier "VLO" or "LO". Damage and sink the damn carrier and you have entire package lost with its ability to project power. You can also use missile launched torpedoes in groups for added area denial. Let them try to be stealth against both underwater and airborne threats. Cripple them in water and given they are this far from their home port, you can take your time to sink them.

Sukhois with BrahMos-A is indeed our best sea denial weapon/platform. A fleet of MKIs carrying it can fire it from different directions towards any hostile PLAN carrier and result won't be to their favour and they know it.

So more speed and more range is always welcome.

 

[Rajput Lion]

@marich01

One of further advantages having a longer range BrahMos is that overall increase in high altitude range also transfers to low level range increase and trust me that is absolutely vital.

When its high range was limited to 290kms, low level range was around 120kms IIRC. But now with 800kms BrahMos ER, its low level nap of the earth/sea skimmimg range would be around 400kms. Which means MKI doesn't need to take risk and go inside PLAN Carrier fleet AD and just release BrahMos-A ER 400kms away and voila it would be literally unseen for the enemy until its too late.

The prospects of both increase in range and speed is simply tantalizing and almost too good to ignore, IMO.

 

[Tatvamasi]

Indian fanboys have a fetish about Brahmos. Thats their answer to everything. They dont understand its huge disadvantages in cost and weight. Its not meant to be fired from combat aircraft, small ships or small submarines. Its so expensive that for one brahmos you can fire 4 ATACMS in land attack role. A nation needs a mix of missiles for different usecases. But our DRDO failed to produce a respectable cost effective anti ship missile after few decades of experience with the russian missile. What a shame.

Brazilians quickly made their own and even exported it.

MANSUP - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[marich01]

Brahmos is for warships. For civilian ships, Indian coast guard ships and drones are enough to deter.


Why will ramjet NOT work?
Have you met Lockheed D-21? Lockheed D-21 - Wikipedia
It was a ramjet powered recce drone while flew at 3.35 mach over distancs of 5000+ KM.

And this is from 1964.

Also why will guidance have issues? INS works over several 1000 KMs. INS with GPS augmentation works very precisely. And this is not fighters we are chasing. This is massive ships! Destroyers, Aircraft carriers. There is no reason why seeker will fail!

If you are suggesting a blockade , it will definitely not bee enforced with coast guard ships.

As with ramjet, despite 20+ years of work we are yet to finalise a proprietary ramjet engine of our own. So comparing with a foreign system, however experimental, is kinda moot. We have strong theory based knowledge, that can be seen from all the docs I have seen over the years on project Star. Even recently there were stuff out on it. But as long as that is applied in a practical product, a landmark can not be made.

Then comes the stretching of the range part by use of other enabling technologies. My question was more on the boundary condition of ramjet application wise. Range can be extended by keeping same flight duration but increasing operational mach no, or by increasing total flight time. But how far should you be stretching that, there must be a limit where you can not overplay the reach of this missile so that its unique skillset become nullified.

 

[Saaho]

As with ramjet, despite 20+ years of work we are yet to finalise a proprietary ramjet engine of our own. So comparing with a foreign system, however experimental, is kinda moot. We have strong theory based knowledge, that can be seen from all the docs I have seen over the years on project Star. Even recently there were stuff out on it. But as long as that is applied in a practical product, a landmark can not be made.

Does it matter at all? We are able to manufacture very large number of Brahmos domestically. We are no longer importing ramjets for brahmos and manufacture it locally.

And you are wrong about ramjet engines of our own. Akash used to use ramjet engines for sustainer motor.

The Hindu : National : Akash missile achieves a milestone

Then comes the stretching of the range part by use of other enabling technologies. My question was more on the boundary condition of ramjet application wise. Range can be extended by keeping same flight duration but increasing operational mach no, or by increasing total flight time. But how far should you be stretching that, there must be a limit where you can not overplay the reach of this missile so that its unique skillset become nullified.

When 1964 drones have range of several 1000 Kms, I am sure we can get 1500 km range out of ramjets. enough for Ashm role and costal defence range for our requirement.

Indian fanboys have a fetish about Brahmos. Thats their answer to everything. They dont understand its huge disadvantages in cost and weight. Its not meant to be fired from combat aircraft, small ships or small submarines. Its so expensive that for one brahmos you can fire 4 ATACMS in land attack role. A nation needs a mix of missiles for different usecases. But our DRDO failed to produce a respectable cost effective anti ship missile after few decades of experience with the russian missile. What a shame.

Brazilians quickly made their own and even exported it.

Say you fire 200 million dollars worth of Brahmos (that is 50 or more brahmos) and sink two destroyers (Type 55) worth 800-900 million dollars each with sailors. So you get 1.8 billion dollars worth of damage done for 200 million dollars spent. I will say thats a good deal. Now, that destroyers are gone, other ships in the flotilla are more vulnerable. Supply ships are sitting ducks to be taken out by much simpler weapons or even air dropped bombs because destroyers are not there to protect them. Not to mention, blockade will cause severe economic damage.

Weapons have immediate and second order effects.

 

[marich01]

Does it matter at all? We are able to manufacture very large number of Brahmos domestically. We are no longer importing ramjets for brahmos and manufacture it locally.

And you are wrong about ramjet engines of our own. Akash used to use ramjet engines for sustainer motor.

The Hindu : National : Akash missile achieves a milestone

When 1964 drones have range of several 1000 Kms, I am sure we can get 1500 km range out of ramjets. enough for Ashm role and costal defence range for our requirement.

We manufacture the 2 solid booster motors , the 60kg and the 760kg ones, actual ramjet motor the super compact one comes from Rus as part of the JV. Plan is not to change that to keep the jv copany alive. The Brahmos NG will be 100% local per the CEO, which sort of indicates it might all solid rocket motor instead of ramjet.
In case of Akash, not 100% sure but the project director in his experience listed full liaison work re 100% tech transfer related work way back when the project started. There is a chance the ramjet related tech was part of, which is why it is certain commitment and guideline protected, ie the particular frozen tech parameters QAP etc can not be used in another (offensive) weapon system. This is a binding clause which if exists (very likely) would explain why Akash sustainer motor tech did not find use in other offensive weapon system yet. See dual pulse tech was matured during MRSAM work, and now most missiles are being made with that, soon three/multi pulse systems will appear in future.

The range part, when you are designing a rocket, you need to base your design on certain boundary conditions, else the design would not produce an optimised performance. You certainly do not make a 350mm dia rocket travel to very long distance at such high speed load resulting in prolonged period of thermal stress than permitted. Interestingly, Onyx news also came out today from Rus, and they also extended it to 800km per the news. That is an optimum value for peak performance. Stretch it to double the amount and there can be performance faults. Aero systems have zero-very low fault tolerance when mfg is done.

Then comes the point of comparing b/w an unmanned drone/aircraft vs a guided missile. Both are technically same, but performance demand are different as are various components esp guidance and homing. So optimisation is different. One can be for long flight but just for flight, no smart weapon use. Weaponisation of the same drone/unmanned system would alter several parameters.

 

[screambowl]

The Brahmos NG will be 100% local per the CEO, which sort of indicates it might all solid rocket motor instead of ramjet.

So again another milestone achieved due to the lack of know how in turbine engine which is hurting Indian cruise missile program just like AMCA, Mk1, and Marut. I hope the genius people realize the shortcoming.