India testfires World First Supersonic submarine launched Cruise Missile

China.org.cn ^

[MBT ARJUN]

India successfully testfired its submarine-launched version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile for the first time on Wednesday in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of the southern port city of Visakhapatnam, a top official said. "The submarine-launched version of BrahMos was successfully testfired from an underwater pontoon near Visakhapatnam in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. This is the first testfiring of an underwater supersonic cruise missile anywhere in the world and the missile traveled its complete range of over 290 km," Head of BrahMos A. Sivathanu Pillai told the media. With the testfiring, India became the world's first country to have this capability. The country has already successfully testfired the ship and ground- launched versions of the missile for the Indian Navy and the Indian Army respectively. "BrahMos missile is fully ready for fitment in submarines in vertical launch configuration which will make the platform one of the most powerful weapon platforms in the world," Pillai added. A hypersonic version of the missile is currently under development with speed of Mach 7 to boost aerial fast strike capability. It is expected to be ready for testing by 2017, according to sources. The BrahMos missile program is a joint venture between India's state-owned Defense Research and Development Organisation and Russia's NPO Mashinostroeyenia who have together formed BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited. The name BrahMos is a portmanteau formed from the names of two rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.

[TEXOKIE]

bttt

[Crucial]

If true, then the Indians just made a conventional warfare quantum leap over the rest of the world. Too bad Obama doesn’t believe in America making great strides forward.

[miliantnutcase]

They can defend against anti-ship missiles fired at them that go just as fast. A supersonic cruise missile is just a larger target. However, like you mentioned a hail storm of these might be effective.

[tet68]

I’d be more afraid of supersonic submarines...

[Oztrich Boy]

Supersonic... because those boats might outrun a subsonic missile /s

You;re almost right. Not outrun, outfight.

With a subsonic cruise missile the CIWS defence has to knock it out between 4km (when the fire control can first identifty it as a threat) and 1Km (after than, even if you destroy the guidance or flight control, the "dead" bird may still make a ballistic hit) that's about 10 seconds for a subsonic missle.

Now make the missile Mach 3. Far engagement range is the same, close engagement range moves out to 2Km. So 2/3 the engagement window at 3-4 times the speed. Time to target and hit goes down to 2 seconds.

[Cvengr]

I’ve always wanted a supersonic submarine. Makes is easier to sneak up on enemy submarines.

[Little Pig]

Keep in mind too, for you doubters out there, the BrahMos is already active in the Indian military. This latest test is just of the *sub-launched* version. There’s already a land and a sea-surface-launched version in active service.

Now, if the Indian sub guys can just talk Russia into letting them use the Shkval supercavitating torpedo, China’s dream of a blue-water navy will have to take an extended hiatus.

[Freeport]

Well, not really. The anti-missle systems have about 21 seconds to detect and counter inbounds once they clear the horizon.

Plenty of time for a RAM or Gatling gun system to take it out.

A swarm is of concern (5 < x < 10), but these are can be dealt with as well.

After that though, a ship is probably boned.

[James C. Bennett]

See Oztrich Boy’s reply above:

“With a subsonic cruise missile the CIWS defence has to knock it out between 4km (when the fire control can first identifty it as a threat) and 1Km (after than, even if you destroy the guidance or flight control, the “dead” bird may still make a ballistic hit) that’s about 10 seconds for a subsonic missle.

Now make the missile Mach 3. Far engagement range is the same, close engagement range moves out to 2Km. So 2/3 the engagement window at 3-4 times the speed. Time to target and hit goes down to 2 seconds.”

[miliantnutcase]

LOL! Until they hit a reef doing 800mph. I wonder what an underwater sonic boom would be like?

[PapaBear3625]

Hope it works well against Chinese aircraft carriers.

BrahMos is a joint venture between India and Russia. Think Russia will have a market for missiles capable of knocking out US ships?

The faster the terminal velocity, the less time the target has to react with anti-missile systems.

[Sirius Lee]

Meanwhile, we wind down our capabilities.

And arm DHS - Domestic House Stormers - to the teeth...

[ravager]

And the integration of air launched version for the Su-30MKI is already underway.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Bit of hyperventilation in the article. The Brahmos is not the world’s first supersonic sub-launched CM. The Russians had the SS-N-19 Shipwreck for almost 30+ years now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit

[doorgunner69]

I believe the SS-N-22 Sunburn has been around for over 20 years as well.

I know for a fact that the Sunburn scared hell out of the Navy in the mid-80s.

[spetznaz]

I thought the Shipwreck was an anti-ship cruise missile, while the BrahMos can be used as a cruise missile targeted at land targets too? I thought that's the reason they are making the distinction that the BrahMos is the world's first supersonic submarine launched cruise missile, even though supersonic submarine launched anti-ship cruise missiles have existed for years. So have supersonic cruise missiles (e.g. various families of supersonic air-launched cruise missiles), but I cannot recall a supersonic submarine-launched cruise missile. I could be mistaken, but I thought the anti-ship cruise missile vs cruise missile was the main difference, and if that's the case, then the BrahMos is the world's first supersonic submarine launched cruise missile.

Again, I may have understood the article incorrectly, but that's what I gleaned from it.

I also know in the past there is one case (by India btw) where they used an anti-ship cruise missile (the Styx) as a jury-rigged land-attack cruise missile (when the Styx was used against Pakistani naval base, taking out facilities that directly or indirectly took out most of the Pakistani navy during that war). Thus, I am sure an (for example) Oniks could be jury-rigged into a land-attack cruise missile. But I still think, maybe incorrectly, that the BrahMos is the first submarine-launched, supersonic, cruise missile.

[doorgunner69]

You are likely correct. I was very fixated on the Sunburn back then, working on efforts to develop an aerial target to simulate it. The LTV candidate actually looked a lot like it, with cruciform intake.

Seems the Russians could have developed a ground attack version had they wanted to. But the supersonic capability is not nearly so desirable as in ship attack, and they had plenty of subsonic cruise stuff.

The flexibility of the Brahmos is impressive if it all works. Not sure how cost effective it is though.