The anti-ship BrahMos missile was successfully test-fired from an Indian Navy destroyer
The Indian Navy has released a video of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile being fired from the homemade guided missile destroyer INS Chennai. The anti-ship missile hit its target successfully in the Arabian Sea, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said.
The missile hit the target with pin-point accuracy after performing high-level and extremely complex manoeuvres, officials said.
The missile was tested to its maximum range in a new flight profile, sources said.
BrahMos as a "prime strike weapon" will ensure a warship's invincibility by engaging naval surface targets at long ranges, thus making the destroyer a lethal platform of the Indian Navy.
On September 30, another version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile fitted with a homemade booster, airframe and other components blasted off and flew straight to its target successfully off the coast of Odisha.
The surface-to-surface missile can also be used to destroy key warships such as aircraft carriers and is capable of reaching a speed of Mach 2.8 or nearly three times the speed of sound. Last month's test-firing was the Land-Attack Cruise Missile or LACM version of BrahMos.
BrahMos is a two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine as its first stage which brings it to supersonic speed and then gets separated, says BrahMos Aerospace Ltd, a joint venture between India and Russia that developed the missile.
The liquid ramjet or the second stage then takes the missile closer to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound in cruise phase. The missile has a flight range of up to 290-km with supersonic speed all through the flight, leading to shorter flight time, consequently ensuring lower dispersion of targets, quicker engagement time and non-interception by any known weapon system in the world.
With inputs from agencies