Re-Engineered Meteor BVRAAM On The Works For IAF

If any new-generation BVRAAM is to become a ‘game-changer’, then it has to have vastly improved kinematic capability compared with that of existing BVRAAMs. This requires substantial increases in two key parameters: ‘F-Pole’, i.e. the distance between the BVRAAM-launching MRCA and its target when the BVRAAM hits; and a ‘no-escape zone’, the range within which the BVRAAM can be fired and the target, no matter how it manoeuvres, cannot escape. When an existing BVRAAM the like AIM-120D AMRAAM, MICA or R-77/RVV-AE is fired at a target, it delivers the same amount of thrust over a certain period regardless of the tactical scenario. If the target can be reached without the rocket motor burning out, or shortly after it does so, the BVRAAM will have a high-energy state during its terminal attack phase. This will allow it to manoeuvre very hard, easily countering a targeted combat aircraft trying to evade the incoming BVRAAM. If the target is farther away, the BVRAAM will usually climb to a high altitude while its rocket motor is burning and then coast on its built-up energy with gravity on its side until it reaches the terminal phase of its flight (its final attack run. If the target is not too far away, and the BVRAAM is still above it, it will dive down on the target in an attempt to maximize its ability to make hard manoeuvres. The longer the shot, the less energy the BVRAAM will have for its critical terminal phase of flight.

Whereas the AMRAAM’s rocket motor burns for seconds, then the missile coasts, a Meteor-type BVRAAM is under ramjet thrust for its complete flight. Consequently, the latter’s average velocity is higher and the Meteor arrives with the energy to out-manoeuvre its target. Thus, both the F-Pole and the no-escape zone are increased. Instead of burning off all its fuel right after launch it can throttle its engine back during cruise, thus saving fuel. As it approaches its target it can throttle up, eventually making its terminal attack while at its highest possible energy state, around Mach 4.5, even when fired over long ranges. Not only does this mean the Meteor will have more energy to manoeuvre during the endgame of the engagement, but this capability also drastically increases the size of the no-escape zone. Basically, the Meteor has a far greater ability to chase and catch enemy combat aircraft over long ranges.

The Meteor’s data-link also has two-way capability, so the pilot could re-target the BVRAAM while it is already on its way. The pilot can also see the Meteor’s fuel-burn rate, kinematic energy and tracking state in real-time. This is essential for making quick decisions as to whether or not to fire another BVRAAM at the target or to run away if it is properly tracking toward the target or has obtained its own lock. The Meteor will be able to get those crucial mid-course guidance updates not just from the MRCA that fired it, but from “third party” sources as well. These can include other MRCAs, airborne early warning & control (AEW & C) platforms, and land and sea-based radar and electronic surveillance systems that provide their own situational awareness data to the missile-firing MRCA via data-link. Thus, with many assets contributing to a common tactical network “picture” via common data-link waveform and language, it provides information that anyone, including the Meteor-armed BVRAAM and the Meteor itself, can exploit.

While the above-mentioned reasons are precisely why the Indian Air Force (IAF) has ordered the MBDA-developed Meteor BVRAAMs for its 36 Rafale M-MRCAs, the operational requirement for such ramjet-powered BVRAAMs is for 2,500 units. And there’s another catch: the Meteor BVRAAM should be compatible with the mission avionics of all types of MRCAs that are in service with the IAF. This, in turn, represents a systems integration challenge, but there is a solution, nevertheless.

This involves, on one hand the installation of indigenous mission computer, stores management system and pylon interface avionics (all using the MIL-STD-1760 digital databus) on MRCAs like the Tejas Mk.1, Tejas Mk.1A, Super Su-30MKI and MiG-29UPG, while on the other the Meteor’s MBDA-developed Ku-band active seeker and a module of its rear-mounted two-way data-link can be replaced by corresponding India-supplied avionics and sensors that are used by the indigenously-developed Astra-1 BVRAAM. This way, the MMRs of Russia- and Israel-origin can seamlessly be integrated with the Meteor BVRAAM, since India will first have the avionics and sensors integrated with the Israel-origin and Russia-origin MMRs at the Israel-based and Russia-based avionics integration test-rigs and then supply them to MBDA for installation inside the Meteor airframes.

Engineering studies to this effect were jointly undertaken by MBDA and India’s Defence R & D Organisation (DRDO) back in 2016, when the DRDO began its own in-house conceptual studies on develop a solid-fuel ducted rocket (SFDR)-powered BVRAAM. It then emerged that a suitably-modified Meteor BVRAAM containing DRDO-developed avionics was indeed possible to both develop and integrate with the Russia-/Israel-supplied AESA-MMRs, while at the same time not violating the IPRs of the MMR-supplying foreign OEMs. In fact, MBDA is already well into such a re-engineering programme for Japan, with whom the UK first began holding exploratory talks in 2014 on the prospects of a Meteor BVRAAM fitted with an AESA-based Ka-band millimetric frequency seeker that was developed by Mitsubishi Electric Co (MELCO) in the previous decade for the indigenously developed AAM-4B (Type-99) BVRAAM. Later, in January 2017 the Cooperative Research Project on the Feasibility of a Joint New Air-to-Air Missile (JNAAM) commenced. If all goes well, then such a BVRAAM will begin flight-tests in 2023.

In India too, R & D work began in 2016 for developing AESA-based X-band and Ku-band active seekers for both the XR-SAM long-range surface-to-air missile and the SFDR-powered Astra-2 BVRAAM, with Hyderabad-based Astra Microwave already having built two types of such seekers (developed by the DRDL/RCI), with work now underway on developing their Ka-band successors that too will be compatible with the Meteor BVRAAM.

The Ka-band seeker with an active phased-array antenna (with 20km-range) and a secondary X-band passive channel will replace existing Ku-band seekers (with 6km-range) and provide higher resolution and countermeasures resistance. Such seekers can effortlessly work across multiple frequencies simultaneously, which makes them not only better at finding objects, but are also more difficult to detect. In addition, electronically steered antenna beams also offer other improvements: it is possible to perform an adaptive antenna beam-forming based on antenna sub-group transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) channels or even adjusting all the single antenna transceiver elements. This put us into a position to use algorithms of super resolution in order to recognise and localise jammer sources while concurrently conducting target acquisition and tracking.

DEFEXPO 2020 Expo Highlights

The slides above explain the new avionics architecture of the projected Super Su-30MKI. The two principal elements of this new architecture are the addition of a digital map generator, which is required for presenting navigational cues when the aircraft cruises in terrain avoidance mode with the help of the AESA-MMR (this has already been applied to the Jaguar IS/DARIN-3 aircraft as well); and the new-generation weapons management computer, which will enable the Indian Air Force (IAF) to domestically integrate all kinds of weapons with the Su-30MKI. For those who are unaware (and there are many, including the ‘desi’ and ‘videshi/Caucasian’ patrakaars’), the Su-30MKI’s existing weapons management computer is of Russia-origin (operating via a GOST-standard digital databus) and therefore its source codes are unavailable to the IAF or anyone else in India for any subsequent modification of the weapons integration software. Therefore, adoption of the HAL-developed weapons management computer operating via a MIL-STD-1760 databus interface will offer all the required source-codes for domestic integration of varied types of weapon systems. Hence, all talk since 2007 about the Su-30MKIs being sought to be armed with weapons like the AIM-132 ASRAAM or Meteor BVRAAM is pure Bakwaas (baloney)! Incidentally, the two Su-30MKIs modified to carry the BrahMos-A anti-ship ALCM are the first ones to make use of the HAL-developed weapons management computer. And for those interested in finding out more about what avionics architecture is all about, the following three slides explain it all.

MWF-AF

To date, money has been sanctioned for fabricating only four flying prototypes of this MRCA, plus one for structural fatigue-testing. Meanwhile, expertise has been sought from the Nashik-based Indo-Russian Aviation Ltd (IRAL) for integrating the GSh-23 cannon with the airframes of both the Tejas Mk.1 and Mk.1A L-MRCA aiframes. A first round exploratory firing trials from a ground-based Tejas Mk.1 LSP airframe was concluded last month, and this will be followed by further such firings, to be followed by an intensive phase of airborne firing trials lasting 12 months in order to develop the required HUD symbology for weapons-aiming.

The slides below are those of the radome-mounted S/L dual-band active phased-array radar for the A330 AEW & CS now under development. While the vertically-stacked TRMMs denote the S-band primary surveillance radar, those that are horizontally-stacked along the edges of the radome operate in the L-band as a secondary surveillance radar and also serve as transponders for IFF.

The all-composite radome is being fabricated by Goa-based KINECO Pvt Ltd.

The ISTAR platform (below) closely resembles a Bombardier 5000A airframe. The primary belly-mounted sensors will be twin X-band synthetic aperture radars, one for battlefield surveillance and the other for maritime surveillance.

Efforts are now underway to make the Nirbhay cruise missile compatible with the Larsen & Toubro-built universal vertical launcher (for warships) of the BrahMos-1 cruise missile, and with 533mm torpedo tubes for submarines. While the Indian Navy has a stated requirement for 200 Nirbhays (to eventually replace a similar number of existing Novator 3M-14E Club-S cruise missiles), the IAF wants more than 1,000 of them as air-launched variants. 

However, the continued unavailability of the GTRE-developed turbofan (above) is preventing the placement of confirmed production orders for the Nirbhay.

An Elaborate Con-Game Unravelled

The biggest embarrassment at DEFEXPO-2020 was the showcasing of three different types of ‘desi’ third-generation anti-armour guided-missiles: the DRDO-developed MPATGM, the Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL)-developed Amogha-3, and the VEM Technologies-developed ASI-BAL.

The reasons they are embarrassing is because they are all of the third-generation-type and are over-sized, while MBDA along with Larsen & Toubro (via the 51:49 joint venture (JV) company named L & T MBDA Missile Systems Ltd, or LTMMSL that was created  in 2017 and under it a missile integration facility was created on February 3, 2020 in a Special Economic Zone in Coimbatore across an area of 16,000 sq. metre for undertaking assembly, inert integration and testing) are offering the fifth-generation MMP (below).

RAFAEL of Israel is offering fourth-/fifth-generation variants of the Spike (through Kalyani RAFAEL Advanced Systems Pvt Ltd, which is spread across an area of 24,000 square feet in Hardware Tech-Park close to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport) in Hyderabad), while the Javelin JV (JJV) partnership of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are offering both fifth- and sixth-generation versions of the FGM-148 Javelin ATGM and to this effect, on February 6 inked an MoU with the Hyderabad-based DPSU BDL to explore co-production of the FGM-148 Javelin ATGM. Interestingly, one news-report, published on September 1, 2016 (http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/tata-power-to-make-javelin-missile-with-lockheed-martin-jv-116083101441_1.html) had even gone to the extent of claiming that TATA Power SED had teamed up with the JJV for licence-producing the Javelin ATGMs!

This then qualifies all the interested foreign ATGM manufacturers to offer their products under the Indian Designed Developed & Manufactured (IDDM) category, since this category contains a dubious clause that mandates only a minimum 40% locally-built material content, with the remaining 60% being permissible for imports! Consequently, we can safely conclude that IDDM is nothing else but a new 21st century definition of ‘licenced-manufacture’, thereby having nothing to do with the goal of achieving self-reliance in military-technical/military-industrial R & D. Only this can meaningfully explain why DPSUs like BDL are teaming up with foreign OEMs while at the same time making false claims about having the capability to develop and produce the so-called homegrown ATGMs like the MPATGM and Amogha-3.

Furthermore, while all foreign-origin manportable ATGMs being exhibited at the expo were shown along with their manportable command launch units (CLU), none of the two India-origin ATGMs being exhibited (MPATGM and Amogha-3) were shown (by either the DRDO or BDL) with their manportable launchers and integral fire-control units, simply because they have not yet been developed.

The Milan-2 and Milan-2T ATGMs both make use of dangerous substances like radioactive Thorium (watch this report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsE6PeZ7Umg&t=18s)  

Believe it or not, the main reason why the service-induction of the Project 71/IAC-1 has gotten delayed was that the Indian Navy's Naval Design Bureau had done more than 6,000 changes to the detailed design of the vessel! As a result, the final flowchart required for the sequential placement of orders for long-lead items had to be constantly changed, due to which fitting-out processes were severely disrupted. Consequently, the incomplete vessel had to be launched and kept afloat alongside at Cochin Shipyard Ltd and this in turn led the superstructure to being exposed to the corrosive salt water environment and this in turn led to an extra six-month period of internal inspections having to be carried out between last June and December back at the drydock, without which no internal wiring work could be carried out for the Russia-supplied carrier aviation complex and the UK-supplied elevators.

The above two slides show the exact location where the DRDO-developed and Larsen & Toubro MAREEM AIP-module will be installed on the IN-operated CM-2000 Scorpene SSKs.

Project 17A FFG & Its EW Fitments

The surface search radar is the X-band Scanter-6002 from TERMA of Denmark, replacing the earlier Russia-origin Garpun Bal-E.

Looks like both OFB and BEML have bought into my idea (that was suggested back in 2016 in an earlier thread) of the AK-630M six-barrelled anti-aircraft gun being developed as a viable motorised AAA solution (below). All that is now required is its integration with the DRDO-developed and BEL-built Atulya FCR, or the BEL-made Lynx-US FCR.