Pathetic Display Of Rustom-1 UAV At DSEi Expo

This is exactly how the Rustom-1 MALE-UAV is being exhibited in scale-model form by the DRDO at the DSEi exhibition now underway in the UK. The scale-model is bereft of mission sensors and communications/data-link antenna, and there isn’t even an artist’s conception anywhere within the DRDO pavilion which shows the Rustom-1’s final production-series form and shape, or that of its ground control station. That’s how the DRDO is projecting India’s military-industrial capabilities abroad!—Prasun K. Sengupta

C-NM5 From CSIR-NAL & Mahindra Aerospace Makes its Maiden Flight

It’s ‘Integration’ & Not ‘Integral’, Stupid!

The latest installment of the series of institutional firefights between the three armed services of India was witnessed at the Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi on September 13, with the principal sparring parties this being the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force (IAF). The occasion was a one-day seminar jointly organised by the New Delhi-based Centre for Land warfare Studies (CLAWS) and the AAC, as part of the on-going silver jubilee celebrations of the Indian Army’s Aviation Corps (AAC), and the seminar was attended by none other than Defence Minister Arakkaparambil Kurian Antony and Chief of the Army Staff Gen V K Singh, along with Admiral (Ret’d) Arun Prakash, former Chief of the Naval Staff, and Lt Gen V K Ahluwalia, GOC XIV Corps and Colonel Commandant of the AAC. Soon after the usual keynote addresses and presentations, the firefights began with the onset of the Q & A session, with the IAF claiming that its existing inventory of attack helicopters were an integral part of the Army’s ORBAT, and the Army retorting by saying that the need of the hour was the full-scale integration of such assets with the Army’s formation-level command-and-control hierarchy. During the heated arguments—of the type not normally witnessed during such seminars--it emerged that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had as far back as 1986 drawn up a time-bound plan (thanks to the efforts of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his then Minister of State for Defence Arun Singh) for not only creating the AAC (it eventually came into being on November 2, 1987, equipped with some 130 SA.315 Lama/Cheetah and SA.316B Alouette III/Chetak helicopters for battlefield observation and light utility), but mandating the change of ownership of the Mi-25 and Mi-35P attack helicopters from the IAF to the AAC. However, for undisclosed reasons, this detailed plan could not be fully put into effect. Another subject that generated heated accusations and counter-accusations concerned the employment of IAF-operated Mi-17 utility helicopters for CASEVAC sorties. While the IAF maintained that the Mi-17s could not be optimally employed for CASEVAC due to the Army’s inability to designate suitable landing sites, the Army accused the IAF’s Mi-17 pilots of cowardice when it came to the conduct of such sorties.

In between the slugfests, it was the Indian Navy which gave an objective assessment of the issue at hand—whether to rest satisfied with the existing status quo or whether to keep pressing for the full-scale integration of the existing attack helicopters with the Army’s formation-level command-and-control hierarchy. The Navy’s view is that the Indian Army’s point of view is both rational and logical. For instance, during the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars, since long-range maritime reconnaissance and air-sea rescue was carried out by the IAF’s Pune-based No6 Squadron with about six Lockheed L1049 Super Constellations, the Navy was severely restricted in terms of deriving a comprehensive and coherent maritime situational awareness in the Arabian Sea. At the end of the 1971 war, No6 Squadron’s Super Constellations had accumulated a mere 39 sorties in support of maritime operations, totalling 391 hours! Subsequently, grasping the logic of the day, the MoD decreed that such airborne assets should be owned and operated by the Navy and consequently, on November 18, 1976, the IAF handed over the five remaining Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation aircraft to the Navy’s No312 Albatross Squadron in Dabolim, Goa. This in turn raises another question: if the IAF today has no ways or means of acquiring maritime situational awareness, why should it continue to maintain a Maritime Air Operations Directorate and a combat aircraft squadron (No6) dedicated for maritime strike? No convincing answers or rebuttals came forth on this point yesterday.

And the one person who is in a position to learn from the Indian Navy’s experience and with the help of HQ Integrated defence Staff, sort out matters between the IAF and the Army in a decisive and purposeful manner—Arakkaparambil Kurian Antony—ended up doing exactly the opposite by passing on the buck to the Army and IAF and asking them to reconcile their differences internally. This is what he had to say: “Our armed forces need to adopt a holistic approach to security. No single wing of our security forces can work in isolation. The need for synergy and pooling in efforts and resources is being felt like never before. The Army and IAF must ensure that there is perfect synergy between them. The armed services will have to act in reconciliation amongst themselves so that India can have better and stronger armed forces. I will try to play a limited role in finding reconciliation”. A pathetic show by the Raksha Mantri, to say the least.

For those who may not know, the Indian Army’s C4I, ISTR and spectrum allocation networks/bandwidth have been in place since 2007 for accommodating a full-fledged Combat Aviation Brigade, which was to be raised during the 11th Defence Plan (2007-2011) as per original Army HQ projections that were approved in principle by the MoD as far back as mid-2004. Consequently, adequate infrastructural and operational-level preparations have already been made by Army HQ to utilise such a Brigade in support of offensive Corps-level or Division-level campaigns that include surgical vertical envelopment operations. However, the principal problem has been the MoD, which has not even approved even till this day the 11th Defence Plan. Which means for the past five years, thousands of billions have been allocated for defence spending on a year-by-year basis, without any medium-term or long-term articulation of how this money should be spent.—Prasun K. Sengupta

T-90AM MBT Officially Unveilled At Nizhny Tagil

T-90AM: Latest Avatar Of The T-90 MBT

A delegation of India's Ministry of Defence will be departing later today to take part in the Ural Arms Expo in Nizhny Tagil later this week, and while there it will officially hand over to Rosoboronexport State Corp a restricted RFI which calls for the first 310 imported T-90S MBTs to be subjected to a 'deep upgrade', which will be designed and implemented by Uralvagonzavod JSC. These MBTs will be almost 10 years old by the time their mid-life upgrades are due to carried out from early 2013 onwards.

‘Der aye, durust aye’ (better late than never) will probably be the best way to welcome the emergence of the 50-tonne T-90AM—the latest member of the T-90 family of main battle tanks (MBT). In a nutshell, the T-90AM appears to have overcome all the previous design/performance deficiencies associated with the earlier T-90 variants (the T-90S and T-90M), and also with the T-72, from whose design the T-90’s design has evolved. Interestingly, India has had a huge though as yet unacknowledged role to play with the T-90AM’s R & D process. In order to delve deeper into this issue, we will have to take a walk down memory lane back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when the Indian Army was evaluating its options for a future main battle tank (FMBT) of imported origin to complement the indigenously designed Arjun MBT—which then was still on the drawing boards.

By the late 1970s, Indian Army HQ had decided to acquire new-generation replacements for its UK-origin fleet of Royal Ordnance Factories-built Centurion and Vickers-built Vijayanta Mk1 MBTs and consequently, paper evaluations concerning the firepower and mobility characteristics of the two principal contenders being offered for full in-country production—AMX-40 developed by GIAT Industries of France, and the Chieftain 800 (which later evolved into the Challenger 1 from Royal Ordnance Factories (then owned by British Aerospace PLC)—were conducted by the Indian Army. Between these two contenders, the Army had by early 1980 zeroed in on the 43-tonne AMX-40 MBT, which was still on the drawing boards and was meant to be powered by a 1,100hp Poyaud V12X 12-cylinder diesel engine coupled with a LSG-3000 automatic power shift transmission built by RENK Aktiengesellschaft of Germany (offering a power-to-weight ratio of 25.6hp/tonne, and armed with a 120mm smoothbore cannon. However, things didn’t go according to the Army’s well-conceived plans, since, after coming back to power, the then Indian Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi took the political decision to acquire new-build MBTs from the USSR, following which the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations (which after 1991 morphed into Oboronexport, then Rosoboronservice and ultimately Rosoboronexport State Corp) made a formal offer to India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) for supplying the  37-tonne T-72M Ob'yekt 172M-E4 MBT off-the-shelf, and according an approval for licenced-production of the 41.5-tonne T-72M-1982 Ob'yekt 172M-E6 to the MoD-owned Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) in Avadi. By early 1981, two T-72Ms--powered by a 780hp diesel engine, armed with 125mm 2A46M smoothbore gun and offering a power-to-weight ratio of 20hp/tonne, were subjected to an exhaustive series of in-country firepower and mobility trials by the Army, while copies of the T-72M’s operating and maintenance manuals supplied by the Soviets (who in those days were totally aghast when shown marketing brochures of competing MBTs of Western origin and were asked why such types of materials were unavailable from the USSR) were subjected to intense academic and operational scrutiny for a 90-day period.

Immediately later, a delegation of ‘experts’ comprising members of the MBT’s design bureau-- Kartsev-Venediktov; the MBT’s manufacturer--Uralvagonzavod Factory located in Nizhny Tagil; and officials from the Soviet Defence Ministry’s Land Forces Armaments Directorate, all converged at the Indian Army HQ, where extensive deliberations on and analysis of the T-72M’s in-country firepower and mobility trials were conducted by both sides for at least a week. Following all this, it ultimately emerged that while the T-72M possessed excellent and hassle-free mobility characteristics, its firepower capabilities were clearly a full generation behind that of the AMX-40. The Army, which had all along wanted to acquire a MBT incorporating hit-survivability design features (something that the home-grown Arjun Mk1 MBT’s design strongly signifies), now found to its utter horror that basically, with the exception of the T-55, the overall Soviet approach to MBT design in the post-World War II era was found to be flawed on two major counts: namely, the gamble on not being hit rather than on surviving hits, and the refusal to perceive survivability of the tank crew as a quite distinct issue from survivability of the vehicle, with the former having priority over the latter. The combination of these two shortcomings produced design solutions such as the T-72M’s carousel autoloader and ammunition reserve being accommodated on the turret floor. This indeed allowed for a very compact configuration and ensured that the ammunition is less likely to take a direct hit—but it also entailed a very high risk of ignition or sympathetic detonation should the fighting compartment be penetrated, in which case there went the MBT and the crew with it. When confronted with such ‘hard facts’ along with the Army’s criticisms about the lack of even a ‘decent’ hunter-killer fire-control system (when compared to the likes on board the AMX-40), members of the Soviet delegation were clearly red-faced and a depressed lot, and it took several bottles of vodka during and after dinner-time to come out with the truth: according to the MBT’s designers, the performance characteristics of all weapons produced in the USSR were dictated purely by the warfighting doctrine of the country’s armed forces. Hence, weapons like the T-72M were meant for usage only by follow-on echelon formations of the Red Army, while the all-critical breakout forces then stationed throughout the East European member-states of the Warsaw Pact were equipped with state-of-the-art MBTs like members of the 38-tonne T-64 and 42.5-tonne/46-tonne T-80 MBT families—designed by the Ukraine-based Morozov Design Bureau and series-produced at Malyshev in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and in Russia by both the Leningrad Kirov Plant and Omsk Transmash. In other words, while members of the T-64 and T-80 MBT families were the vanguard elements of the Red Army’s armoured juggernaut, those of the T-72 MBT were meant to be used merely for encirclement and envelopment of the enemy’s armoured formations. 

Yet, despite all this, India’s Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs of the day decreed that the T-72M and T-721982 (powered by a Model V-84MS four-stroke 12-cylinder multi-fuel engine developing 840hp and offering a power-to-weight ratio of 18.8 hp/tone) would be the Army’s future MBTs, and a procurement contract for 2,418 T-72s was subsequently inked. Interestingly, while the first off-the-shelf shipments of T-72Ms began arriving by ship in Mumbai in mid-1982,  in Lebanon the 105mm APFSDS rounds fired by Israeli Merkava Mk1 MBTs with 105mm rifled-bore guns routinely pierced the Syrian T-72M’s front glacis, went straight through the MBT and exited through the engine compartment, leaving a turretless hulk behind. Five years later, The Indian Army’s worst fears were realised when got a first-hand demonstration of the T-72M’s acute vulnerability in October 1987, after LTTE guerrillas exploded improvised explosive devices underneath two T-72Ms deployed with the Army’s 65 Armoured Regiment for Operation Pawan during the battle for Jaffna, which resulted in armour penetration and the ensuing catastrophic detonation of the MBT’s ammunition reserve (this being stored alongside the carousel autoloader on the turret’s floor), resulting in the turrets being blown off. Subsequent events in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm would convincingly highlight the T-72’s totally flawed design features. Despite such developments, the Army—starting in 1988 began inducting the HVF-built T-72M-1982s into service.

A year earlier (1987), however, the Indian Army—being acutely aware of the T-72M’s vulnerabilities, had decided to undertake Project Bison—an ambitious upgrade project in cooperation with Yugoslavia’s state-owned Yugoimport SDPR, under which all its T-72Ms would be fitted with a new rolled homogenous armour (RHA) package developed by the Ravne-based Slovenske Železarne and comprising high-hardness steel, tungsten, and plastic fillers with ceramic components, plus the SUV-M-84 digital fire-control system that incorporated a Hughes-built gunner’s sight that was stabilised in two axes and included a thermal imager and laser rangefinder. The gunner’s ballistics computer—developed by Banja Luka-based Rudi Cajevec—was designed to automatically download crosswind data, vehicle cant, azimuth tracking rate and range, while the gunner manually inputted the data for air pressure, air temperature, barrel wear, barrel droop and ammunition type. Also planned for retrofit was the 12-cylinder water-cooled V-46TK 1,000hp diesel engine, that would have given the T-72M a power-to-weight ratio of 24.10hp/tonne. A procurement contract was signed with Yugoimport SDPR in early 1989 and an advance down-payment was made as well, but by 1991, Project Bison had to be scrapped in its entirety as by then civil war had broken out in Yugoslavia, and the country was subjected to an UN-mandated universal arms export/import embargo.  

Both the MoD and the Indian Army learnt valuable lessons from Project Bison, and almost a decade later, when it came to the planned procurement of 1,657 T-90s (to replace the 1,781 T-55 and T-72M MBTs in a phased manner), it was decided to adopt a product block developmental approach similar to what by then was being planned for the Indian Air Force’s Su-30MKI procurement exercise. Consequently, in February 2001, India bought its first batch of 310 47.5-tonne 47.5-tonne T-90S MBTs worth US$795 million, of which 124 were delivered off-the-shelf, 86 in semi-knocked down kits (for licenced-assembly by the MoD-owned HVF in Avadi), and 100 in completely-knocked down kits (all these MBTs were retrofitted with Saab’s IDAS radar/laser warning system and LEDS-150 active protection system, or APS, worth Rs25 billion between 2009 and 2011). This was followed by a follow-on contract, worth $800 million (or Rs175 million per unit), being inked on October 26, 2006, for another 330 T-90M MBTs that were to be built with locally-sourced raw materials and also come fitted with LEDS-150 APS. The third contract, worth $1.23 billion (which was inclusive of the R & D funds required for designing a customised version of the T-90—the 50-tonne T-90AM), was inked in December 2007 for 347 upgraded T-90Ms, which are now being licence-built by HVF. These T-90Ms each come with a THALES-built Catherine-FC thermal imager (operating in the 8-12 micron bandwidth and housed within the Peleng-built 1G-46 gunner’s sight), the commander’s panoramic sight (which houses the Matis-STD thermal imager that operates in the 3-5 micron bandwidth and which has also been selected for the Arjun Mk1 MBT’s panoramic sight), an automatic gearbox, an electro-hydraulic turret-drive-cum stabilisation system, and most importantly, has a 2A46M-5 Rapira smoothbore main gun barrel that also comes fitted with a muzzle reference system.

While all the enhancements featured on the T-90M will also be found on the T-90AM, the latter will, among other things, incorporate a totally new redesigned turret that will now house a remote-controlled weapon station, an independent commander’s panoramic sight and gunner’s sight, a rear-mounted ammunition reserve stowage bustle and its autoloader (thereby doing away with the much-criticised earlier location alongside the carousel autoloader on the turret’s floor and enabling the stowage of single-unit FSAPDS rounds containing long-rod kinetic energy penetrators which the T-90S and T-90M cannot fire at the moment), and redesigned modular armour tiles. The hull-section, housing the driver’s and gunner’s compartments, will be equipped with a battlespace management terminal, fibre-optic gyro-based land navigation system, software-defined radio suite, health-and-usage management systems for on-board diagnosis of the MBT’s vectronics and automotive elements—all these being selected and furnished by the customer (in India’s case) to Uralvagonzavod for on-board fitment-cum-integration. Also to be furnished by India for integration is the active protection suite (APS), for which the LEDS-150 is competing with the Iron First APS (already installed on board the Arjun Mk2 MBT) from Israel Military Industries. Powerplant for the T-90AM will comprise a Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant-built 1,130hp V-92S2 diesel engine, while a 1kW AB-1-P28 auxiliary power unit will provide back-up electric power when the engine is idling. By today calculations, 670 T-99AMs could well be delivered to the Indian Army between 2013 and 2019.  

This finally brings us to the issue of whether or not to upgrade the remaining 1,664 T-72s in successive tranches. Already, 692 T-72Ms have been upgraded thus far into the T-72 ‘Combat-Improved Ajeya’ standards, while a follow-on tranche of 700 T-72M1s (whose per unit procurement cost is Rs90 million) is due to be upgraded at a cost of Rs50 million per unit, for which there is an on-going competition between Russia’s Rosoboronexport State Corp, ELBIT Systems of Israel, and the Raytheon/Larsen & Toubro combine, with work scheduled for completion by 2018). One interesting view prevailing within the Army HQ’s Directorate of Mechanised Forces calls for scrapping the planned T-72 upgrades altogether and instead procuring up to 900 T-90AMs and up to 400 Arjun Mk2s (each costing Rs380 million or $8.2 million) before 2020. This view also calls for re-engineering the hulls of the existing 1,100 T-72Ms and 1,318 T-72M-1982s to accommodate a family of turrets housing not only missile-launchers of the Akash E-SHORADS and their Rajendra L-band PESA target engagement radars and battery command-and-control centres (62 T-72M hulls have already been re-engineered for this purpose), but also air-defence artillery guns and their fire-control systems like the Skyranger from Rheinmetall Defence, a turret containing anti-armour guided-missiles like up to eight Kornet-EM in ready-to-fire configuration along with a 30mm rapid-fire cannon and 30mm automatic grenade launchers—all remotely-operated, MLC-70 bridge layers (like the BLT-72), equipment required by armoured recovery vehicles for the T-90 family of MBTs, and counter-mine flails.—Prasun K. Sengupta

Know Your Weapons

INS Satpura’s Fitments Explained

Note: All photos courtesy of: http://www.stratpost.com/images-ins-satpura  

By the way, Vice Admiral Robin Dhowan (whom I had first met in 2003 in Langkawi during the LIMA 2003 exhibition when he was commanding officer of INS Delhi, which was taking part in the expo) on August 31 became the new Vice Chief of the Naval Staff (VCNS) and Vice Admiral V K Soni (to become the Chief of the Naval Staff after Vice Admiral D K Joshi—the present FOC-in-C Western Command—who will become the next Chief of the Naval Staff after Admiral Nirmal Verma) took over as the DCNS.  Vice Admiral Patnaik has become the Chief of Naval Personnel and there’s speculation that VADM Chopra (who once was the favourite of the present CNS Admiral Nirmal Verma to become the VCNS) will instead relieve VADM Anoop Singh as FOC-in-C ENC (he was the first CO of INS Delhi and I had the opportunity to meet him on board this DDG in December 1997 (this was its maiden voyage and she sailed straight from Mumbai to Langkawi for the LIMA 2007 expo) along with the then Cmdre D K Joshi who then was India’s Defence Adviser in Singapore and who also went to Langkawi at that time to get a feel of INS Delhi) to on October 1. One also wonders who will be the next DG of ICGS--VADM Murugesan or VADM Biloo Chauhan.

Is This The Latest Avatar Of The T-90 MBT?

Looks like the MBT’s turret now houses a new-generation commander’s panoramic sight as well as a remote-controlled machine-gun. For more information on the T-90, kindly visit the following two sites:

http://trishulgroup.blogspot.com/2009/08/whats-wrong-with-t-90s-mbts-fire.html

&

http://trishulgroup.blogspot.com/2009/08/t-90s-mbts-combat-effectiveness.html

Home-Grown Anti-Missile Shield For New Delhi By 2014? Sheer Unabashed Jingoistic Kite-Flying By DRDO, Period!

Is there an operational requirement for a ballistic missile defence (BMD) system for India? Since the PDV two-stage exo-atmospheric and two-stage AD-2 endo-atmospheric interceptors are being developed to destroy inbound tactical ballistic missiles (TBM) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) with ranges of up to 2,000km and medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges of up to 5,000km, which necessarily will be nuclear-armed, the two interceptors will also have to be nuclear-armed as well (since conventional high-explosive fragmentation warheads have a small kill radius). It will thus have to be a ‘blue’ nuclear bullet versus a ‘red’ nuclear bullet. But, in the real world, is it possible that the Indian Ministry of Defence’s Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) can deliver a fully-functional BMD network by 2015, considering that the DRDO took 21 years to design and develop a simple 50hp Wankel engine? To appreciate this, let us first understand how the DRDO-conceptualised BMD system works. The DRDO’s proposed BMD system is based on two physical phenomena. Firstly, the trajectory of a re-entry vehicle after it is released by the ballistic missile is entirely pre-determined and therefore, if one can observe an early position of it, the rest of the trajectory can be predicted very accurately and destroyed by the interceptor. Secondly, a nuclear detonation in outer space (as all ballistic missiles go outside the atmosphere in their powered phases after which their re-entry vehicles come back into the atmosphere and has a free-fall) can destroy a re-entry vehicle and a nuclear detonation inside the atmosphere can deflect or damage a re-entry vehicle such that its nuclear warhead will not explode.

The BMD system will have five essential components. Firstly, there’s the early warning system that is capable of signalling the launch of hostile ballistic missiles. This system will comprise both airborne early warning & control (AEW & C) aircraft as well as a satellite-based missile monitoring system (MSS), which according to Dr V K Saraswat—Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister & Director-General of the DRDO—will go into deployment mode by 2015. Secondly, there’s the 1,500km-range variant of the L-band active phased-array EL/M-2080 long-range tracking radar (LRTR)—to be supplied by Israel Aerospace Industries—(IAI) with long wavelength to spot the re-entry vehicles as they rise above the horizon (while they are still 5,000km or six minutes away) and provide range, velocity and angular discrimination of the targets. Thirdly, there is the multi-functional fire-control radar (MFCR) using the already-delivered THALESRaytheon-supplied S-band Master-A short-wavelength 350m-range radar to determine the position of each re-entry vehicle with precision and guide the interceptor. Fourthly, there are the two interceptor vehicles for exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric kills, both presently equipped with 9E49/DB-100N dual-plane monopulse two-channel X-band terminal guidance radars (which can lock on to a 0.05 square metre RCS target from a distance of 16.2nm) imported from Russia, but are due for replacement in future with an imaging infra-red seeker of Israeli origin. Lastly, there’s the IAI-designed battle management, command, control, communications and intelligence (BMC3I) centre for commanding, controlling and coordinating the entire two-tier interception process. The operational sequence would play out as follows: Once the AEW & C platforms or MMS detects a hostile ballistic missile launch, it passes on the target vectors via SATCOM channels of the Indian Air Force’s IACCS network to the BMC3I, which in turn alerts the appropriate LRTR to acquire the inbound hostile ballistic missiles (TBMs, IRBMs or MRBMs), the transporter-erector-launcher vehicles housing the exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interceptors will be activated on ‘hot-stand’ mode, ready to be fired within 40 seconds. Once in range, the Master-A MFCR—capable of detecting airborne targets with a RCS of 0.3 square metres at 350km range—would take over. The command line-of-sight guidance computation will take another 15 seconds, following which the exo-atmospheric interceptor missile will be fired. The missile’s on-board strap-down inertial navigation system (SDINS)—comprising a ring laser gyro-based inertial navigation sensor—will provide mid-course correction updates for trajectory shaping until the on-board terminal guidance sensor finally takes over. The definitive PDV exo-atmospheric interceptor will be cruising at Mach 5 but will attain a peak terminal speed of Mach 11—made possible by the divert thruster placed on top of the second-stage. The divert thruster will generate high lateral acceleration for the ‘end-game’. Both the warhead and divert thruster will be fired simultaneously towards the target once they are within the acquisition range of the yet-to-be-made-available on-board imaging infra-red seeker (all PAD and AAD flight-tests have thus far used the 9E49/DB-100N X-band monopulse terminal guidance radar of Russian origin), following which the next three seconds will result in the targetted re-entry vehicle being intercepted in the ‘hit-to-kill’ mode at an altitude of over 200km—all this being done within 150 seconds. Unlike the definitive Mach 8 AAD-2 endo-atmospheric interceptor, whose flight trajectory will be shaped through aerodynamic control out to an altitude of 35km, the exo-atmospheric interceptor uses a reaction-control system using auxiliary motors and flex nozzles, and has minimal manoeuvrability of 2 G. The endo-atmospheric interceptor will use a two-stage solid-propellant rocket motor for intercepting 5,000km-range ballistic missiles, and will have excellent manoeuvrability and will be able to sustain up to 30 G, thereby making the interceptor unstable.

All of this is of course a simplistic view of the proposed BMD system, and the reality of what has been achieved thus far is a different story altogether, comprising largely of unkept promises, making false declarations and setting totally unattainable R & D targets. For instance, at a press conference on December 12, 2007 given by the by the DRDO’s then Chief Controller R & D (Missiles & Strategic Systems), Dr V K Saraswat, it was disclosed that the DRDO would have developed all the building blocks for Phase 1 of a two-layered fully integrated BMD system in place by 2010 (work on this began in 1997). In Phase 1 the DRDO set for itself the goal of developing a BMD system capable of intercepting TBMs and IRBMs at an altitude of 100km with the help of a PDV two-stage exo-atmospheric interceptor using solid rockets motors and an imaging infra-red terminal seeker (which was due to be tested in late 2010), with the Mach 5 AAD-1 endo-atmospheric interceptor (also using an imaging infra-red terminal seeker) serving as a back-up for intercepting the hostile re-entry vehicle at an altitude of 20km. This interceptor stands 7.5 metres tall, weighs around 1.3 tonnes and has a diameter of less than 0.5 metres. The 2010 deadline was of course not adhered to and in its place a new deadline of 2013 was proclaimed by Dr V K Saraswat at a press conference on March 21, 2010, in which Dr Saraswat also disclosed that the DRDO’s commitment was to complete all Phase 1 flight trials of the PDV and AAD-1 interceptors by 2011, with initial systems deployment getting underway by 2013. He, however, never clarified whether or not the DRDO had acquired the necessary political sanction from the Cabinet Committee on National Security to place bulk production orders for various elements of the BMD system. But what he did say was that in the absence of AEW & C platform-based early warning, the Phase 1 BMD system had 120 seconds available to it between the time of missile launch detection and its interception. As for Phase 2 of the DRDO’s BMD system’s developmental roadmap, this would be completed by 2015, and would include the development of a new type of hypersonic endo-atmospheric interceptor—AD-2—capable of intercepting re-entry vehicles at an altitude of 35km. The third opportunity for Dr V K Saraswat to move the goalposts yet again came after the March 6, 2011 AAD-1 test-flight, when he announced that, “one more interception will be done to intercept a 2,000km-range incoming ballistic missile at an altitude of 150km. With this test, which will be done in 2011, the BMD system’s  Phase 1 will be over”. Saraswat then confidently added that “India’s plans for putting in place the first phase of the two-layered ballistic missile defence shield by 2012 and the second phase by 2016 are on course”. He was referring to the long overdue PDV test-flight.

Factors Contributing To Capability Immaturity

There are several reasons why the DRDO’s track-record thus far--as far as BMD systems development goes—is highly questionable. Firstly, there’s the choice of using the liquid-fuelled Prithvi missile as the target (in all the interceptions done so far). Barring the Ghauri IRBM, its slow speed during both the boost phase and the terminal phase does not in any way mimmick the flight profiles of the solid-fuelled TBMs, IRBMs and IRBMs presently operational with both China and Pakistan. The DRDO would therefore be well-advised to demonsrate the effectiveness of the PDV and AAD interceptors against the indigenous 700km-range Agni-I TBM and 2,000km-range Agni-II IRBM. Secondly, given the fact that the PDV and AAD interceptors are armed with conventional warheads, there is the need to demonstrate simultaneous exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric tests, so that if one misses the target, the other should be able to kill it. This has not yet been done. Thirdly, the DRDO has never published any conclusive flight-test data to prove whether or not all the flight-tests conducted thus far had resulted in direct hits. In fact, there’s strong reason to believe that these tests ended up in failures and it is for this very reason that the switchover of terminal guidance systems is being made from active radar to imaging infra-red seeker. Fourthly, there’s been no demonstration of the operational configuration of the launch vehicles of both the PDV and AAD family of interceptors, nor has there been any R & D effort initiated for housing such missiles inside sealed cannisters and developing cold-launch techniques (under which the interceptor is ejected from its cannister by a gas-powered piston).

Then there’s the issue of making false claims about indigenisation of the hardware components of the BMD system. For instance, in an exclusive interview given to FORCE magazine in March 2010, Dr Saraswat stated on page 10: “We are planning to enhance the detection range of the existing (LRTR) radars (two were ordered in 1998 and delivered in 2001). The exact range is classified. However, considering that we now have the capability and the capacity to build all elements of the state-of-the-art radar, the range enhancement will more or less be an indigenous effort”. Yet, in the same interview, Dr Saraswat made a contradicting remark about the LRTR’s indigenous content by saying: “…for this reason, it is important that the range of the LRTR be more than 1,000km. We have started work on this and it will take up to three years. When I say that this will be indigenous, it means that design and development will be done here, while computers and certain other essentials like T/R modules will be procured from outside. You know that it is neither possible nor desirable to make everything within the country”. What exactly are we to make of such contradicting remarks coming from someone who heads the DRDO?

Lastly, there’s the yet another pair of hair-raising and ridiculous statements attributed to Dr Saraswat. On February 10, 2010 he claimed that India’s BMD programme is more advanced than China’s. “This (BMD) is one area where we are senior to China. We knew they had acquired the building blocks for BMD when they shot down a satellite in 2007. But we have been working on this programme since 1999”. When asked by FORCE for a clarification about this remark, he stated on the record that he had been quoted out of context, and what he had instead said on February 10 was that “I do not know when the Chinese actually started work on BMD”.  I would hereby like to recommend this weblink (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/bmd.pdf) as well as this (http://www.sinodefence.com/special/airdefence/project640.asp) to Dr Saraswat, both of which give a chronological account of China’s BMD-related R & D activities and achievements since March 23, 1964. Let us all hope that he never again makes the kind of remarks which reduce us Indians to a laughing stock in the eyes of the world. And finally, there’s absolutely no need to build the various BMD blocks and publicly gloat about it, especially since the informed opinion of India’s armed services is that instead of going for BMD systems, it would be much better if the country’s money, energy and indigenous R & D capabilities are focussed on the speedy development and deployment of cannisterised TBMs, MRBMs and SLBMs like the Shourya, Agni-5 and K-4.—Prasun K. Sengupta