Article Posted on : - Nov 09, 2011

Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju hands over a model of BRAHMOS missile system to Director General Artillery, Lt. General Vinod Nayanar in the presence of BrahMos Aerospace chief Dr. A S Pillai in Secunderabad on Wednesday. A Brahmand photo

HYDERABAD (BNS): To add more strength to its combat capabilities, Indian Army on Wednesday received the second regiment of BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missile system.

The new regiment of BRAHMOS Block II variant of missiles was handed over by Minister of State for Defence, M M Pallam Raju to Director General Artillery, Lt. General Vinod Nayanar in the presence of BrahMos Aerospace Chief Dr. A S Pillai during a function at Parade Ground, Secunderabad.

Congratulating scientists and officials associated with the BRAHMOS project, Pallam Raju said, "BRAHMOS is a versatile system and now available in multiple versions."

"I am glad that this regiment is being delivered ahead of schedule. This shows BrahMos's commitment to its customer. Industries will definitely have greater responsibility to continue manufacturing BRAHMOS weapons and deliverable ground systems in the coming years to maintain the success story of the project."

Director General Artillery, Lt. General Vinod Nayanar said, "This universal weapon system because of its versatility, range, speed, destructive power and user friendly operation has emerged as the most reliable weapon system for the Indian Armed Forces.

"We have guns for near range and Smerch rockets for ranges of 75 km. But beyond 75 km range, BRAHMOS is the system which has added tremendous fire power capability to Indian Armed Forces for targets as deep as 300 km," he said.

Speaking at the event, Dr. Pillai said, "We have formed a Missile Industry Complex with a network of Public and private sector industries who are tirelessly working to produce BRAHMOS missiles for meeting the demand of all the three Services."

With the induction of BRAHMOS, the capabilities of Indian Army have multiplied manifold, he said.

Having already inducted a full regiment of Block- I version for precision attack, Indian Army has gone for the Block II variant with target discrimination capabilities. The ground systems and the missile in Block-II are more advanced to achieve 'fire and forget' class of attack on selected targets.

The second BRAHMOS regiment comprises of ground systems with Mobile Launchers, Command Post, Replenishment systems, Fire Control Systems with sophisticated electronic hardware & software and with multiple communication systems.

In 2010, BrahMos Aerospace successfully conducted two tests of the missile system with supersonic steep dive capability to make India the only country to have such a system for mountain warfare operations.

BRAHMOS missile has a range of up to 290 km with a maximum speed of 2.8 Mach. It can be launched from multiple platforms based on land, ship, submarines and air. The air-launched and submarine-launched versions of the missile are presently under development.