India on Wednesday tested an improvised version of sea-to-sea variant of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from INS Vishakhapatnam. The new version boasts an extended range and is an advanced variant of cruise missile.
The test missile had precisely hit the target ship, according to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). This particular missile variant is developed and designed to launch both in vertical and horizontal mode from either a stationary or moving vehicle at both land or/and sea-based targets.
The Indian Navy has lauded the twin achievement by the Indian defence ecosystem. The test further underlines the operational and combat abilities of the newly and indigenously built destroyer as well as reinforces the prowess of the missile system, it said in a tweet.
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In 2020, on two separate occasions, the DRDO had test-fired its premium supersonic missile system. In October 2020, BrahMos was successfully launched from indigenously built INS Chennai in the Arabian sea. As per a report by Naval Technology, the extended variant will have a range of 400 km as apposed to the 290 km range of the original version. Then again in December 2020, India successfully tested the anti-ship version of BrahMos from Andaman and Nicobar Island territory.
In September 2020, India successfully test-fired the extended range surface-to-surface variant of BrahMos by the DRDO at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Balasore, Odisha. The missile achieved a top speed of 2.8 Mach. India’s DRDO is also jointly developing the BrahMos Mark 2 with Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia which will have an expected range of 1000 km and a speed of Mach 8.
INS Visakhapatnam is the first and the lead ship of Visakhapatnam-class stealth guided-missile destroyers which was commissioned in November 2021. The other three sips of the same class, i.e., INS Mormugao, INS Imphal and INS Mumbai will be commissioned over the next six years. The Visakhapatnam-class is being built by Mazagon Dock Limited.
Philippines is reportedly planning to purchase India’s BrahMos missile system for which they have issued two special allotment release orders (SARO) worth INR 190 crores and INR 224 crore in a government-to-government deal.
