BrahMos Aerospace, the Indo-Russian joint venture missile developer, handed over a battery of critical systems of the army version of the Brahmos cruise missile to the Indian Army on Wednesday.
Termed the second regiment, the Army received ground systems with mobile launchers, command post, replenishment systems, fire control with sophisticated electronic hardware and software and with multiple communication systems from Mr M.M. Pallam Raju, Minister of State for Defence.
A regiment consists of a group of systems, including missiles and specially trained troops to operate and launch them. The first regiment was raised in 2007 and made operational in 2008.
Handing over the regiment to Lieutenant General Vinod Nayanar, Director General, Artillery, at a function, Mr Pallam Raju said the versatile BrahMos system, available in multiple versions, was being delivered ahead of schedule. He urged the industry to go ahead in a big way in producing these systems as the requirement of the Indian armed forces is large.
Lt Nayanar said BrahMos, due to its versatility and user-friendliness, has emerged as the most reliable system for the armed forces. “We have guns for near range and Smerch Rockets for range of 75 km. But beyond that BrahMos is the only system which has added tremendous fire power capability to our forces for targets as deep as 300 km.”
The CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, Dr A. Sivathanu Pillai, said “We have formed a missile-industry complex with a network of public and private sector industries who are producing four versions of the missiles to meet the demand of all the three Services.”
BrahMos attains supersonic speed of Mach 2.8 all through its 290km range, precision of near zero circular error probability and devastating power. It has emerged as the world leader in cruise missile technology and the preferred first strike weapon of the armed forces, he added.