Ministry of Defence signs contract worth 1700 crore rupees to acquire additional Brahmos missiles for frontline warships


BrahMos Missiles: Government of India (GoI) recently signed a contract worth 1700 crore rupees with Brahmos Aerospace private limited for procuring BrahMos missiles.

Key Highlights:

  • The contract was signed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to purchase 35 combat and 3 practice BrahMos supersonic dual-role surface-to-surface cruise missiles providing further drive to Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
  • They are brought under Buy-In category, which aims to boost indigenous production of critical weapon systems and ammunitions with active participation of indigenous defence industry.

Key Points about Brahmos Missiles:

  • BrahMos is the fastest supersonic missile and the fastest anti-ship cruise missile in the world.
  • The range of these missiles is 290 km.
  • They are capable of both land attack and anti-ship strikes.
  • With their speed is 2.8 Mach, which is almost three times the speed of sound have emerged as the “precision-strike conventional(non-nuclear) weapon.
  • The missiles are placed along with surface-to-air missiles, tanks, howitzer and other weapons.
  • Two Indian Navy P-15B class stealth guided missile ships will be equipped with these missiles.

Significance:

  • This is expected to significantly enhance the operational capability of Indian Navy fleet assets.
  • They are included in the buy-in category, which aims to increase domestic manufacture of critical weapons and ammunition with active participation of indigenous defence industry.
  • The Army’s BrahMos missile batteries have been established in Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh.

Background:

  • BrahMos has been developed by BrahMos Aerospace – a joint venture between DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya.
  • The missile was named after Brahmaputra river in India and Moskva river in Russia.
  • In 2016, when India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR),
  • India and Russia decided to develop a new generation of Brahmos missiles with a range of 400 km and then increase it to 600 km.
  • The extended range version has been tested from warships, including from INS Visakhapatnam.
  • The Indian Air Force(IAF), has also inducted two land-based BrahMos squadrons.
  • In addition, the sleeker air-launched version is also being progressively fitted on Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jets. 
  • A Sukhoi armed with BrahMos forms a formidable long-range weapons package with a radius of almost 1500 km mid-air refueling.

​About BAPL:

  • Brahmos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL) is a Joint Venture between India and Russia.
  • It has been making an important contribution to increasing the new generation of Surface-to-Surface Missiles with advanced range and dual role capability for land and anti-ship attacks.

About Project 15B:

  • Under Project 15B, four stealth guided missile destroyers which are improved versions of Kolkata-class destroyers are being built at the cost of Rs. 29,643.74 crore.
  • These four vessels are named after major cities from all four corners of India.

These are –

  1. Visakhapatnam
  2. Mormugao
  3. Imphal
  4. Surat
  • Indian Navy's INS Visakhapatnam lasted guided missile destroyer was commissioned in November 2021 while the rest were launched into waters.
  • INS Visakhapatnam, in January 2022, successfully tested the missile’s extended range version.
  • They were designed by the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Naval Design and constructed by the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited in Mumbai.
  • Modern armaments and sensors, such as surface-to-air missiles BrahMos and Barak-8, will be installed on these vessels.
  • Furthermore, ten frontline warships are already armed with the missiles while the vertical launch systems have also been installed on another five warships.


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