India, Russia may export 1,000 BrahMos

[Herman]

India, Russia may export 1,000 BrahMos

[ 24 Jan, 2007 0005hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

 

NEW DELHI: The US used almost 800 cruise missiles for its attack on Iraq in 2003. Much cheaper and easier to operate than ballistic missiles, cruise missiles are rapidly becoming the preferred option to wage a war. So much so that there are around 80,000 cruise missiles in the inventories of 75 countries at this moment.

 

Keeping this "huge export potential" in mind, India and Russia now obviously want to rake in the moolah by selling at least 1,000 of the jointly-developed BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to "friendly" countries in the near future. The export version will basically be the anti-ship variant of the 290-km range BrahMos, already inducted into Indian Navy. Incidentally, the land-attack, air and submarine-launched versions of BrahMos are also in the pipeline for the Indian armed forces now.

 

But in the run-up to Russian president Vladimir Putin and defence minister Sergei Ivanov's visit this week, there has been some wrangling over the issue of exports. India is keen to jumpstart the process, with the global cruise missile market estimated to be worth around $10 billion in the coming decade, but there has been opposition from some quarters in Russia.

 

Ivanov, however, clarified in Bangalore on Tuesday that Russia was not opposed to selling BrahMos to some "specific third countries". In Delhi, top Indian and Russian officials also dismissed reports that Moscow had reservations on the matter.

 

They, in fact, asserted that a supervisory council of the two governments had already identified the countries concerned. Though they were reluctant to name them, TOI has earlier reported that talks had been held with Malaysia, Chile, South Africa, Kuwait and UAE in this regard.

 

"There is a huge market for cruise missiles. BrahMos is unique among cruise missiles due to its 2.8 Mach supersonic speed (all other cruise missiles are sub-sonic at present) and much-longer strike range. It's the ultimate force-multiplier," said BrahMos Aerospace chief A Sivanthanu Pillai.

 

G Leonov Alexander, first deputy director-general of NPO Mashinostroyenia, the Russian partner in the BrahMos Aerospace joint venture, in turn, said,"I hope we will be able to sell around 1,000 missiles to friendly countries very soon...Our prospects are very bright."

 

This will be a big step forward for India, which has so far imported cutting-edge military technology rather than exporting it. As reported earlier by TOI, India is already augmenting facilities at Hyderabad to take the production of BrahMos missiles from the existing dozen or so to at least 50 per year.

 

This will also help in its faster induction into the Indian forces, which have placed orders worth Rs 3,500 crore for the missile till now. What is interesting is that BrahMos Aerospace is even ready with the submarine-launched missile variant, which can be fired from an underwater depth of almost 60 metres.

 

The work has centred around the Russian Amur-1650 submarines, a frontrunner for India’s second line of submarines after the French Scorpenes.

 

"Once BrahMos is installed, it will be the first diesel submarine to have vertically-launched strike missiles," said Pillai.

 

Meanwhile, with frontline warships like Rajput-class destroyers having already been equipped with BrahMos vertical launch systems, Army is now gearing up to induct the "precision-strike" land-attack version by converting three of its light artillery regiments into BrahMos missile regiments. Each regiment will have four mobile autonomous launchers on 12x12 Tatra vehicles and mobile command posts.

 

"We are planning to give deliveries to the Indian Army this year itself. The work on the air-launched version for Sukhoi-30MKIs, with a reduction in the size and weight of the booster, will be finished by 2008," said chairman of the BrahMos board of directors, A Dergachev Alexander.