Armed to the Hilt
Indian Navy’s Anti-Ship Missiles
The Indian Navy’s anti-ship missiles give it a formidable prowess , with both surface and sub-surface systems now in operational service. Sarosh Bana of CLAWS reviews the various weaponry with the Navy including air-launched missiles from various platforms.
The Indian Navy’s strategic prowess with missiles has been acknowledged ever since Operations Trident and Python during the 1971 War, which rendered the Pakistani Navy nearly inoperable and dislocated fuel and military supplies at the main port of Karachi. These tactical offensives represented the first use of antiship missiles (AShMs) – the Soviet-made P-15 Termit (SS-N-2 Styx) – in combat in the region, and only the second worldwide, after the sinking in 1967 of the Israeli Navy’s INS Eilat, a former Z- class destroyer of the Royal Navy, off Port Said by Egyptian missile boats, also firing the Styx missile.
These milestones of modern naval warfare have induced smaller navies over the years to arm their platforms with AShMs and land-attack surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs). Leading the campaign for the missiles in India had been a band of Soviet-trained officers of the Indian Navy, nicknamed ‘The Killers,’ most of whom had been trained with the Soviet Pacific Fleet headquarters at Vladivostok in the late 1960s. These early beginnings led the Indian Navy to induct some very effective SSM systems over the years, and also initiated the indigenous development of crucial missile systems, aligned with the Navy’s blue water mission.
The Indian Navy’s maritime battlefield has of late been revolutionised in recent years by induction of the PJ-10 BrahMos, the world’s first operational supersonic anti-ship cruise missile that has become the Navy’s prime strike weapon. The versatile two-stage BrahMos, with a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ramjet system, is the result of an Indo-Russian agreement of 1998, its name representing the two great rivers Brahmaputra and Moskva. The joint venture firm, BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited ( BAPL), is headquartered in New Delhi with its production facilities in Hyderabad.
BrahMos’s uniqueness, as also its superiority over other AShM and land-attack cruise missiles worldwide, is its unmatched speed – Mach 2.8 almost three times the speed of sound – which renders it near invincible and imparts enhanced strike power. These attributes are heightened by its stealth characteristics, high accuracy, and versatility in being launched from submarines or ships as well as from aircraft or from land, in either inclined or vertical configuration, depending on the type of platform and user requirements. Both the sea and land versions weigh 3 tonnes and have a length of 9 metres and diameter of 50 cm, with the capacity to carry a 200 to 300 kg warhead.
The missile can hit sea-based targets beyond radar horizons and is launched from the next generation Universal Vertical Launcher Module (UVLM), also designed and developed by BAPL. BrahMos can be fired singly or in a salvo towards single or multiple targets within intervals of 2 to 2.5 seconds in varied trajectories. A salvo of 8 missiles is deemed capable of penetrating and destroying an armada of frigates with modern anti-missile defences. Its intelligent characteristics are such that it is beyond prevailing missile detection capabilities, and its mid-course guidance is provided by inertial navigation system and its terminal course guidance, by homing radar seeker. It can be supplemented with GPS/GLONASS for accuracy augmentation.
The Indian Navy began inducting first versions of BrahMos in its frontline warships from 2005 and the missile will be deployed on all its platforms that can bear it. Among those it is deployed on are two of the five 3,950-tonne Rajput- class ( Kashin II) guided missile destroyers (DDGs), INS Rajput and INS Ranvir, the six follow-on 3,840-tonne Talwar- class guided missile frigates (FFGs), and most recently, the three Kolkata- class Project-15A DDGs. It will also equip the four Project- 15B Visakhapatnam- class DDGs, first of which will enter service in July 2018 and which, at 7,400 tonnes, are as large as the Kolkata- class whose hull they are modelled on. Each of these two classes will have two eight-cell UVLMs for 16 BrahMos missiles.
The three Project- 15 Delhi- class 6,700-tonne DDGs, commissioned between 1997 and 2001, will also stable the BrahMos once these ships are modified and upgraded. While INS Rajput will be armed with four BrahMos, INS Ranvir will have eight, apart from two and four SS-N-2D Styx AShMs respectively. BrahMos can also replace the Russian 3M-54 Klub AShMs on the three 5,300-tonne Project 17 Shivalik- class stealth multi-role frigates.
The maiden test firing of the submarinelaunched BrahMos variant was carried out vertically in March 2013 from a submerged platform. BAPL CEO and Managing Director SK Mishra describes the firing as “the very first time a supersonic cruise missile, in its full operational configuration, was test-fired vertically from an underwater platform, with the test being a 100 per cent success.” The canisterised missile, installed in a modular launcher in the pressure hull of a submarine, is launched vertically from underwater depths of 40 to 50 m. This will greatly add to the ‘offensive power’ of the vessel without compromising on its ‘defensive power’ as the torpedo tubes can be fully utilised for defence.
The six 1,565-tonne Project-75 Scorpene-class SSKs, being built indigenously under transfer of technology from French shipbuilder DCNS, will be equipped with the SM39 Exocet AShM that can be launched from its six 533 mm torpedo tubes. Built by European missile firm MBDA, the high subsonic 4.7 m long, 350 mm-- diameter, 655 kg AShM has a range of 50 km, can attain speeds up to Mach 0.9 and can carry 165 kg high-explosive conventional warheads. Though launched in a watertight VSM ( véhicule sous marin) capsule through the torpedo tubes, once in the air, the missile behaves like a standard Exocet with its sea-skimming and manoeuvring advantages. The launch vessel is difficult to locate as the missile exits the water some distance from it and also does not require the submarine to rise to periscope depth for the launch. INS Kalvari, the first Scorpene boat, was launched in October 2015 and will be commissioned shortly, with subsequent boats delivered at intervals of nine months.
It is likely that the Exocet and, of course, the BrahMos will be deployed also on the proposed six Project-75(I) new generation stealth diesel-electric submarines, the global tender or RFP (Request For Proposal) for which is yet to be issued.
BAPL is working on a smaller lighter variant of BrahMos with the same operational range and payload, but only 6 m. in length and 1.4 tonnes in weight. Named BrahMos-NG (next generation), it is to incorporate the best of cruise missile technology and will be carried by newgeneration military platforms, including warships, submarines and fighter aircraft. Its first flight test is expected to be conducted in the next three to four years, before production is taken up.
The six 1,250-tonne next-generation missile boats that are proposed to be constructed in India as ‘pocket battleships’ will also be armed with BrahMos. These all-new boats will replace the Navy’s ageing Prabal- class missile boats and will also be equipped with surface-to-air-missiles, closein-weapon systems for missile interception, a main gun and point-defence guns.
Similar success however is eluding Nirbhay (‘fearless’), India’s first indigenously designed and developed long-range subsonic cruise missile, that can reach targets up to 1,000 km away and can carry nuclear or conventional warheads weighing 300 to 400 kg. This two- stage missile, designed and developed by the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is primarily a land-attack missile, but can be converted to an anti-ship variant with ease by adding additional guidance software and hardware. However, a recent test firing in October 2015 was but a partial success, as the missile, supposedly India’s equivalent of the US Tomahawk, developed technical snags and its flight had to be aborted as it could not maintain altitude. During its maiden test in March 2013, the missile encountered a similar hitch and was destroyed mid-trajectory. An MoD statement, however, indicated that all initial critical operations such as booster ignition, booster separation, wing deployment and engine start had been successfully executed and Nirbhay had reached the desired cruise altitude.
Powered by a solid rocket booster, the 6 m missile, with a diameter of 0.5 m, wing span of 2.7 m and launch weight of 1.5 tonnes, lifts vertically as a rocket and after the first stage separation, cruises like an aircraft. It can reach a speed of up to Mach 0.9 at altitudes 500 m and 4 km above the sea or ground and also at ‘tree-top level’ to avoid detection by enemy radar. The Tomahawk, in turn, is the most widely used cruise missile that came into its own in the first Gulf War of 1991, but the gap between cruise missiles and anti- ship missiles is narrowing as technology advances.
Nirbhay’s system incorporates a ring laser gyroscope based inertial navigation system (RINS-16) as primary navigation and micro- electromechanical systems (MEMS) based inertial navigation system (MINGS) as secondary navigation system. It can be launched from multiple platforms, including ships and submarines, aircraft and land-based vehicles/launchers and will be inducted by all the three services.
Both Nirbhay and BrahMos are very flexible and can be launched from any Indian Navy platform fitted with the UVLM. But, whereas Nirbhay can be intercepted with an appropriate SSM, once detected, the BrahMos is virtually impossible to fend off unless with a fully automated protection system of anti- missile radar- gun- missile combination. BrahMos is also brutal-impact owing to its very high velocity that packs 32 times the kinetic energy of the Tomahawk, while Nirbhay’s versatility is in its ability to carry 24 different types of payloads.
A medium-range submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) – variedly christened Sagarika, K-15 and Dhanush, and finally codenamed BO5 – has been developed by DRDO and is being produced specifically for India’s first indigenous SSBN, INS Arihant, which was commissioned in August 2016. The BO5/K-15 will provide retaliatory nuclear strike capability and forms a part of India’s nuclear triad. The 6,000 tonne Arihant is the first of a series of three SSBNs and measures 110 m in length and 11 m in breadth. The two follow-ons will both be larger and more advanced.
Each of these ballistic missile submarines can carry 12 of these 6.3-tonne, 10.4 m long and 1 m-diameter SLBMs that can be launched from even under ice caps, and can carry a nuclear warhead of up to a tonne to a range of 750 km. An underwater missile launcher was developed in 2001. The missile was first test-fired from a submersible pontoon launcher in 2007 and trials for its integration with the submarine began in 2009. A prototype was successfully test fired last November from Arihant, which also conducted the maiden test in March of a greatly advanced indigenous SLBM, codenamed K-4, which carried a dummy payload. Both the solid-fuelled medium range BO5 K-15 and intermediate range K-4 are from the ‘K’ series of SLBMs being developed by DRDO. The Arihant- class submarines will also be able to stow four of the 17-tonne K-4s that are 12 m long, 1.3 m in diameter and can carry a 2-tonne payload to targets 3,500 km away.
The Indian Navy has other missile imports apart from the Exocet. An abiding client for Soviet weaponry, India has various Russian-made cruise missiles in its inventory like the 3M-54E Klub (SS-N-27 Sizzler), Kh-35 Uran/3M-24 (SS-N-25 Switchblade) and Kh-31 (AS-17 Krypton). The Indian Navy was the first customer of the anti- ship/anti-submarine/land-attack 3M-54E Klub, a new series of short-range AShMs from the Novator Design Bureau. India’s six Talwar- class FFGs and the three Shivalik class frigates operate the 3M-54E Klub-N, the version launched from surface vessels and which can be installed in vertical launch cells or in angled missile boxes. Klub-S is launched from submarines, though what distinguishes the two versions is the design of the missile launchers and missile transport-launching containers.
India has inducted a large number of the 1.5-tonne Klub, which can deliver a 450 kg payload across 300 km. The weapon is powerful enough to disable even an aircraft carrier and its moderate weight allows its placement on even compact warships. Apart from its frigates, the Indian Navy has deployed the missile also on its Type 877EKM Sindhughosh- class ( Kilo- class) diesel-electric submarines. An air-launched version is reportedly under development, and it is likely that the Indian Navy’s long-range, maritime patrol aircraft could eventually be armed with it.
The Kh-35 Uran, from the Tactical Missile Corporation, arms the Indian Navy’s two 3,850-tonne Brahmaputra- class frigates – the third, INS Betwa, having been irreversibly damaged on 5 December while undergoing refit - and three Delhi- class destroyers. Each of these classes houses 16 of these missiles in four quadruple KT-184 launchers, angled at 30 degrees, two on either side of the bridge superstructure. All 16 Urans can be ripple-fired in 2 to 3 second intervals. Equivalent to Boeing’s Harpoon Block 1C AShM, these missiles have active radar homing (ARH) of a 130 km radius at 0.9 Mach, with a 145 kg warhead.
The multi- role MiG-29K fighter aircraft being inducted by the Indian Navy will be armed with both the Kh31A and Kh- 35E AShMs along with the Kh- 31P anti- radar missiles. Again, some 100 of these missiles were ordered by the Indian Navy in 1997, also for deployment on its Ilyushin Il- 38SD aircraft and Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole air superiority fighter. The 4.7-m long and 610 kg Kh-31A carries a 94 kg warhead up to 70 km and skims the sea as it approaches targets. Meanwhile, the Kh31AD with 110kg warhead is offered for export with an improved range of 160km when launched at high altitude.
India is also planning to equip its Shishumar- class ( HDW) submarines with Harpoon missiles, the world’s most successful AShM that is in service with the armed forces of over 30 countries and which currently arms the Indian Navy’s fleet of eight Boeing P-8I ASW aircraft. Upgraded over the years and now available as the allweather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship and land-strike Harpoon Block II, four of these missiles are carried by each P-8I.
Built in the 1970s by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997, the Harpoon has a low-level sea-skimming cruise trajectory and incorporates key guidance technologies from two other Boeing weapons programmes – the low-cost integrated GPS/INS (global positioning system/inertial navigation system) and the software, mission computer, GPS antenna and receiver from the SLAM-ER (standoff land attack missile- expanded response). For conventional anti-ship missions, the GPS/INS improves mid-course guidance to the target area, while the accurate navigation solution helps distinguish target ships from islands or other nearby landmasses or ships.