Only 'defensive' version of India's Brahmos missile for export

India is offering only the land-to-sea version of the Brahmos for export as of now underlining the fact that it is to be used for protective purposes only, Senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah reports.

New Delhi:With many countries across the world expressing keen interest in buying the deadly Brahmos, India is offering only the defensive version of the supersonic cruise missile as of now, a source close to the developments told ETV Bharat.

“From South Africa to Southeast Asia to South America, many countries have approached us. But as of now only the ‘land to sea’ or the defensive version of the missile is for sale. This is meant for the protection and self-defence of the buyer rather than the offensive versions of the weapon which can be launched from aircraft, ship or submarine.”

Brahmos has several variants. Besides being capable of being launched from land, sea and air, a hypersonic version capable of speeds of Mach 7-8 is also being developed.

On whether the Philippines will be the first customer as reported recently in the media, the source said: “We are negotiating with various countries although the COVID 19 pandemic has played havoc with our timelines. As far as the Philippines is concerned, nothing is final till the delivery.”

On Tuesday, the Indian Army successfully tested the Brahmos in a ‘top-attack’ or ‘vertical deep-dive’ configuration where the missile is fired at a near-vertical angle, which then climbs up to about 14 km before taking a steep dive making a beeline for the target.

This version will be extremely effective in high-altitude terrain like that of the Himalayas in the north.

Touted to be among the fasted cruise missiles, the 3-ton Brahmos, with a strike range of about 450 km, is a two-stage precision strike projectile that operates on a fire-and-forget principle. With a top speed of 2.8 mach (3,347 km an hour), it is capable of carrying a 300 kg warhead.

Indian efforts to sell the missile continue even as the country is locked in an ongoing tense seven-month-long faceoff with China at several points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The border row has now escalated into a full-blown mobilization with more than 1,00,000 soldiers deployed across the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

Besides the Taiwan issue, China also faces a belligerent neighbourhood across the South China Sea over contested territorial claims.

On the flurry of tests of various versions of the Brahmos and other missile systems from India’s arsenal, the source said: “Two or three more launches are planned for this week itself and that is it for now. All these are user trials by the Army, Navy and IAF and on different targets.”

A joint venture set up in 1998 between the India government’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Russian state-owned NPO Mashinostroyenia between India and Russia, ‘Brahmos’ is a portmanteau drawn from the Brahmaputra river and the Moskva river.

All Brahmos missiles are manufactured in India by Brahmos Aerospace, where India owns a 50.5 per cent share while Russia has 49.5 per cent share.

The entire revenues generated from the sale of the Brahmos is to be kept aside for research and development (R&D) activity in order to further develop the missile and to keep on technologically upgrading it.

But most importantly, the Brahmos will add a new dimension to India’s ‘strategic outreach’ policy.