By Dr Sanjeev Kumar Joshi
BrahMos has achieved several milestones during its ongoing silver jubilee year 2022. With a century of test firings conducted from ground, sea, underwater, and air platforms with an unbeatable success rate since its maiden successful test launch on June 12, 2001 (marked as “Russia Day” in the Russian Federation), this supersonic cruise missile has evolved as a formidable deterrent designed to undertake high value, strategic combat operations “across the spectrum” of modern warfare.
Globally reckoned as the “best and deadliest” supersonic cruise missile system, the multi-role, multi-platform BrahMos has not only fortified India’s defence posture in the 21st century but has also emerged as the “choicest weapon of deterrence” for many nations across continents who are willing to galvanise their military stature amid heightened global volatility and rising conflicts.
BrahMos – born out of a Joint Venture (JV) military-technical programme involving India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya (NPOM) – has established itself as the most formidable and an incredibly versatile precision strike weapon. The tactical missile has been successfully deployed onboard India’s front-line land, naval and air platforms and has become a “force multiplier”.
The incredible journey of the BrahMos JV started on February 12, 1998, when India and Russia signed a historic inter-governmental agreement (IGA) in Moscow, envisaging to design, develop, produce, and deliver the world’s fastest precision-guided weapon no nation had ever built or possessed. The establishment of BrahMos Aerospace as the JV entity responsible for the design, development, production, and delivery of the state-of-the-art BrahMos weapon system, paved the way for the development of a very unique and highly successful “Missile Industrial Consortium” (MIC) in India.
Even as the best and top-most scientists, technocrats and engineers from both India and Russia joined hands in conceptualising and giving shape to the powerful weapon, the unique MIC model formulated as part of the JV, resulted in the parallel development and growth of the domestic defence industry in India.
Following its first successful test firing conducted on June 12, 2001, in anti-ship mode from a ground-based launcher off the Odisha coast in eastern India, BrahMos continued to evolve as a high-end versatile weapon and subsequently validated its capability in land-attack mode.
The missile has been developed, tested, and successfully deployed in land-to-land, land-to-sea, sea-to-land, sea-to-sea, air-to-land, and air-to-sea configurations in all three Services of the Indian Defence Forces.
The Indian Navy became our first user to deploy the deadly BrahMos onboard its surface warfare platform in 2005. Several Indian naval warships are currently armed with the missile’s anti-ship and land-attack variants installed as the “prime strike weapon” onboard these platforms. Indian Army started deploying the land-attack BrahMos version from 2007 onward and has raised several BrahMos LACM regiments to date.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) raised the land-attack BrahMos squadron in 2014. On January 20, 2020, the IAF commissioned the formidable “Tigersharks” squadron consisting of the Sukhoi-30MKI air combat platform armed with the lethal, highly advanced BrahMos air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) system capable of undertaking precision attacks from large, stand-off ranges to neutralise both sea-surface and ground-based targets.
BrahMos continued to chart one after another glorious milestone which, in turn, empowered the indigenous defence industry. As a true flagbearer of “Make-In-India” in defence indigenisation and growth, the BrahMos JV successfully built a robust defence eco-system involving over 200 small, medium & large defence industries, laboratories, institutions, and academia, which became the backbone of the JV programme.
By designing and producing several components, systems, and sub-systems for BrahMos, the domestic defence industry collectively worked and maintained the critical supply chain and ensured timely delivery of the missile to the Indian Armed Forces. This, in turn, resulted in sustainable and continuous workflow for the domestic defence industry.
BrahMos has strongly fortified modern India’s defence & security posture. The BrahMos JV remains at the forefront of defence indigenisation, production, and integration. BrahMos Aerospace, in close cooperation with DRDO, has marched ahead in its commitment to build an “Atmanirbhar Bharat” and a “Shashakt Bharat” (powerful India) of the 21st century.
A series of successful BrahMos test firings conducted recently (in the year 2022) by the Tri-Services of India (Army, Navy & Air Force) has validated the technological superiority of this unparalleled missile system. The advanced variants of the tactical weapon flight tested from land, naval, and air platforms have proved its “enhanced operational and functional capabilities”. The missile has featured several critical technologies, systems, and sub-systems, all developed indigenously and integrated domestically, to produce excellent results.
In consonance with the Govt of India’s grand vision of building an “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) based on the flagship ‘Make-In-India’ and ‘Design-In-India’ endeavours, the BrahMos JV, in collaboration with DRDO has identified significant technology clusters for in-house R&D, design and manufacturing of missile components and related systems.
Achieving another historic milestone on January 28, 2022, BrahMos Aerospace signed a contract with the Republic of the Philippines to deliver the shore-based anti-ship BrahMos systems to the Philippines Navy. With this landmark export deal, BrahMos became India’s first full-scale weapon system to be exported to a third-party, friendly, responsible nation.
Being a leading flagbearer of ‘Make-In-India’, BrahMos Aerospace is now going to ‘Make-for-the-World.’ It has become a hallmark achievement for team BrahMos, DRDO, all our defence-industrial partners and the entire Nation.
The signing of this historic export pact with the Republic of the Philippines resulted from a very forward-looking act-east policy of Govt of India to promote responsible defence exports. With the first export of BrahMos, the world will also see a paradigm shift in customer care, training, quality of deliverables and after-sale support. Brahmos will ensure to take forward the best Indian ethics practices in an all-around manner.
BrahMos and a few other Indian weapons and systems have been listed as the country’s ‘major defence export items. The multi-million-dollar BrahMos export deal has bolstered India’s defence export prospects and paved the way for realising the ambitious target of an overall export turnover worth US$5 billion by the country’s defence & aerospace sector in the next three years (by 2025.)
Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India’s aspiration to position itself as one of the top-most defence & aerospace technology manufacturers, producers and exporters in the world has inched closer to becoming a reality in the foreseeable future and “Team Brahmos” feels proud of being first in achieving it.
Dr Sanjeev Kumar Joshi is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited
