India has successfully test-fired surface-to-air Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles hitting the aerial target at high speed, India continues to build military capabilities as a great power.
The race is on, India wants to catch up with China in 10 years in terms of military advancement and it seems such ambitions are supported by the majority of people in India.
India has been neutral for most of its existence since 1948 but now, the Indian government and military planners have decided that India must be a great power in the world, and being a great power requires a country to be totally independent and should have unity and social order at home supported by economic growth and military might to defend not only country’s interests abroad but also its accumulated wealth at home.
With such ambitions, India starting in late 2020, decided to accelerate its military upgrade by both buying new advanced weapons and speeding up the development of local technologies connected to defense and that’s where Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles come into play.
According to military experts, the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile is said to be India’s first truly successful project and for that reason, it has risen India’s defense bar on the International scene as countries like the Philippines, Vietnam is already talking about using it to defend their interests in the South China Sea.
Although the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile has been hyped up as the best by the media, it had a weakness of range and being a single type weapon and India has been with the help of Russia trying to solve it.
So yesterday, it was announced that India had successfully tested its improved version of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile which is a medium-range surface-to-air missile on the coast of Odisha’ Balasore according to Defence Research and Development Organization officials.
After seeing the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile as a successful project, the Indian military decided to make different versions of the same weapon for different purposes ranging from air-launched Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles to surface Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles, the surface to air and then to sea-launched one and so far, they have been pretty successful.
Brahmos supersonic cruise missile project will be the most important project India’s military has undertaken as it offers them confidence and a base for starting to develop a new generation of weapons especially missiles which have been a big headache for India’s military for many years.
According to Defence officials, ” the medium-range surface-to-air missile MRSAM-Army missile flight system tested from ITR Balasore, Odisha at around 10:30 intercepting a high-speed aerial target at a long-range. The target was destroyed by the missile in a direct hit”.
This test comes after India successfully tested surface to the surface version of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile on Wednesday which took place at a missile test range in Andaman and Nicobar and the extended range missile hit its target with pinpoint accuracy.
” The long-range precision strike capability of the advanced version of the Brahmos missile has been successfully validated. Pin-point destruction of the target”, the Navy spokesperson tweeted.
Last week, India’s parliamentary standing committee congratulated the government for signing a deal with the Philippines for the supply of brahmos missiles. This shows how the whole country has become proud of the successful Brahmos project which has been developed in cooperation with Russia.
The parliamentary standing committee also recommended the Indian government step up efforts to secure more export orders for more indigenously developed platforms. The India-Philipines Brahmos missile deal talked about was sealed in January of this year and it’s worth 375 million dollars to supply three batteries of Brahmos offshore-based anti-ship missile system to help defend its interests in the South China Sea.
As India continues to rapidly develop its military capabilities, Countries like the US, China, Russia, and Pakistan are watching and following it closely as they all try to figure out what the effects of such capabilities will mean for the region and relations between their respective countries.
