Introduction
Jointly developed, marketed and produced by Russia and India, the BrahMos is a supersonic anti-ship cruising missile (ASCM). Weighing 2,500 kg and with an engagement range of 450 km, the Brahmos is one of India’s mainstay stand-off range weapons. India can deploy the BrahMos from surface warships and land, aircraft and submarines, making this ASCM a versatile asset – and for Pakistan, a credible threat.
Simply put, the BrahMos confers India the ability to (1) engage time-sensitive targets (TST) – e.g. moving ships or vehicles – by leveraging a near Mach 3 cruising speed (i.e. around 3,700 km/h, a standard subsonic ASCM a one-third this speed or less) and (2) heavily pressure surface ship and land-based point air defence systems and require the defending side to expand its missile-counter umbrella.
Both factors are relevant to Pakistan: the dissemination of the BrahMos within each of India’s service arms (i.e. Army, Air Force and Navy) will put Pakistan’s surface-based delivery platforms (e.g. fast attack crafts and land-based missile launchers) and other high-value targets – e.g. infrastructure – under threat.
There is also the commercial advantage of possessing a scarcely available product in a supersonic ASCM, especially one capable of sustaining that flight speed for the duration of its flight. While not relevant to Pakistan from a threat-perception aspect, the proliferation of the BrahMos – and its analogous counterparts – will provide potent anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities to countries whom the Indians and Russians are willing to sell, e.g. Southeast Asian, Middle East and African militaries
However, for Pakistan the relevant issue is that the BrahMos requires each of Pakistan’s service arms to (1) develop or acquire adequate defensibility measures and (2) consider acquiring analogous capabilities (i.e. their own supersonic cruising missile platform) to help support its conventional deterrence profile. Unfortunately, there are limitations – even on the market in general (much less Pakistan’s fiscal limitations) – which will show that “countering” the BrahMos may be an unreasonable expectation from a defensibility standpoint. Pakistan’s emphasis may be placed on acquiring an analogous solution in an effort to shore-up conventional deterrence.
Background
The BrahMos was born from India’s pursuit of a next-generation cruise missile from 1983, when India had initiated the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).[1] The US-Iraq War of the early 1990s gave additional momentum to the IGMDP, prompting India to consult its partner Russia for support.
The BrahMos is a product of BrahMos Aerospace, a joint-venture involving Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) and India’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) formed in 1998 with a joint-investment of $250 million U.S. In terms of equity, NPOM and DRDO own 49.5% and 50.5% of BrahMos Aerospace, respectively.[2] According to BrahMos Aerospace, DRDO contributed its experience in producing “inertial navigation systems, mission software [and] mobile launchers” while NPOM brought its expertise in “ramjet engines together with a number of technologies for space systems.”[3]
In effect, for the BrahMos ASCM to reach fruition, the BrahMos Aerospace consortium required NPOM’s competency in ramjet propulsion technology, an area India did not (at least in 1998) have enough – if any – expertise in to independently undertake the program. This is an important point that will be discussed towards the end of this article regarding Pakistan’s options for acquiring an analogous capability.
BrahMos Aerospace conducted the first successful test-firing of the BrahMos ASCM in 2001 from a land-based launcher at India’s Integrated Test Range in Orissa.[4] Like other cruise missiles, the BrahMos ASCM utilizes an air-breathing engine, but to enable its supersonic cruising speed, it uses a ramjet engine instead of a miniature turbojet engine (as commonly found on subsonic ASCM such as the Harpoon and Exocet).
In air-breathing engines, thrust is achieved by having the engine intake external oxygen and have it help trigger combustion with the fuel. In turn, this hot air is pushed through the nozzle at the rear of the engine, thus resulting in thrust. However, for hot air to flow through the nozzle, the combustion must occur at a high pressure, which – in turbojet engines – is achieved with a compressor. While beset with moving parts, this process enables the turbojet engine to independently provide thrust to move from zero to X.
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