Following the current Indo-Pak battle, which noticed established paradigms examined and new threats emerge, one functionality, specifically, underscored a crucial vulnerability for Pakistan: India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile (SSCM).
As we detailed in our earlier episode, Pakistan’s air defence system didn’t cease the BrahMos SSCM at restricted scale, although India possible expelled a few of its oldest missile shares with an older-generation seeker and electronics stack. If India had been to make use of its newer missiles at large-scale the Pakistan Air Power’s (PAF) capability to mount any type of air energy would, in all probability, be quickly deprecated.
On this second episode of Defence Uncut, we delve deeper into the precise risk posed by the BrahMos. This missile system, a joint Indo-Russian enterprise that more and more displays India’s increasing indigenous defence R&D and manufacturing base, will not be a static risk.
It’s an evolving functionality with vital implications for regional safety dynamics and Pakistan’s defensive technique.
The BrahMos: An Evolving Multi-Area Risk
The BrahMos is a flexible supersonic cruise missile, initially conceived as an anti-ship weapon. Nonetheless, it has since matured right into a multi-platform, multi-role system.
In line with the main points mentioned in our newest podcast episode, roughly 76% of the BrahMos was developed with Indian inputs by 2024, a determine projected to rise to 85%. This highlights a strong home capability to boost and produce the system.
Past its authentic surface-launched anti-ship variant, the BrahMos contains sub-surface and air-launched variations. The air-launched BrahMos-A, deployed from the Indian Air Power’s Sukhoi Su-30MKI multi-role fighters, was an element within the current battle.
Total, the BrahMos grants India vital operational flexibility, permitting for stand-off strikes towards crucial infrastructure, together with Pakistan Air Power (PAF) airbases, thereby threatening belongings even earlier than they are often introduced into play.
Additional growth is ongoing, with plans to increase the BrahMos’s vary, create a extra compact and lighter model for integration with a broader vary of IAF fighters just like the Tejas, and, most notably, develop a hypersonic successor, the BrahMos-II.
This steady evolution ensures the BrahMos will stay a urgent concern for Pakistani defence planners. The mixture of supersonic pace, low-altitude flight profile, and precision steerage makes it a formidable problem for standard air defence methods.
India’s dedication to this program additionally suggests an intention to discipline these missiles in appreciable numbers, additional complicating the defensive equation.
The Acute Problem to Pakistan’s Defences
The BrahMos missile system, with its multi-variant deployment functionality, presents an acute risk. Its core traits – notably excessive supersonic pace, difficult flight trajectory, and precision steerage – considerably cut back the response window for defensive methods.
This inherent design makes the BrahMos a fancy goal to intercept and permits it to successfully threaten key operational and strategic belongings deep inside Pakistani territory.
As mentioned within the podcast, the problem stems not simply from the missile’s particular person capabilities, however from the potential scale and class with which India can deploy this method.
This necessitates a re-evaluation of Pakistan’s present air defence infrastructure to make sure it will possibly successfully counter this pervasive risk, significantly towards coordinated or saturation assaults.
The Want for a Specialised Defensive Resolution
Addressing the BrahMos problem requires extra than simply a rise within the amount of current air defence belongings. It calls for a qualitative enhancement, specializing in methods with a confirmed functionality towards low-flying, high-speed cruise missiles.
As our analysts Aseem ul-Islam and Arslan Khan explored, this factors in direction of the necessity for battle-tested surface-to-air missile (SAM) methods particularly designed for such engagements.
Platforms comparable to MBDA’s CAMM (Frequent Anti-Air Modular Missile) household or Diehl Defence’s IRIS-T SL supply the engagement envelopes and response speeds vital to offer a remotely enough defensive layer towards SSCMs just like the BrahMos.
These methods are engineered to intercept maneuvering, supersonic targets and will present a reputable layer of defence for crucial belongings, such because the PAF’s air bases.
In the direction of a Holistic and Indigenous Air Defence Technique
Past fast procurement, a extra holistic method is warranted. Pakistan might leverage this problem as a possibility to develop its indigenous defence manufacturing capabilities.
There’s potential to combine such efforts with current packages, just like the Nationwide Engineering and Scientific Fee’s (NESCOM) LoMADS, which can have the same protection vary to the extended-range CAMM and IRIS-T SL households, i.e., 7 to 100 km.
Creating or co-producing a succesful SAM system domestically wouldn’t solely deal with the BrahMos risk but additionally improve strategic autonomy, a vital issue given the procurement restrictions and premium prices Pakistan usually faces on the worldwide market.
Such an initiative would supply a sustainable, long-term resolution tailor-made to Pakistan’s particular operational atmosphere and useful resource concerns.
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