Brahmos - 3 would be smaller and lighter variant of the Brahmos missile currently fitted on Indian Navy warships. Tass reported on February 20, 2013 that the new missile would be 6 m in length and weigh 1.5 tons. It's range would be the same as Brahmos - 290 km. The new missile would be capable of launch from standard sized submarine torpedo tube, as is submarine launched version of the Exocet missile to be fitted on Type 75 Scorpene submarines currently under production at Mazagaon Docks in Mumbai. The smaller size and lighter weight of the Brahmos - 3 will also make it suitable for carriage by smaller aircraft, such as the Indian Navy's MiG-29K and the under-development FGFA. The current version of Brahmos can only be carried by Su-30MKI Super 30 aircraft. BrahMos Aerospace chief A. Sivathanu Pillai first announced the new Brahmos version in New Delhi on March 12, 2011. He said plans are afoot to deploy BrahMos on the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA). [via Hindu] “If we are able to reduce the weight of the missile below two tons, we can deploy it on the FGFA and we are looking to do that in future,” he said. He reiterated that Brahmos was considering developing a smaller version of the missile to equip newly acquired naval fighters such as the MiG-29K, at a press conference at DefExpo 2012 in New Delhi on March 31, 2012. New Ramjet EngineBrahmos-3 will be an altogether new missile that will use technologies developed for Brahmos. Since Brahmos-3 needs to be considerably smaller, it will need a completely new, smaller sized ramjet engine. Brahmos Aerospace has already started work on the new engine, which will be developed in Russia. (Brahmos engines continue to be manufactured in Russia, though eventually manufacture will shift to India.) |
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Missiles > Cruise Missiles >
Brahmos-3 Missile |