BrahMos cruise missile failure: Is it the first one?Why DRDO wants to hide the failure?

Latest test of Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile has failed, though initially test was declared as a success by the Defense Ministry and Defence Research and Development Organisation. BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is basically a soviet era supersonic antiship cruise missile designed to sink heavily defended naval warships like destroyers and aircraft carries, but due to lack of options in land attack cruise missile India is trying to adopt the BrahMos antiship missile for land attack role.

Later on problem was partially confirmed by an official release. "There were minor hitches in the last stage of the BrahMos missile during the current test at the Pokhran ranges of Rajasthan," BrahMos Aerospace Corporation's director Dr Sivathanu Pillai said. "The missile performance was absolutely normal until the last phase, but the missile missed the target, though it maintained the direction."

Questions that comes into mind is, was it the first failure of BrahMos missile or was it first one which was leaked out and exposed by the Indian media? Why DRDO wants to hide the failure? One must not forget the fact that this is not the first such incident, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has a long history of such incidents where several weapon tests were claimed to be huge success were later on either exposed by the Indian media as failed tests or India’s armed forces have to reject such claims. Therefore, DRDO has done itself little good by claiming success in its test-firing of the BrahMos missile, till the Indian media exposed the bogus nature of their claim. Even if one accepts DRDO’s latest position that performance of the missile was normal till the last phase, when it began malfunctioning, the fact that BrahMos land attack cruise missile was meant to hit its target precisely but missed the target completely leaves little room for claims of any success.

DRDO had declared previously several times after working on different missile programes for decades and spending crores of rupees that they have been tested successfully and are ready for induction in India’s armed forces but later on these claims lost their credibility when these missiles failed in the field tests conducted by the Indian armed forces. Surface-to-air Trishul missile is one such case where Missile was claimed to be tested several times and declared ready for use by DRDO but failed in actual trails by Indian armed forces. Government foreclosed the Trishul missile program of the DRDO due to its inability to meet critical operational requirements. Not very different is the case of two other missile systems, Akash and Nag. Similar is the case of the Akash medium range surface to air missile which is rejected by the Indian army after several failures in trails and was able to secure only a token order form the Indian air force for its requirement for medium range surface to air missile. Indian air force has placed a large order for SPYDER-MR medium range SAM from Israel. Nag anti tank missile is also having similar troubles as inspite to claims of several dozen of successful tests it is yet to enter in operational service and Indian army is placing major import-license production orders for antitank requirements from Europe.

Another example, Agni-III ballistic missile test by the DRDO in July 2006 was a failure as missile failed just after few seconds and fell into the sea but DRDO then maintained that the test was a successful partially and the problem arose only subsequently. The scientific temper, as reflected in intellectual honesty, openness and dedication to work. Taking into account typical history of DRDO one can’t be sure of success of the previous test.

Posted in: India,Missile,Russia