Army not to induct BrahMos without further trials

New Delhi (PTI): After its failure last month, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor has said his force would prefer further trials of BrahMos missile to be sure of the weapon's success, rather than hurrying up induction.

"No," he said when asked if the army would induct BrahMos' new vertical-launch version once it was ready. "We (the Army) are consumers here. We will like to go through further trials to prove its success. We will congratulate them whenever the missiles passes the test. It is wrong to waste public money," General Kapoor told PTI in an interview.

The 290-km range supersonic cruise missile, developed jointly by India and Russia under a joint venture, failed to hit its intended target during tests in the Pokhran ranges in Rajasthan desert last month.

Asked if the DRDO had complaints over the Army "leaking" information on the failed BrahMos test, Kapoor clarified that the army had reservations over DRDO's initial claim that the missile trial was a success. He said he was present during the missile testing in Rajasthan recently and watched the test-firing from about a kilometre away. The target was 53 kilometres away from the missile launch site, he said.

The missile can fly from a sea-skimming height of just 10 metres above the waves to an altitude of 15km. While it can achieve a maximum velocity of Mach 2 in the denser air at sea level, this goes up to Mach 2.7 in the rarefied upper atmosphere above 7 km. The missile has three propulsion systems. First, a gas generator blows it out of its canister, then a solid fuel booster speeds it up to Mach 2, after which an air-breathing liquid fuel ramjet takes over to propel it to its target.

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