India: Defeating the cruise missile threats
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pdfcrowd.com open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API CENTRAL ASIA EAST ASIA OCEANIA SOUTH ASIA SOUTHEAST ASIA REGIONS BLOGS DIPLOMACY ECONOMY ENVIRONMENT FEATURES INTERVIEWS MAGAZINE PHOTO ESSAYS PODCASTS POLITICS SECURITY SOCIETY VIDEOS TOPICS CHINA POWER FLASHPOINTS BLOGS Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons India: Defeating the Cruise Missile Threat The country may need to look beyond a conventional defense, to deterrence by punishment. As India considers its threat environment, it must consider not just ballistic missiles, but also cruise missiles, such as those that might potentially be launched from Pakistan or China. These latter are far more difficult to detect and intercept than are ballistic missiles. A cruise missile has been defined as a “weapon which automatically flies an essentially horizontal cruise flight profile for most of the duration of its flight between launch and its terminal trajectory to impact.” Land-attack cruise missiles further complicate the task of any defense system, since they can be terrain hugging and can also fly a circuitous trajectory . By Debalina Ghoshal October 26, 2013 22 Shares 0 Comments FLASHPOINTS MENU SEARCH
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Transcript of India: Defeating the cruise missile threats
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India: Defeating the CruiseMissile ThreatThe country may need to look beyond aconventional defense, to deterrence bypunishment.
As India considers its threat environment, it mustconsider not just ballistic missiles, but also cruisemissiles, such as those that might potentially belaunched from Pakistan or China. These latter are farmore difficult to detect and intercept than are ballistic missiles.
A cruise missile has been defined as a “weapon which automatically flies an essentially horizontal cruise flightprofile for most of the duration of its flight between launch and its terminal trajectory to impact.” Land-attackcruise missiles further complicate the task of any defense system, since they can be terrain hugging and canalso fly a circuitous trajectory.
By Debalina GhoshalOctober 26, 2013
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In particular, Pakistan’s Babur and Raad cruise missiles represent a threat to India. Meanwhile, China’s cruisemissile arsenal include the Seersucker, Silkworm, the ground launched DH-10 and the air-launched CJ-10, C-101 and HN series, to name a few. Some of China’s missiles are nuclear capable.
As it considers these weapons, one of the key questions that confronts New Delhi is whether it should optsolely for a cruise missile defense or also adopt a “deterrence by punishment” posture with the help of its owncruise missile arsenal. While a cruise missile defense could possibly intercept a subsonic cruise missile, it maybe difficult to intercept supersonic cruise missiles and it is virtually impossible to intercept hypersonic cruisemissiles. Although at present neither Pakistan nor China possess a hypersonic cruise missile, that could verywell change. China already has supersonic cruise missiles such as the C-101 and C-301. Pakistan has alsoacquired the new CM-400 AKG, a supersonic cruise missile claimed to be hard to intercept because of itsvelocity.
For its part, India is currently working on a ballistic missile defense. India’s Defence Research andDevelopment Organisation is developing a defense system with two layers, with Advanced Air Defence (AAD)as the first layer and the two-stage Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) as the second layer. However, neither PAD norAAD would be able to intercept cruise missiles.
Using anti-air missiles of various ranges, it may still be possible to intercept supersonic anti-ship cruisemissiles (although intercepting land-attack missiles remains a Herculean task). France, for instance, has beenable to intercept supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles using its Principal Anti-Air Missile System. For it toreplicate the feat, India would need an effective command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillanceand reconnaissance system. Even with that, intercepting hypersonic cruise missiles would very likely remainunrealistic. Moreover, missiles with low radar signatures make the job of any air or missile defense systemthat much more difficult. Any surface-to-air missiles used would need to be highly sophisticated, with high-power large aperture radars, although even that might not be enough to intercept incoming threats. Indiacould hope to defeat air-launched cruise missiles by destroying the aircraft that carry them. However, bothPakistan and China are developing stealth technology that could make it difficult for India to locate anddestroy the aircraft before they fire.
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destroy the aircraft before they fire.
All of which means that while defense by denial is an important approach, India ought also to consider anotherform of defense. Specifically, it must concentrate on its own hypersonic cruise missiles. To maximizedeterrence, its cruise missile arsenal should also be nuclear capable. Deterrence by punishment is a usefuloption when defense in general may not be sufficiently robust to counter the threat, and nuclear-capablecruise missiles would be as effective in that respect as nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Indeed, the moment amissile becomes nuclear capable, it has value as deterrence.
In fact, next-generation cruise missiles for India and for other countries are likely not only to be faster, butwill also be able to carry non-nuclear warheads that are equally cataclysmic, like directed energy weapons,such as electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons that could disable command, control and communicationsystems. A high-speed, sophisticated cruise missile carrying such a deadly warhead would surely give anadversary pause.
Already, India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is capable of evading any missile defense system in theworld. There are also plans to develop a hypersonic version. Either version is likely to defeat any defensesystem it counters. The next step would be for the missiles to be nuclear capable, making them a deterrenceagainst not only conventional cruise missile attacks, but also against nuclear strikes using cruise missiles oreven ballistic missiles.
Debalina Ghoshal is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies.
Topics Flashpoints
Tags Babur and Raad cruise missiles ballistic missile BrahMos cruise missile cruise missile
India missile defense
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• Reply •
zafar ali khan • a year ago
pakistan and india must look at the people of their contries because both nations are leading a life below thepoverty line because they both have limited resourses now both the nations are not only nations but also atomicnations they should improve the lives of the people and leave the race of being superior than the other one bothhave achieved their goals now they should start achieving other goals likeroads,hospitals,agriculture,unemployment and many other basic needs because it is a shame that being atomicpowers people are dieing from hunger and unemployment
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• Reply •
Zubin Mahernosh Darbari • 5 months ago> zafar ali khan
India develops it because China has it and Pak develops as India has it.
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• Reply •
AMT • 4 months ago> zafar ali khan
that is good approach, but one can do nothing, when it has neighbor like India.
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Fastvue • a year ago
The best defence is to make friend and to commit no military use of force as the current PM just signed on hisrecent visit to China and may be making the same Turkish deal to purchase the FD-2000. China is properly can
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• Reply •
play a positive role in calming down the conflict between India & Parkistan.
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• Reply •
applesauce • a year ago
no ballistic/cruise missile defence is workable against powers like china in the forsseeable future, you can notreach 100% intercept rate and countries like china can produce them more cheaply and quicky with less requiredinfustructure than you can build interceptors and its associated sensors and other infustructure(which themselvesare vunerable to being attacked). the only thing india can do(especially considering china's greater wealthand production capabilities) that is effective as deterence is to build many of its own missiles which it already isdoing.
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• Reply •
Bharatsevak • 4 days ago
Missiles are the real game changers and determinants of future warfare. They are the true deterrents of war notMillitary Aircrafts. Infact they have reduced the Mighty Air Superiority platforms to the role of meager launchplatforms.In presence of a strog Air Defence Shield, all enemy aircraft dare not enter airspace of such a country. Especiallysince the speed of SAMs is multiple times that of the fastest fighters. So there is a very narrow margin of escape.eg. the Nirbhay ALCM or the Brahmos ALSCM can penetrate deep inside enemy territory from Launch platformslike SO 30MKI while Astra supersonic (4Mach)AAM takes care of the platform itself from enemy interceptoraircraft/AAM/SAMs.
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ash • a year ago
Isn&apost the Chinese DH 10 based on the Tomahawk cruise missile? The Tomahawk has an engine that isconfigured for low altitude performance. This would imply that the high altitude capability of the land attack DH-10 to cross the Himalayas against Indian targets may be suspect. Any opinions?
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Alex • a year ago
(at)bobo and klu: AEGIS BMD is meant to counter ballistic threats. The brahmos is more or less an anti shipweapon. Anti-surface supersonic missiles are always going to be more difficult to detect and successfully interceptdue to their sea skimming, high G maneuvers. A ballistic threat is under the control of gravity and with the rightpositioning a BMD platform either shore based or sea based is a math problem away from a successful intercept.
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• Reply •
derainer • a year ago
The <b>Shaurya missile</b> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S..." title="Sanskrit"rel="nofollow">Sanskrit</a>: <i>Valour</i>) is a canister launched <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...title="Hypersonic" rel="nofollow">hypersonic</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S..." title="Surface-to-surface missile" rel="nofollow">surface-to-surface</a> tactical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...title="Missile" rel="nofollow">missile</a> developed by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I..."title="India" rel="nofollow">Indian</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D..." title="Defence Researchand Development Organization" rel="nofollow">Defence Research and Development Organization</a> (<ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D..." title="DRDO" rel="nofollow">DRDO</a>) for use by the <ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I..." title="Indian Armed Forces" rel="nofollow">Indian Armed Forces</a>.
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Kanes • a year ago
In sum, a nuclear arms race is on in Asia. China must assist Pakistan to always remain a step ahead of India interms of the number of nuclear warheads. At the moment this is the case but it must be maintained. Which Asiannation has the most capability and financial clout to outdo the other in investments in nuclear weapons? Theanswer is obvious.
Saudi Arabia will be the fourth largest defence spender by this year's end (after USA, China and Russia).
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Saudi should tap into Pakistan's nuclear deterrence since it is almost impossible for Saudi to have their ownnuclear weapons program. This is another source of funding Pakistan's nuclear proliferation.
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Kanes • a year ago
Same logic applies to China and Pakistan. They too must develop and proliferate nuclear weapons carrying cruiseand short range tactical ballistic missiles. In this game China-Pakistan allies have the edge because India is aloneagainst this twin threat that covers the entire Indian territory from its east, north and west except for south. IfChina and/or Pakistan can cover India's south too with a tactical ballistic missile deployment platform,then India will be completely covered by tactical weapons along all its strategically important economic andmilitary targets.
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• Reply •
Guest • 8 months ago> Kanes
then China has to fight with Japan South Korea,Indonesia,Vieat nam, philipines, Tawin , and near india and africa india will punish all ships of China in both bay of bengal and arbian sea and in indianocean ....most of chinese trade will be finished for next ten decades in future with other european andafrican countries , we will love to capture half pakistan and other half we will offer beluchi to rule pakistani high level think tank, we will establish direct road to Afganistan Iran ,kzaksthan ,Ujbekisthan,russia, and we can get teebat back and as well as kashmir ,total ports sea line will be occupied by india ,sindh region will be indian land .... We are waiting for opportunity when pakistan and china attacktogether... because we know we can see the profit ....we have waited since 1947 now you 2 countries give that opportunity of war... and we will send china to history and offer pakistan north to beluch already chinese made road port everything hihihihihihi we love to acquire ....we are ever ready...
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RickJoe • a year ago
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The author clearly has little experience with Chinese cruise missile development.
C-101 and C-301 are defunct cold war era missiles. While supersonic, they were liquid fuelled, large and unwieldyand never entered extensive service, not least due to their short range. The HN series of missiles, while oftenthrown around, has shown no signs to actually exist. The Seersucker and Silkworm missiles are obsolete ship toship missiles derived from the Soviet Styx, and have been replaced on all PLA Navy combatants withi theHarpoon-esque YJ-83.
The DH/CJ-10 series does exist and is in extensive service, however there is little evidence to suggest it is aimed atIndia. While it is loaded upon road mobile TELs and new long range H-6K bombers that can carry 7 of the 1500-2500km cruise missiles each, ballistic missiles remain a far more competent means of delivering nuclearwarheads.
The author also ignores that under current MTCR agreements, Both Brahmos and a hypothetical hypersonicBrahmos II will be restricted to under 300km range, meaning a deliver system must be very close to its intendedtarget. Good for tactical use but not so much for strategic deterrence.
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• Reply •
vivek • a year ago> RickJoe
Mr, rickjoe, I would suggest u to only type this { the world fastest supersonic and hypersonic missile in theworld) on Google , then you will get the answer, is bramhos jointly developed by Russia and india, now the magical speed bramhos 2 in in development. Rest countries are just garbage
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vivek • a year ago> RickJoe
Mr, rickjoe, I would suggest u to only type this { the world fastest supersonic and hypersonic missile in the
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world) on Google , then you will get the answer, is bramhos jointly developed by Russia and india, now the magical speed bramhos 2 in in development. Rest countries are just garbage
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• Reply •
TDog • a year ago
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Mutually Assured Punishment sounds like a decent enough proposal, but history shows it does not work. Duringthe War of the Cities phase of the Iran-Iraq War, neither side held back from launching missiles at each otherdespite knowing retaliation was forthcoming. Another fundamental flaw in the logic of this argument is thenotion of reciprocity begetting a cessation of hostilities. A proportionate response is unlikely to deter aggressionand a disproportionately high response is actually likelier to engender an aggressive reaction.
War is more than the big guns. A robust military certainly helps, but given the complexity of the Kashmirconflict it is unlikely that a few silos full of advanced cruise missiles will deter one side or the other from engagingin hostilities. Pakistan's use of proxies further reduces the effectiveness of this mode of thinking. BombingIslamabad in retaliation for a guerilla attack in Indian Kashmir would be viewed as an unconscionable breach ofinternational law while using a supersonic cruise missile to attack a guerilla camp would be a cost ineffective wayof dealing with the problem.
I understand the need for a modern and effective deterrent force, but China and Pakistan are unlikely to bedeterred. On China's part, the Sino-Indian border dispute will almost certainly remain within the confinesof the border region between the two nations, so justifying the development of a strategic deterrant over what isessentially a local dispute is boderline comical and not unlike suggesting the purchase of a bazooka to deal witha noisy neighbor. Pakistan, for its part, relies upon the use of crossborder terrorism and guerilla proxies to furtherits goals in Jammu and Kashmir. Such activities are unlikely to be curtailed by the procurement and deployment
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Mishmael • a year ago
Eventually India is going to have to really examine its cost-return formula for defence. India's competitivestrengths in military affaris of which there are many, are however not in the field of cutting-edge missiles.Developing and building hypersonic missiles may be impressive, but mabye India can derive the same benefitfrom spending the same (massive) amount of money upon a resilient infrastructure (which will have the addedbenefit of stimulating civilian economic growth) or on smaller, more mobile srmy strike corps (which canrespond quickly to emergencies).
I think the cruise missile thing is not really about defence first but rather about prestige and the interests of themilitary-corporate elite, because a) India could easily purchase effective druise missiles without having to developthem itself and b) cruise missiles are never so numerous or decisive enough to deter modern militaries.
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klu • a year ago
"These latter (cruise missile) are far more difficult to detect and intercept than are ballistic missiles"
A cruise missle is more difficult to shoot down than a ballistic missile? REALLY?? REALLY???
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• Reply •
bobo harum • a year ago
Can the Brahmos evade the new Aegis ABM defence system ? I doubt very much it can.
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• Reply •
Jaya Sankar Yakkala • a year ago> bobo harum
ABM and CM are different sir. It cant.
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