Table of Contents
- Alarm bells rang out through India’s defense establishment on April 14, 2022, as the Russian warship Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian Neptune missiles.
- India needs to urgently focus and learn from the incident as Large portions of India’s arms and weaponry bear the “made-in-Russia”
- According to a report published in Defense Post, Pakistan has developed the Harba anti-ship missile, “a non-nuclear, fire-and-forget” weapon system.
India has been keeping a close Watch on Pakistan Navy’s
Why India needs to be Cautious ?
- Harba is a medium range ship launched subsonic cruise missile system capable of targeting sea as well as land targets in “all weather operation”at a maximum range of 280 kilometers.
- Can reach up to 988 kms/hr
- India’s Brahmos 290 km , Supersonic Cruise Missile capable of “ All weather operations “
Harba
- Gross weight: 1.3 tonnes
- Diameter: 0.5 meters
- Length: 6.8 meters
- The missile if fire and forget type.
- It embarks inertial navigation technologies with GPS and GLONASS systems.
- According to GIDS, the missile features the following guidance systems: a DSMAC camera, imaging infrared seeker, and radar seeker.
- In order to meet navies needs, Harba has a modular design allowing to be fitted with a variety of warheads (fragmentation, anti-ship), other guidance systems, and modulate range capabilities.
- The project has been developed for the Pakistan Navy in order to create a indigenous solution for Pakistan ships that are fitted with anti-ship missiles.
- It already currently equips several naval platforms within the Pakistan Navy said a GIDS spokesperson at DIMDEX 2022.
- Harbah missiles will also equip future Pakistan’s PN MILGEM corvettes as Naval Newspreviously reported.
- India’s Brahmos is better in all forms than Harba because of which nations like Philippines, Vietnam & Indonesia wants to invest in it
- A report by Economic Times claimed that the Moskva (Russian warship) “had anti-ship missiles and surface-to-air missiles, but was not equipped with Russia’s latest generation Kalibr cruise missiles or hypersonic missiles.”
- Indian Navy warships are equipped with the best available technology, and now carry “Barak 1 and Barak 8 surface-to-air missiles, along with a close-in weapons suite (CIWS) to tackle aerial and cruise missile threats”.
- India developed the Barak missile range in collaboration with Israel
- China has made considerable use of Pakistan as its proxy against India, stirring an already fiery political and military rivalry.
- Given the escalating climate and Pakistan’s stockpile of anti-ship missiles, India must derive critical lessons from the sinking of the Moskva, and aim to fortify its Naval fleet.
India’s Crucial CHAFF System
- India has reportedly devised a technology called the CHAFF system, developed by the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO).
- Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said it represents “one more step of DRDO towards ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ in strategic defence technologies” and it is designed to “safeguard fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) against hostile radar threats”
- Chaff is a part of an aircraft’s Counter Measure Dispensing System (CMDS), which employs passive jamming against infra-red and radar threats.
- The significance of this technology lies in the fact that very little quantity of chaff material deployed in the air acts as a decoy to deflect the enemy’s missiles and ensures the safety of the fighter aircraft or naval ships
- CHAFF creates a metal particle cloud around the jet or the ship and deflects missiles from it.
- Nonetheless, among the learnings to be had from the Moskva sinking, speculation is still rife that the US had provided Ukraine with precise satellite coordinates, which enabled them to bombard the Moskvya with missiles.
- Unfortunately, any weapons defense system would struggle against a torrent of attacks such as this, including the powerful Russian S-400.
- According to Haider Abbas ( Former UP Commissioner ), India will need to quickly learn from Russia’s mistakes if it is to be prepared for its impending threats such as this.
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