India Missile FDC

India FDC
Name: BrahMos
Date of Issue: 22 December 2008

"Defence of country is time honored function of its Government and an essential attribute of sovereignty and economic growth".

Extensive use of subsonic cruise missiles in Gulf war brought about stupendous changes in strategic thinking and convinced nations' world over to lay more emphasis on development of cruise missiles. India and Russia conceived an idea of jointly developing a cruise missile far superiors to the one used during Gulf war. This laid the foundation of a unique Joint Venture "BrahMos Aerospace" with partnership from both countries, represented by Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) from India and Nauchno Proizvodstvennoe Obiedinenie Mashinostroyeniya (Scientific & Production Organization Of Machine Building) (NPOM) from Russia. The technological voids of both were to be covered by either side and the program commenced in 1998.

BrahMos, name represents two well know rivers, Brahmaputra of India and Moskva of Russia. The calmness and serenity of Moskva River and the power and speed of Brahmaputra depict the main characteristics of "BRAHMOS Supersonic Cruise Missile", the product of the Joint Venture. The combination of speed, power and precision achieved by this missile is unparallel and by far the best in the world in this class of Weapon System.

BrahMos Aerospace became the first Joint Venture between India and a foreign partner from mind to market and took on the responsibility of design, development, production and marketing. This Joint Venture was for the first time formed in the history of India by converting Loan repayment into Investment with equity share ratio of 50.5% and 49.5%. An integration of Public – Private Industries from India and Russia as consortium resulted in production of world class prduct which resented an opportunity of penetrating the world market.

BRAHMOS is a supersonic missile that approaches target with three times the speed of sound and is capable of being launched from multiple platforms i.e. land based launcher, warships, submarines, maritime patrol/ASW aircraft and combat aircraft.

Unleashing technological asymmetry in the battle space, this supersonic cruise missile is capable of tilting the balance of war in favour of the possessor who can use it imaginatively and decisively.

Numerous flight tests have taken place from different platforms in variety of congfigurations such as from ship to ship, land to ship, land to land and ship against the land. Today the BrahMos is operational with the Indian Navy and Army.

Success of BrahMos is attributable to many known major factors such as vision, government support, mutual trust between partners, sharing of available best technologies.

The trust and support provided by the two Governments coupled with the outstanding management leadership of the Joint Venture has resulted in a world class product which has become a model for all future co-operations between our two countries and has escalated relations between the two countries well beyond the buyer-seller equation that has persisted for decades.