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India at the forefront of a new arms race?
- protomyth 17y ago"After today's test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory," Pillai said. That seems wrong.
- hga 17y agoWell, factually is it; what about the P-270 Moskit AKA SS-N-22 Sunburn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-270_Moskit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-270_Moskit ? Like this one, it's a solid-rocket launched ramjet anti-ship cruise missile. It's a Mach 3 to 2.2 (high to low altitude) with a warhead (from a ship) a bit more than 50% bigger ... or it can carry a nuke. 120 km range vs. the 290 for this one. We (e.g. the USNavy) are supposed to be somewhat concerned about it. Next year we should be seeing production of the Standard Missile 6 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-174_Standard_ERAM), which would seem to be designed for these sorts of threats. E.g. it has a active seeker instead of the "semi-active" of it's previous breathen (the target must be illuminated by a ship's RADAR a bit before impact). Although I wouldn't be surprised if some of the earlier ones could do the job.
- jared314 17y agoSupersonic is still slower than a laser.
- marshallp 17y agoCruise missiles and military robots is where it's at. The fact the military is still spending hundreds of billions every year on outdated technology such manned aircraft and warships is a farce greater than the financial bailout committed on the people's of america and the world. It'll take poor countries like india developing cheap military tech to slap america into the reality of the 21st century.
- bilbo0s 17y agoI logged in just to say that, but you beat me to it. India and China are developing missile systems that can take out an American carrier in a single strike. Which, as a former marine who likes to blow stuff up, I think is really cool by the way. The problem is our response. We attempt to develop a laser that will kill these missiles inbound. All fine and dandy, IF it works, which I wouldn't stake my guys lives on. But that's not even the point. The point is . . . why not engage in a sober and deliberate SWOT evaluation of the carrier group itself. Is it still useful? I don't know, I am not an Admiral. But I really do get the feeling that General Officers in our military are addicted to big, complicated, and expensive systems. Do we really need these? Especially given that we are going bankrupt right now. It's almost as if the Social Security - Medicare people and the Military Industrial Complex really don't CARE that they are sinking us.
- metamemetics 17y agoThey probably see the carrier\super-carrier group central to making America a military power, we have 20+ and only a few countries have 1. Since the new reactor in the Gerald Ford class generates over 3X the electricity as the current Nimitz, it seems destined to be an advanced weapons platform for expensive lasers\railguns\robots.
- Perceval 17y agoThe U.S. only has 11 carrier groups: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/where.htm http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/where.htm One new one, the Gerald Ford, is in construction. You are right that other countries at best only have one carrier. And, as far as I know, no other country has a super-carrier. A normal aircraft carrier has a 40-50,000 ton displacement, whereas super-carriers have 90-100,000 ton displacement. All U.S. carrier are super-carriers, whereas other countries have only regular carriers.
- metamemetics 17y agoI was including our light-carrier amphibious assault ships, as their deckspace is still larger than the largest carrier of most other countries. Great visual aide: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/carriers.htm http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/carriers.htm
- metamemetics 17y agoIndia soundly defeated the U.S. in air-to-air combat in the Cope India 2005 wargames, their latest plane is also Russian equipment with modified Indian avionics\computers.
- tman 17y agoYeah. Maybe. Or maybe the Air Force just wants to convince Congress to replace the F-16, which got its clock cleaned (so they claim) by the Sukhoi in those exercises.
- CapitalistCartr 17y agoI worked on the AGM-69_SRAM nearly 30 years ago in the USAF. India is certainly not the first to build a maneuverable supersonic missile. We quit making them because there wasn't enough benefit to supersonic. Subsonic gives a far greater range, and is about as hard to stop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-69_SRAM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-69_SRAM
- rdtsc 17y agoShhh! Don't let Indians & Russians now. Let them keep spending their defense budgets on supersonic cruise missiles.
- hga 17y agoAnd what about the AGM-28 Hound Dog: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-28_Hound_Dog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-28_Hound_Dog A late 1950's Mach 2.1 cruise missile with a range of 785 miles or 400 in its Low Altitude Attack profile. Not so accurate, but with a warhead yield of up to 1.45 MT it probably would have sufficed. We had as many as 359 in service (1969).