The Times of India:
NEW DELHI: India is now all set to upgrade its deadly precision-strike weapon into a deep surgical-strike one. The sleek BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which flies almost three times the speed of sound at Mach 2.8, will be test-fired from a Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jet for the first time this week.
The “marriage” between the fighter, with a cruising range of 3,200-km, and the missile will be “a deadly combination”. The air-to-ground BrahMos missiles can conceivably be used for pinpoint strikes on terror camps located deep inside enemy territory, or to take out underground nuclear bunkers, command-and-control centres and other high-value military targets like aircraft carriers on the high seas, from long stand-off distances, say sources.
The armed forces have already inducted the 290-km range land and warship-based versions of the BrahMos missiles over the last decade. Having placed orders worth over Rs 27,150 crore, the Army, Navy and IAF have clearly shown their preference for BrahMos as their conventional (not nuclear) precision-strike weapon in the years ahead.
