New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence on Tuesday formalised a Rs 661-crore contract with BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited to acquire advanced BrahMos fire control systems and shipborne launchers. The acquisition underpins a strategic initiative to field supersonic cruise missile systems across all frontline warships of the Indian Navy by 2030. Under this phased retrofitting and modernisation drive, newly commissioned surface vessels are fitted with the BrahMos complex as baseline equipment, while older warships undergo systemic upgrades during scheduled maintenance cycles.
Jointly developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia, the BrahMos serves as the navy’s premier surface-to-surface strike weapon, travelling at supersonic velocities between Mach 2.8 and Mach 3.0. While the original configurations offered an operational envelope capped at 300 kilometres, India’s entry into the Missile Technology Control Regime in 2016 removed previous payload restrictions. Subsequent operational approvals and sea-based firing trials cleared the deployment of extended-range variants capable of striking sea and land targets at distances up to 600 kilometres with high terminal precision.
First inducted aboard Rajput-class guided-missile destroyers in 2005, the missile family subsequently expanded into land-attack iterations for the Indian Army and air-launched variants integrated with the Indian Air Force’s Su-30MKI fighter fleet, completing the nation’s supersonic cruise missile triad. Beyond enhancing the maritime strike capabilities of naval task groups across the Indian Ocean Region, the procurement programme advances domestic defence manufacturing, laying groundwork for future hypersonic cruise systems designed to operate beyond Mach 5.
