Indian Navy and Naval Aicraft: News

In terms of missiles the land and sea based missiles have three main generations... on land that is the SA-11... which is the first missile in the family, it was certainly a step up from SA-6 in the sense that every TEL had a missile tracking radar so you couldn't just take out the radar vehicle and the entire battery was unable to launch as with the SA-6 which had a separate search and tracking radar vehicle for the TELs

The SA-11 had TELARs or something... ie transport, erect, launcher and radar with 4 ready to launch missiles which was a step up from the three missiles on the SA-6 vehicle.

It was the same as the naval missile on the Sovremmeny on a single arm launcher and could be identified by the very long body fins plus tail fins.

The next improvement was the SA-17 which had shorter wider wing fins and extended range to about 50km and was also able to shoot down HARM missiles and ballistic threats as well, which was also deployed on Sovremmeny class ships on the single arm launcher.

The next missile... can't remember the SA number index... which is a western invention BTW, but its land equivalent is Viking and is carried in 6 tubes on the TELAR, while the naval equivalent is called Shtil-1... its range is about 70km and it has tail fins but no body fins.

The ship version is launched from vertical launch tubes and is rather improved, though the SA-17 is a very capable system... in some ways similar to a late model HAWK but fully mobile on its launch vehicle.

You can identify by the fins...



First gen (SA-11) with long wing fins and tail fins,

Second gen (SA-17) with shorter wider fins and with tail fins,



And Third gen (SA-2?) with no body fins except for the tail surfaces that is tube launched on land and at sea... longer range, active radar homing very good missile.

The newest missiles with tail fins only are ARH and very very accurate and effective... very good missiles... but likely not super cheap.

It is the first gen with the long fins that shot down the Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine... the first gen BUK which is not in service in Russia any more but is in Ukrainian service.

It is used by the Russian Navy and Russian Army... the Russian Aerospace Defence forces use the S-350 in that role and the Navy also uses Redut which is a naval S-350 system too.

The Russian Army calls the system BUK, BUK M1 is SA-11, BUK M2 is SA-17 and BUK M3 is the tube launched missile with no obvious western name yet despite it being deployed in the Ukraine ATM.

The Russian Navy deployed the BUK M1 and BUK M2 on their Sovremmeny class ships on single arm launchers... the launchers and missile handling systems are compatible for both missiles, in the Navy they are called Uragan and Ezh respectively, while the vertical tube launched missile is called Smerch... note the export names are different.

It is not clear how widely they are going to deploy the system in the Russian Navy as they also have the Redut which is an S-350 equivalent and are already expanding that system to include the 250km and 400km range S-400 missiles which would make the Redut a very capable system... able to fire short range 15km IIR 9M100 missiles, 60km range 9M96 missiles, 150km 9M96M missiles, as well as 250km and 400km range S-400 missiles all from the same launchers.

The advantage of vertical launch Smerch is that is it a more compact launch system that does not need to be deeper to hold longer missile types, so you could mount it in places that dont have enough room for a Redut or UKSK launcher for instance.

The new UKSK-M launcher seems to have the capacity to carry Smerch missiles but is not very efficient... the Smerch launcher carried 36 missiles and is relatively compact, while the bigger UKSK-M launcher could only hold 8 Smerch missiles and it would also mean not being able to carry other more useful missiles... not that Smerch is bad, but a UKSK-M tube could alternately carry a 9M96 missile with 150km range or the 400km range S-400...

It seems to be a useful and capable missile that has excellent accuracy and performance...

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India to buy 26 Dassault Rafale M ship-based fighters instead of US F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to replace Russian MiG-29K/KUB

It is going to be eye wateringly expensive because they will need cats as well... can the Rafales even operate from the ships they have?

The air compliment for the Gorshkov was half its original price of about 1.4 billion, so 750 million dollars for 14 MiGs and about half a dozen Helix type helicopters including the AEW Ka-31.

I wonder how many Rafales that will give them.

Would be interesting if they made some sort of deal where they buy Rafales for their Navy and buy MiG-35s for their air force, but that would be common sense (navy planes are always more expensive anyway...)

I think they should have MiG-35s on land and on their carriers but I am super biased.

On land they could replace the MiG-21/27/29, and the Jaguar and M2K, and I would say the low operating costs would mean they could drop the Tegas by buying reduced capability MiG-29M for light fighter roles.

I think the Rafales would be better than the F-18s, and the F-18s are not cheap either...

The Indians should be trying to improve their economy instead. China is the world's largest shipbuilder. It is never going to work.