English: Cruise missile BrahMos on display at IMDS-2007
India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which was developed in cooperation with Russia, has apparently outperformed the SCALP-EG cruise missiles the country purchased from France during the recent conflict with Pakistan.
The conflict was sparked by the April 22 terrorist attack on Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the incident. The situation escalated on May 7 following deadly Indian retaliatory strikes against Pakistan. The two counties exchanged strikes across the Line of Control, the de-facto borders in the disputed region of Kashmir, as well as over the internationally-recognized border for the next three days. A ceasefire was announced on May 10.
The Indian military used both BrahMos and SCALP-EG missiles to attack Pakistani targets during the conflict. However, evidence suggests that the first performed better.
India purchased an undisclosed number of SCALP-EG, the French codename for the Storm Shadow missile, in 2016 as part of the Dassault Rafale fighter jet deal.
The SCALP-EG is a Franco-British low-observable, subsonic, air-launched cruise missile developed in the 1990s by Matra and British Aerospace, and now manufactured by MBDA. It features a GPS-aided inertial navigation system with a terrain profile matching system. For terminal guidance, the missile is equipped with an imaging infrared scene-mapping area correlator system.
The maximum range of the SCALP-EG is 560 kilometers with a speed of Mach 0.95. However, India received a downgraded export version with a range of 250 kilometers. The Rafale fighter jets of the Indian Air Force (IAF) are the main carrier of the missile.
On the other hand, the BrahMos was jointly developed by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Russian Federation’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya on the basis of the P-800 Oniks, also during the 1990s.
Just like the Russian-made Oniks, the BrahMos can reach a speed of up to Mach 3 with the range of its latest version reaching over 800 kilometers. Upon approaching its target, the missile is capable of flying as low as 3-10 meters to avoid detection.
The BrahMos relies on a complex guidance system built around a satellite-aided inertial navigation system and a jam-resistant active radar homing seeker. While it was mainly designed to engage water-born targets, it can strike ground-based targets as effectively.
The missile can be launched from land, sea and air. The air-launched version, fielded by the IAF’s Su-30MKI, is said to have a range of 500 kilometers, double that of the SCALP-EG.
During the last conflict, Pakistani media reported that multiple SCALP-EG missiles were intercepted by the country’s air defenses. A photo that surfaced online after the ceasefire confirmed that at least one missile of this type crashed in Pakistani territories.
Click to see full-size image. Via Telegram.
On the other hand, there were no reports of any BrahMos failing or being shot down, which suggests that the missile performed better.
This result is not surprising. The Oniks performed very well during the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, with Ukrainian military officials even admitting that it is nearly impossible to intercept. On the other hand, SCALP-EG missiles supplied to Ukraine were effective initall, before being nearly completely neutralized by Russian air defenses and electronic warfare means.
Of course the two missiles are not of the same class, for example the BrahMos has an anti-ship capability, but still they can be compared in the context of the recent Indian-Pakistani conflict as they were both employed from air to strike land targets.
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pakistan has a problem of cia infiltration. we know the anglo saxons and zionists are the biggest users of fake muslim terrorist groups. and fake muslims terrorist groups are the most loyal allies of the western intelligence agencies. nato equipment once again proved inferior during this skirmish but the problem of cia infiltration remains. they provoke another false flag attack any time
since you know israelis, now explain to me why the israel defense forces is mobilizing new members in the favelas of rio de janeiro and new delhi. can illiterate poor people from the favelas shoot better than the idf? do they not know how to count money and therefore the jews can only pay them half their wages?
idf like any other military in the world is sending young and dumb boys to the front, including many black, druze, arab jews who they view as cannon fodders and second class jews. the military brass is mostly european ashkenazi jews. cannon fodder is cheap. they also have a problem with reservists going awol and desertion rates are high in the world’s most immoral army at the moment
now houthis taliban have surpassed us—my lgbt fairy army now fears jamaican cannibus dreadlock marines
i’m more interested in why china warns its citizens not to fight for russia while india doesn’t even warn its citizens not to fight for israel, even though there are many more indians in the idf than chinese in the russian army.
scalp already barbecued many ruzzian nazis 🇷🇺=🔥🤡 😆😆😆
how did the krusk adventure go…
how is the “3 days until victory” special operation going? 😆😆😆
what the world is now seeing that western weapons are out dated and very limited in their performance to russia, china and even india. western weapons are made of over inflated hype while russia and china just makes theirs to work when needed!