How 'fire and forget' BrahMos missiles changed India's military game

BrahMos

June 12, 2001 – India joined the elite club of military powers when it successfully tested BrahMos cruise missile at Chandipur test range. Fast forward to 2025.

For the first time, India decided to use the ‘fire and forget’ missiles in a combat situation during ongoing Operation Sindoor when it struck airbases and other key military installations of Pakistan on the intervening night of May 9 and 10 last week.

During the inaugural ceremony of the Lucknow unit BrahMos, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh called it more than a weapon. Lauding the achievement of the missiles, the defence minister had termed BrahMos as the message for the enemies.

The success of BrahMos is success of India’s home-grown defence production prowess. At the heart of BrahMos is persistent and perseverance of India’s defence manufacturing ecosystem. It all started a year before the Kargil War when in 1998, then DRDO boss Dr APJ Abdul Kalam signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement with Russian deputy defence minister NV Mikhailov.

Thus, came into existence BrahMos Aerospace, an amalgamation of two mighty rivers - Brahmaputra and Moskva. After four years, India successfully test-fired the supersonic missile, which was jointly developed by Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia and India’s DRDO.

At present, India has three variants of the BarhMos missile – The air-launched version, the land-based-version and submarine-based version.

So how does India’s fastest supersonic missile works? It is essentially a two-stage weapon that launches with a solid-fuel booster that detaches after take-off. The ramjet engine filled with ramjet fuel that achieves a speed of Mach 3 in no time. From an altitude of 15 km to as low as 10 metre above the ground, BrahMos has marvellous cruise capability.

The supersonic missile, which can have a range of up to 290 km, works on the principle of "fire and forget." In simple terms, this means that after BrahMos is launched, there is no need for any guidance. It has high kinetic energy couple with low radar signature that makes it very tough to intercept.

After the 2001 debut, BrahMos was subsequently inducted into the Indian Navy in 2005. Two years later in 2007, the missile system was inducted into the Indian Army. In 2017, IAF’s Sukhoi-30 MKI combat jet registered its first successful flight.