Bhubaneswar ,March 21: The Indian Navy on Sunday successfully test-fired the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from a vertical launcher fitted on board a moving warship, the INS Ranvir, off the Orissa coast near Paradip, said defence sources here.
The missile, carrying a 200 kg conventional warhead and with a range of 280 km, performed supersonic manoeuvring and following the exact flight path it was supposed to.

It moved straight towards the decommissioned target ship, INS Meen, the sources informed, adding that the mission was a 100 per cent success. The supersonic missile was fired at 11.30 am. BrahMos is produced by a joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organi-sation of India and the Military Industrial Consor-tium of Russia. The name represents the fury of the Brahmaputra in India and grace of Russia’s Moskva river. A BrahMos variant has been in use with the Indian military since 2007. “It was a perfect hit and a perfect mission,” BrahMos aerospace chief A. Sivathanu Pillai told PTI. India has become the first and only country in the world to have a “manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory,” he said in New Delhi.
Dr Pillai said the software of the missile was improved and Sunday’s test proved its capability to manoeuvre at supersonic speeds before hitting its target. “During the test, the missile hit a free-floating ship, piercing it above the waterline and destroying it completely,” BrahMos officials said.
The test-firing was part of pre-induction tests by the Navy as moves are afoot to deploy the vertical-launch version of the missile on ships. All three Indian Navy Talwar class ships, under construction in Russia, have been fitted with vertical launchers and many other ships will also be equipped with them, officials said.

Age Correspondent
With Agency Inputs