Kalam's unrealised 'Nag' missile dream to become reality next year

Kalam's unrealised 'Nag' missile dream to become reality next year

   One unrealized dream of 'Missile man' A P J Abdul Kalam who died on July 27, will become a reality next year.

    Production of the anti-tank missile 'Nag', a 'fire and forget' missile developed to hit and destroy   stationery or moving battle tanks will begin next year. Defense advisor to Raksha Mantri, G Satheesh Reddy told TOI that while the other missiles planned as part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) had become a reality, in so far as 'Nag' was concerned there had been some limitations related to technology. Those have now become overcome. "The 'Nag' missile will be go for production next year," Satheesh Reddy said. The other missiles 'Prithvi', 'Dhanush', the five versions of 'Agni', 'Akash' and 'Astra' as part of the IGMDP have already been developed.

    The 'Nag' missile developed by the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which Abdul Kalam headed, will move like a 'cobra' to hit battle tanks in a range of 4 km to 7 km distance.

    "Everything that Kalam planned has become a reality. He was someone who had both technical and managerial skills to pursue plans," Satheesh Reddy who worked under Kalam when he joined the DRDL in 1986 said. Satheesh Reddy who was noticed by Kalam for the work he was putting in associated himself with Reddy who worked on navigation technology.

    If India has several missiles and variants of them, it was also due to the efforts of Kalam. "He brought about integration between various groups which were working independently towards their set goals. The integrated reaped dividends," he said.

   If India is now in a strong position because of the its missiles, especially the 6,000-km range intercontinental ballistic missile, it was also due to Kalam's 'big thinking'.

     "Think big. It is a sin to think small," Kalam would tell colleagues in the DRDL and DRDO. And if anyone amongst his colleagues would keep silent during a discussion, he would prod him or her to speak and contribute. Even if he had already taken a decision on some matters, he would still keep his mind open to ideas.

     Kalam's nature was always to protect his colleagues and take the blame from his superiors if something went wrong, Satheesh Reddy recalled.

Article written by Ch Sushil Rao,Published in Times of India

Pakistan Buys 282 Refurbished T 55 Tanks from Serbia

Pakistan Buys 282 Refurbished T 55 Tanks from Serbia

    It's interesting and surprising from the Pakistani side that they invested into vintage T 55 tanks along with old APC and field guns from Serbia, but those are very well upgraded by the Serbians before hand overing to Pakistan. The upgrades includes Armour protection, new Generation Explosive reactive Armour added along with digital controls systems added in the Upgrade. makes them safer against  RPG's and heavy machine gun rounds.

The T 55 is a Medium Tank 36 Tons of weight, using a 100mm Main gun along with a 12.7mm for anti personnel usage, which shows good for mobility and good for asymmetrical warfare, where Pakistan suffering since decades. actually Pakistan need a good small arms to protect themselves from it's Terrorists. here T 55 is a good option because it's reliable against terrorists attacks and available in low cost both in procurement and maintenance. most of the fights fought by the Pakistan is  with their own Jihadi's.

        The Pakistanis went for Cheap Tanks rather than good APC and Infantry fighting Vehicle's which is not good against such Heavily armed militants, even they have good number of APC's named Talha which is not good against those Terrorists, usually they were easy targets to the terrorists.

     These Tanks were good in Mobility due to lower weight, with the ERA Armour It can be deployed in Battlegrounds, and It's more than good against the modern IFV's, But it's not a real threat to India when it's deployed to near border. but good for Ambushes only.

                    Pakistan is not known for Keeping good numbers of Main battle Tank, they have some less than thousand Modern Battle Tanks, nearly 300 Brand new T 80 from Ukraine, and some Pakistani Chinese Made Al Khalid MBT's.

             Mean Time India Have triple amount of Modern MBT's, and two new programs to increase the numbers. more than 300 Arjuns are under operational, nearly 1000 of MK 2 version planned, more than 1000 of T 90 in Operational. and 2500 modernized T 72 Ajeya Tanks.

                  But looks like The Pakistanis need a good numbers of MBT's o confront against the Indian Forces, mostly all of these Indian Tanks will be deployed along the Indo Pakistani Border, makes the Pakistani's pinned downed if war broken out. Pakistani's have no other options but increase the numbers of Battle Tank.

               Even if it is looked like Those T 55 procurement only for attacks against terrorist, but they frequently uses the Air power to defeat the Terrorists. but there is no way using those Tanks against Terrorists, because they easily can ambush if it was used in the Urban warfare. even though those terrorists uses huge size of IED's to break those Tanks from bottom end,

                The Pakistanis has the only option to Stop the Indian flotilla of Tanks by using latest generation Anti tank missiles, but the problem is no one ready to supply most sophisticated fire and forget Anti tank missiles to Pakistan. the Pakistanis uses the Chinese made  variant of HJ 8 Anti Tank missiles, which is good against older generation Tanks, The Modern Tanks comes with more defensive options from Armour upgrades to active protection system. also those HJ 8 uses the wire guidance which makes the Handler keep an eye of the target till the missile strike the Tank. which is not a good option in modern battlefields.

    But India also have the same wire guided missiles, but they have two other projects for fire and forget types, one is through procurement the Spike missile variants from Israel, another is home made Nag missile.

NAG-The Cobra Missile

NAG-The Cobra Missile

land based Test

 
     Nag is another good Project managed by the DRDO under BDL- Bharath Dynamics Limited, which is a less weight low range Anti tank guided missile, which can be used in all combat situations to destroy enemy Tanks and other Armour columns. the Nag project launched early 2008, with Kick backs and all, it's just get inducted into the Army's Anti Tank Columns.

          The Nag comes with some set of Anti armour missiles, like Ground launched and Air launched, the low weight low range Anti tank guided missile is different Technology, where only less number of countries are achieved good Results, India also in the list with the Nag missile.

Land Based Nag- NAMICA

Namica Launcher

    NAMICA means Nag missile carrier usually a modified BMP can carry eight of such missiles for Anti armour purpose, namica is the initial version of nag program. for Army use, here namica uses IIR seekers to identify and lock the Target, The IIR is a Imagining Infrared Seeker, which can choose and lock the Target before Launching, which means some third party chooses the Target and feed it to the Nag and Nag take care of the Target on it's own, something like same Fire and forget mode. 

       Nag  uses Line of sight for target and launch the Missiles against the threat, which is a slight disadvantages due to the limitation of IIR seeker, It needed the Target which would be visible by the Missile when launching, the same will be replaced by mmW ( Milli meter wave )  seeker, which can allows the Launcher can lock the target even in encircled  area's, makes the launchers positions keep hidden during launch.

     The Nag uses the Tandem Charge for Kill, almost all new generation anti Tank missile uses the same. most Tanks comes with  Explosive reactive Armour to make the tank more powerful during enemy direct fire and Heavy weapon fire, with the Tandem Charge, the first warhead penetrate or make a small hole in the Tanks armour then explode the main charge inside the Tank, makes the Target 100% destroyed. 

       the Name Nag comes from the Missile Trajectory, which follows the Cobra, the missile uses Top Attack mode, means once you launch the Missile it can fire high and Mark the Tanks Back side where Tanks armour is in lesser, and hit the Target, most Anti tank missiles uses the same technology for Higher Kill probablity.

The rated range is known as Four Kilometers 

        The Army Already inducted some good numbers of Nag missiles and NAMICA launchers after series of successful tests, the numbers not available in public.

Air Launched Nag- Helina

Helina From ALH Rudra

  The Modified version of Nag is used to Carry by Airborne platforms like Helicopter and Aircrafts, since Aircrafts project comes with mmW and long range, currently Helina comes in LCH, ALH Rdra and some other UAV platforms,

      the Helina is same but it can have some good features, like lock on after launch, non line of sight and more Range, here it's being believed that Helina uses the mmW seeker for better performance and able to perform LOAL modes,

        Helina already successfully fired from Helicopters and soon will be inducted into Airborne platforms like  ALH Rudra, and pictures emerged that Rustom one fitted with two Helina Missiles. the Airborne version also makes progress and soon will be inducted.

Helina launching from ALH Rudra