Surface to Air Missiles - Brief Notes

There are many types of missiles, such as air-to-air missiles, water-to-surface and air-to-air missiles and surface-to-air missiles, etc.

In this article, we will discuss the Surface to Air Missile and learn about its various features;

Chapters of Content

surface to air missile

There are generally four types of surface-to-air missiles.

short-range surface-to-air missile
medium-range surface-to-air missile
Anti-Ballistic Missile
Manpads (Man-portable air-defense systems)

Let us know which missiles of all these categories India has.

short-range surface-to-air missile

1. Trident

Producer – Ordnance Factory Board and Bharat Dynamics Limited
Weight – 130 kg
Length – 3.1 meters
Operating Range – Up to 9 kms
Speed – Mach 2 (approx 2400 kmph)
Capacity – Capable of carrying up to 15 kg warhead

2. Tunguska

(These specifications belong to the Tunguska 9M311 version)

Producer – Russia
Weight – 57 KG
Length – 2.56 meters
Operating Range – 8 to 10 kms
Speed – 3240 kmph
Capacity – Capable of carrying up to 9 kg warhead

3. Barak-1

Producer – Israel Aerospace Industry and Rafale Advanced Defense Systems (Israel)
Weight – 98 kg
Length – 2.1 meters
Diameter – 17 cm
Operating Capacity – Up to 12 kms
Speed – Mach 2.1 (approx 2600 kmph)
Capacity – Capable of carrying up to 22 kg warhead

It is specially designed to be dropped from the ship as well. And can go straight up to 5.5 kms.

4. Spider

It comes in short range and medium range (both) versions.

– Producer – Rafale Advanced Defense Systems (Israel)

Version – Spider (short range) Python-5
Spider (medium range) Derby

Weight – 105 kg (Python-5)
118 kg (Derby)

Length – 3.1 m (Python-5)
3.62 m (Derby)

Diameter – 16 cm (of both)

Operating Range – 20 Kilometers (Python-5)
50 Kilometers (Derby)

Capacity – 11 kg (Python-5)
23 kg (Derby)

Altitude Capacity – 9 Kilometers (Python-5)
16 Kilometers (Derby)

Speed – Mach 4 (approx 4800 kmph

Apart from this, there are also some short-range surface-to-air missiles such as – SA-8 Gecko, SA-3 Goa, SA-9 Gaskin, SA-2 Guideline, SA-13 Gopher, Seacat, Tigercat, Maitri.

medium-range surface-to-air missiles

1. Sky

Designer – DRDO (India)
Producer – Ordnance Factory Board, Bharat Dynamics and Bharat Electronics
Weight – 720 kg
Length – 5.78 meters
Diameter – 14 inches
Capable of carrying up to 60 kg of high explosive warhead
Operating Range – Up to 30 kms
Speed – 2.5 Mach (approx 3000 kmph)
Radar – Rajendra Radar

2. Barack 8

Designer – Israel Aerospace Industry (Israel) and DRDO (India)
Producer – Rafale Advanced Defense Systems (Israel) and Bharat Electronics
Weight – 275 kg
Length – 4.5 meters
Diameter – 0.54 m
Operating Range – Up to 100 kms
Speed – Mach 2 (approx 2400 kmph)

It also has a longer range variant called Barak-8ER, it has a slightly longer length and can hit 150 km.

There are some other medium range surface-to-air missiles but they are not so popular. These are SA-5 Gammon, SA-6 Gainful, SA-11 Gadfly, SA-17 Grizzly.

Anti-Ballistic Missile

Indian Ballistic Missile Defense Program

It is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defense system to protect against ballistic missile attacks. It was developed mainly keeping in mind the threat of ballistic missile from Pakistan.

It is a two-stage system consisting of two land and sea-based interceptor missiles, namely Prithvi Air Defense (PAD) missile for high altitude interception, and Advanced Air Defense (AAD) for low altitude interception. Missile. This two-stage missile system is capable of intercepting any missile launched from a distance of 5,000 km.

The system also included an overlapping network of early warning and tracking radars, as well as command and control posts. The PAD was tested in November 2006, followed by the AAD in December 2007. With the test of the PAD missile, India became the fourth country after the United States, Russia and Israel to successfully develop a ballistic missile system.