The Indo-Russian JV BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited is developing an Mk II version of the BrahMos as well. With a speed of Mach 7, it will have twice the speed of the current BrahMos-I. BrahMos-II has been titled as the fastest hypersonic missile in the world. Perhaps that would help India slowdown hypertensions in its neighbourhood.

Unlike the air-to-air missiles which generally followed the evolutionary pattern of the aerial platforms on which they were carried, the concept of air-to-surface or air-to-ground missiles, in comparison, followed a different route. The concept took off early last century in the form of torpedoes launched from aircraft essentially against maritime targets either in a freefall mode or wire/radio controlled after launch. But it was the German war machine which developed and operationalised what may fall into the category of the present day air-to-surface guided missiles. They were the radio-controlled Henschel’s Hs 293A and Ruhrstahl’s SD1400X, known as ‘Fritz X’, both air-launched, primarily against ships at sea. The Henschel Hs 293 was responsible for the world’s first successful guided missile attack, sinking the British ship Egret on August 27, 1943. The weapon initially possessed an 18-channel radio control system and was flown in the same way as a radio-controlled airplane. Wire guidance was subsequently adopted when it was discovered that the bomb’s radio receiver was vulnerable to electronic countermeasures. Of the 15 battleships lost to airpower, one of those—the 41,650-tonne Italian flagship Roma—was sunk by a Fritz X. The British battleship warspite was put out of commission for six months by this weapon. Fritz Xs also hit the cruiser USS Philadelphia, heavily damaged the cruiser USS Savannah, and sank the Royal Navy light cruiser Spartan.

In present day parlance, an air-to-surface missile (also air-to-ground missile, AGM, ASM or ATGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft and strike targets on land, at sea, or both. They are similar to guided glide bombs but to be considered a missile, they usually contain some form of propulsion system. Henchel’s Hs 293A, for example, had a belly-mounted liquid fuel rocket engine to give it propulsion after launch which is why it is considered to be the first of the air-to-surface missiles to have been used successfully in war.

Currently, the two most common propulsion systems for air-to-surface missiles are rocket motors and jet engines. These also tend to correspond to the range of the missiles—short and long, respectively. Some Russian air-to-surface missiles are powered by ramjets, giving them both a long range and high speed.

Guidance for air-to-surface missiles is typically via laser guidance, infrared guidance, optical guidance or global positioning systems (GPS) signals. The type of guidance depends on the type of target. Ships, for example, may be detected via passive or active radar, while this would not work very well against land targets which typically do not contain such a large mass of metal surrounded by empty space.

One of the major advantages of air-to-surface missiles over other weapons available for aircraft to use for attack on ground targets is the standoff distance they provide. This allows them to launch the weapons outside the most intense air defences around the target site. Most air-to-surface missiles are fire-and-forget in order to take most advantage of the standoff distance i.e. allow the launching platform to turn away after launch. Some missiles have enough range to be launched over the horizon. These missiles (typically cruise missiles) need to be able to find and home in on the target autonomously.

Air-to-surface missiles could broadly be subdivided into four categories viz. anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), typically launched from helicopters, maritime strike or land attack guided missiles, antiradiation missiles and air-launched cruise missiles. While different types of air launched missiles have different roles to play in the modern war zones, it is the air launched cruise missile (ALCM) which is gaining greater currency because these can be launched from varying standoff ranges. The launch aircraft therefore, while still transiting through friendly or less hostile airspace, are able to launch their mostly ‘fire-and-forget’ weapon loads and turn back towards their recovery bases while the ALCMs home onto their targets, engaging them with pin-point accuracies.

Historically, three countries—USA, USSR (now Russia) and China—have been the prolific makers of the air launched air-to-surface missile (ASM) systems, but in the field of ALCMs, many other nations are also jumping in the fray. These include Brazil (AVMT-300), the European Consortium (Storm Shadow) from MBDA (UK, France, Italy), France (Air-Sol Moyenne Portée: ASMP), Germany (Taurus KEPD 350), India (BrahMos, Nirbhay) and even Pakistan (Ra’ad) to name a few.

It is interesting to note that within the troika of China; Pakistan and India—tied to each other through geographical boundaries, mutual hostilities and border disputes—each country is embarked upon developing their own versions of ALCMs. Among many other older types, China is now trying to perfect the YJ-12. On the other hand, as stated earlier, Pakistan is developing the Ra’ad and India in a joint venture with Russia is developing the air launched version of the BrahMos. It would be in the fitness of things to discuss the developments in India’s neighbourhood and its own efforts to meet the arising security challenges by creating matching capabilities in this field of warfare, in greater detail.