The DRDOs Armament Research and Development Establishment has a road map ready for smarter futuristic products.
A DRDO centre in Pune that is proud of its varied accomplishments is the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE). Its most visible success stories are INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifles, Pinaka, the deadly multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL), and warheads for missiles and torpedoes, but it also has road maps for futuristic products such as guided rockets and precision-guided munition.
Anil M. Datar, Director (ARDE), said: The ARDE has successfully completed the Pinaka project. It is in production now. The Army has ordered Pinaka systems worth Rs.1,300 crore for two regiments. Each regiment will have 18 launchers and associated vehicles. Pinaka is a major achievement of ours.
Pinaka
A Pinaka MBRL, that is, a single launcher built on a Tatra truck, has two pods of six rockets each. Six launchers constitute a battery. The Army generally deploys a battery that has a total of 72 rockets. All the 72 rockets can be fired in 44 seconds, taking out an area of 1 sq km. Each launcher can fire in a different direction too. The system has the flexibility to fire all the rockets in one go or only a few.
This is possible because we have provided a computer for fire control, said Datar. There is a command post linking together all the six launchers in a battery. Each launcher has an individual computer, which enables it to function autonomously in case it gets separated from the other five vehicles in a war.
K.J. Daniel, Project Director, Pinaka, calls it a system and explains how massive each system is. A Pinaka battery has six launchers, six loader vehicles, six replenishment vehicles, two vehicles for ferrying the command post and a vehicle for carrying the meteorological radar, which will provide data on winds. Today, we have orders for two regiments. In the future, we will have orders for 12 regiments, said Daniel.
INSAS rifle
Daksh, the robot developed by R&DE(E) for handling improvised explosive devices.
Developing the INSAS rifle with 5.56-mm calibre was another big achievement for the ARDE. It went into production in 1993. And about 1 million INSAS rifles have been inducted into the Army so far. In fact, INSAS is a family of arms and ammunition, comprising a rifle and a light machine gun. The firing capabilities of the weapons are enhanced by daylight telescope and night vision. With the Army keen on having more effective ammunition for a short range of 200 metres, the ARDE busied itself with designing such ammunition. The first phase of trials is complete and the second phase will begin in October.
The ARDE will soon build Pinaka rockets with a longer range of 60 km compared with the present 40 km and make them smarter too. These rockets will have a combination of inertial guidance systems and global positioning systems. Datar described such guided rockets as something between ordinary rockets and missiles. Missiles are expensive because they have precise guidance systems. In the next five years, we will have guided rockets. This is a cheaper way to meet the challenge of getting at high-value targets with high accuracy. In the future, we may go for rocket systems with a 120-km range, Datar said.
The ARDE, which produced the gun barrel for Indias main battle tank Arjun, is now coming up with a special type of ammunition called Fin Stabilised Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS) with a calibre of 120 mm. The FSAPDS will also be developed for T-72 and T-90 tanks, which have guns of different calibres. The FSAPDS has already been developed for the infantry combat vehicle (ICV), which needed ammunition with a 40-mm calibre. The ARDE is now on the job of developing it with 30-mm calibre for the futuristic ICV.
The canopy severance system (CSS) for fighter aircraft in trouble is a different kettle of fish. When there is an emergency on board a jet fighter, the pilot has to eject through the canopy overhead without getting hurt. This requires breaking the canopy to make a path for the pilot. This is called CSS and the clean-cut is achieved by power cartridges that function with precise timings and pressure. Since the IAF has aircraft acquired from Russia, France and the United Kingdom, the ARDE developed indigenous power cartridges for them so that the IAF will not be dependent on these aircraft manufacturers for cartridges. The ARDE has developed 62 types of power cartridges, matching the performance of the original cartridges. This is a service that the IAF acknowledges, said ARDE officials.
Warheads & anti-tank ammunition
Developing warheads for missiles and torpedoes is an area of core competence of the centre. All missiles Agni, Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Nag developed by the DRDO have warheads made by the ARDE. It is working on futuristic warheads, such as aimable warheads or those with fragment generators. It recently developed a 450-kg high-speed, low-drag bomb, which was a complete indigenisation of the Russian variety and with added lethality.
The ARDE personnel are happy that the Army has placed orders for an innovative anti-tank ammunition developed by them. It gets initiated only when a battle tank passes over it, and not a truck or a car. Its sense of discrimination is based on seismic and magnetic sensors. Datar explained: We have collected signatures of different kinds of vehicles, what kind of vibrations they create when they move. The data is fed into the munitions system. When a tank is moving, it will provide a signature. The processor tries to match it with the stored signatures. If it matches, it gives a signal and the munition explodes.
An important area where the ARDE will focus on is precision-guided munition. It will develop guided artillery shells or gun-fired ammunition. The first of such precision-guided munition will be cannon-launched.
Bang on target
