This is democracy and everybody is free to have their opinion, You can have your's.
What's wrong in copying something which works. Our eastern neighbor have been doing it for very long time. This method is efficient (money and time) and probability would be skewed towards success
Anyway's you decide for yourself whether Aakash is better or Astra??
( I might err here or there with figures but idea is to describe missile in as layman language as possible)
Akash missile
- Warhead weight is about 60kg of HMX (Generally HMX is used as explosive of choice for missile......it is far more potent than TNT or RDX)
- Each missile weighs about 720 kg
- Ramjet propulsion
- No active radar in the missile (aka seeker) and hence completely dependent on the ground radar for targets (illumination)
- Proximity fuse (warhead will go off, even if the missile is close to the target )
Advantages
- Huge warhead. Explosion will be huge and hence more chance of target destruction, if it is in the vicinity
- Missile itself is not prone to jamming
- To jam the missile, one has to jam the radar (which is difficult because ground based radar are bigger and more powerful than aircraft radars
- Army has liked it very much and ordered in huge numbers (proves they are happy with the field trials and the liked its performance, same can't be said with Arjun for instance)
- Radar and missiles are all carried over tracked vehicle and can provide safety to mobile units (aka moving squadron/regiment of tanks)
Disadvantages
- As the missile has no radar (seeker) in the nose section, it is completely dependent on the ground radar (Rajendra) for hitting the target. Hence, if something happens to Rajendra radar missile is useless
- Rajendra can guide only four missile at the same time (For instance if six or eight aircraft attack, only four could be engaged, others would be free to destroy rajendra radar and cripple the Aakash battery)
- For higher probability of intercept generally atleast two missiles are fired. Hence, rajendra can effectively deal with only two fighters at a time (but yes those two would have hard time evading the missiles)
- All in all missile is highly dependent on ground radar and very heavy and as such more expensive
Astra based SAM
- Warhead weight of about 15kg HMX (any other type of warhead means reduced explosion power)
- Missile weight of 154 kg ( A2A missile weight, give or take few kgs when the missile would be deployed over land)
- Houses a radar in its nose cone (seeker which is imported from russia and already used in r-77 missile)
- Missile is going to be launched vertically and can hit in any direction (no akash missile cant do this)
Advantages
- Less dependent on radar (missile will need radar only for launching (somewhat) and afterwards its own seeker will lock the target. Aka fire and forget missile)
- Astra based SAM system could engage many more targets (4,8,10) etc, as the radar is not over worked
- Missile would need less time to engage targets than say Akash missile
- Smaller and lighter than akash
Disadvantages
- Less explosives onboard (four times less than akash)
- missile seeker is more prone to countermeasures (small size and less power of the radar)
- Though the Astra missile based SAM battery could engage more fighters but probability of interception by single missile could suffer
- No info if it can provide safety to mobile convoy of vehicles
So both the missiles have some pros and cons, one is better suited in some situation and other is better suited in some.
