It's already travelled the 260 km out of 290 km, Asper reports. how much fuel will be left out in such case?
No,it's not from forums. Some tweets and YouTube video said so. Not sure. But I think report is true since @vstol Jockey also said the same.
Indian supersonic missile reached Mian Channu in Pakistan : ISPR
- Thread starter Tatvamasi
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The range of Brahmos from the very begining was over 700kms. intial announcement for 290kms was to avoid MTCR which restricted range to below 300kms.
I'm confused as to what exactly are your conclusions on the whole episode? You've been claiming these past few days it's not an accidental launch. In all probability according to you it was a deliberate act.
Now you're writing that the missile not only lacked self destruction mechanism but was also minus a warhead. Why would a strike on presumably a HVT be carried out without a warhead irrespective of the nature of the warhead?
What exactly do you think happened out there in Pakistan?
It will be much harder to rule out human error, system error or malicious intent. Besides, once you go nuking Pakistan and getting nuked, at that time there will not be much opportunity to do anything else. Continuity of governments will be in question and chain of command for strategic systems will be really streched. Nukes are called weapons of deterrance for a reason -- you do not have too much of a plan after a nuke attack.
That being said, India can do what US did in past, lump China and Pakistan in one. Any nuclear attack on India by pakistan will be considered to be one by China.... It will however make world and India more unsafe. Now not just Pakistan, China will always think about a massive first strike because it is use it or loose it kind of scenario.
They can do anything with their weapons. They can fire a BM over gujarat and splash it in sir creek and call it a weapon test claiming sir creek has always been their territory.
Its a ramjet, it uses a hydrocarbon based fuel, not completely different from jet fuel but specialized for use in ramjets. They can fill it more or less to achieve more range or damage.
So in this case it needs to be shot down. What India did was accident and apologies were sent what they would do will be intentional and a call for war.
One oops moment done by one person is very different from one oops moment done by a whole team of people.
Plus any missile being prepped for launch also has its self-destruct initialised. If the missile deviated from its pre-determined trajectory, the missile would explode.
These are called systemic failures and they do happen. Sometimes, they accumulate. We can only speculate them. There are plane crashes with triple redundant systems failed... how the hell ALL three of the redundant systems failed? Because all of them were installed on the same part of the plane which broke off. It is not an oops situation, its much more insidious. I do not know what the hell they were doing in their maintenance or whatever. I can only speculate.
1. They had a maintenance and test but they forgot to disengage real missile system from test equipment? Once, I ran a load test against a live production website... I basically D-DOS'ed it. I was supposed to target pre-deployment url but i targetted deployment one. It took us half an hour to diagnose because initial assumption was that someone from outside is D-DOSing the site. I work for one of the biggest and most advanced computer science firm in the world. It should not have been possible by design but shit happens.
2. SOP changed but actual system was still old one or vice versa. Like new SOP for lowering the reaction time but some automated safety was not yet deployed on all missile launchers OR may be they were deployed on all the actual launchers but not the training ones? Or may be training ones were due to be updated the next day?
Now coming to self destruct. I do not know what is the mechanism of self destruct. But, remember, we were at peacetime. That means all the personnels responsible for various duties might not have been on their respective "battle-stations". It is possible that even the self destruct requires authorization or rather everything requires authorization. Missile was launched due to accident or malfunction but to engage self destruct required authorization which was not there. And personnel who could do authorization came back in 10 minutes by when the missile had already landed! It is possible that those who designed protocols never thought it is possible that a missile may be flying without all the authorizations! So why cover that situation in self destruct too? Its called unwarrented assumptions and they do happen too.
Note, none of the above is a simple "Oops"... It is more involved than that.
Last but not the least, the only REAL way a system is tested if it is in continuous use... These weapons often sit idle and not ALL of their capabilities are put in actual use (thanks God!).... How do you expect them to be issue free all the time? It is said that it takes 5 iterations to remove most of the issues in a system... These systems do not under go such kind of (ab)use. They are used in very regimented way... So when something goes awry, it may be going wrong for the first time.
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I doubt missile deviated from its flight path. Its flight path was correct. There were bases near the place it landed. Most likely, missile did not have enough fuel OR it had a guidance system but no seeker for terminal guidance. Again speculation.
What would you believe more, physics or a Pakistani?
It's not necessary for either the trajectory or the timestamps to be correct.
It could also be a different missile.
Read 4.18 from page 231 to 234 to understand how complex the launch procedure is.
You are trying to simplify a very complex decision cycle.
The more general consensus would be only a massed attack would qualify for a nuclear response, not otherwise.
Although Brahmos is believed to be nuclear capable, that doesn't necessarily mean it is nuclear enabled.
Not via command, but it's automated. Missed target and out of fuel are two parameters that I know of.
SAMs and AAMs are mostly salvageable regardless. The nose survives the self-destruction. The Russians have salvaged many Israeli SAMs in Syria, including 1 known David Sling incident with fully intact electronics with seeker, and also a Tamir.
The more complex a procedure is, more chances for it to go wrong. Try looking at an aircraft design and all the redundency it has and YET they fail.