Military of China, force comment.
Military of China, force comment.

Indian Army show Russian long-range rockets

tornado LONDON September 15 news: According to the Russian military-industrial complex site on September 14 reported that India’s total financial ombudsman in its recently submitted a report that the Indian Army parties spent a lot of imports from Russia “Tornado” multi-launch rocket system has a number of issues, seriously affected the operational effectiveness of their play.

has worked in India in December 2005 and March 2007 and Russia signed two purchase a total of 42 sets of “Tornado” system of contracts, the total value of up to $ 562 million. Accordance with the contract, Russia is also providing matching ammunition carriers, command vehicles, weather protection of vehicles, maintenance vehicles, spare parts and a variety of range of rockets. India ordered the “Tornado” system has been delivered in May last year, all finished.

the Indian Army in July 2007 with the first to provide a “Tornado” system equipped with three groups. However, one of the group in October 2008 and November tests, they noticed that the rocket fire control system, automatic positioning system in the Gyro is seriously flawed.

formal contract signed in 2005 before the Russian side’s request was in India in the summer of 2002, “Tornado-M” system was tested. India was required electronic components to the fire control system in the normal temperature of 40-50 degrees Celsius, but was found during testing, they can endure the highest temperature of 36 degrees Celsius. To this end, the Indian General Staff adhere to the required temperature on the ability of Russian-made electronic systems work for additional tests.

test results are not satisfactory: in tests of 13 sets of gyro-stabilized system has seven sets of issues have emerged. It should be noted that this system is priced up to $ 106,800, while the rocket firing accuracy depends largely on their performance. To solve this problem, the Russian side proposed the installation of cooling systems for these systems, however, the costs must be paid by the Indian side.

In addition, the “Tornado” system are equipped with all the encrypted communication equipment is also very unreliable. India’s financial ombudsman report, “due to internal parts failure” caused a total of 11 complete or partial failure of an accident.

Although Russian producers agreed to make changes to the production process, but the Indian military belongs to the Technical Committee and the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi has decided to jointly develop domestic alternatives to Russian-made equipment in the presence of failure to replace.

Financial Ombudsman also pointed out that India, Russia for the above system provides a very limited number of spare parts, according to the current failure rate calculation, the Russian commitment to the 18-month warranty period, most of these parts able to maintain a year.

similar problems also appear in the R-171M radio stations. Compared with similar products, this radio is not only a short distance communication, and prone to failure. Although the Russian side to provide spare parts for maintenance, but the manufacturer does not provide relevant guidance material, can not lead to communication for command and control system for vehicle maintenance. At the same time, “Tornado” rocket system uses hydraulic and pneumatic lifting equipment and balance mechanisms in the warranty period, there have been two failures. Although Russia can use spare parts recommended for maintenance, has failed to carry out this work – just enough for Russia to provide spare parts for a repair needs.

India and supervision departments not without fear that the hydraulic system problems will make India into a heavy reliance on suppliers being. However, the Indian Defense Ministry had announced in November 2009, in the shortest time supplier to Russia ordered all the necessary components.

India’s financial and supervision departments in the report that printed the purchasing department to buy Russian weapons systems in the process too much faith in the manufacturer’s technical information, while ignoring the actual testing of these products, but also did not stipulated in the contract supplier should bear the responsibility for quality. Purchasing department’s failings are a substantial increase in the import of weapons and equipment risks.

At the same time, due to not purchase the necessary auxiliary equipment, such as ammunition with high mobility vehicles, heavy equipment, global positioning systems and evacuation vehicles, resulting in “Tornado” system used in India is facing many difficulties.

“Tornado” system is the world has been officially installed in the longest-range artillery weapons, the most powerful, highest accuracy and performance of the most advanced multi-barrel rocket launchers on their own one. So far, only Russia’s defense exports to India, Algeria and Kuwait and a few other countries export some of this long-range weapons systems. Access to the first batch of “Tornado” system, the Indian Army equipment mainly for the 20-30 km range of the old Russian-made BM-21 multi-barrel rocket launchers.

“tornado” the most prominent advantage is the real solution of the traditional rocket projectile spread is large and the problem of poor accuracy. It uses a caliber of 300 mm rockets, warhead weight 280 kilograms, the maximum range of 70 km (improved up to 90 km). Volley when, 1 launch vehicle can complete in 38 seconds, 12 rockets launched, covering 672,000 square meters area. Although the increase in small caliber, but the huge increase on the accuracy of the system makes the tornado greatly increased combat power, six launch vehicle firing power is equivalent to the previous two brigades 9K57 “Hurricane” rocket effect.

In addition, the “Tornado” system uses a variety of non-control and homing rockets. Common feature is the use of the initial segment of the simple inertial guidance, but also the use of attitude control, airframe stability and automatic rotation correction, the spread of rockets precision technology. By playing on the automatic correction system, gyro direction finder and gas control systems with the three shooting accuracy greatly improved. Through these measures, the error can be controlled within the range of 0.21%: index of its intensity compared with conventional rockets increased 3-fold, close to the general accuracy of gun barrel. Compared with similar equipment and the West, “Tornado”, whether in range, or in the lethality and precision shooting, have a great advantage. (Compass)