New Delhi: India’s first tactical quasi-ballistic missile—Pralay—is set to debut at the 26 January Republic Day parade. Defence sources said that as part of the Indian Army’s power projection, there will be a showcase of the missile and its launcher.
However, it is unclear whether the missile, which completed trials way back in 2022, has been formally inducted into the armed forces. Defence sources did not provide any clarity.
The parade showcases only systems already or to be inducted into the Army.
An indigenous short-range ballistic surface-to-surface (SRBM) with a 150-500 km range, Pralay comes close to the specifications and requirements of the Army. The Army wanted to arm itself with a tactical conventional missile on the battlefield. In just seven years, Pralay, expected to add heft to the military’s war-fighting capabilities, became ready for induction in 2022.
Capable of carrying a 350-700 kg conventional warhead, giving it a deadly punitive capability, Pralay can hit enemy positions and key installations in actual battlefield areas. A solid propellant rocket motor and multiple new technologies power the missile, but the highlight, said sources, is its accuracy. It can carry a high explosive preformed fragmentation warhead, penetration-cum-blast (PCB) and runaway denial penetration submunition (RDPS).
The Pralay missile project—sanctioned in 2015—is a derivative of the Prahaar missile programme, first tested in 2011.
Pralay is said to have been developed by integrating elements from multiple missile programmes, including the K-series of submarine-launched ballistic missiles and the ballistic defence shield programme.
Notably, both China and Pakistan have tactical ballistic missiles.
The Indian missile is comparable to China’s Dong Feng 12 and the Russian Iskander missile, used in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
The US Army is also increasing the range of a similar short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).
Designed to evade interceptor missiles, Pralay is a quasi-ballistic weapon, i.e., though largely ballistic and with a low trajectory, it can manoeuvre in flight.
Ballistic missiles, initially powered by a rocket or series of rockets in stages, later follow an unpowered trajectory, arching upwards before descending to reach its intended target at high speed.
Unlike intercontinental ballistic missiles that exit the Earth’s atmosphere, short-range ballistic missiles stay within it.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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