Indian long range cruise missile NIRBHAY, is it needed?

Nirbhay LRCM or long range cruise missile.

Nirbhay is a high subsonic (.8 mach+ where 1 mach is speed of sound) cruise missile which is being developed by DRDO.

Earlier it was supposed to complement brahmos at longer ranges of about 1000 kms when brahmos range was limited to 300 kms because or MTCR restrictions but now as brahmos range is being increased from 300 kms to 450 and as much as 800 kms in future many have questioned me as to why we need a subsonic LRCM anymore when we have brahmos which is mach 3 supersonic and is proven.

To understand this you need to see the economics factor or understand that a single brahmos is at times as expensive as multiple nirbhay would be. Yes the speed of brahmos makes it difficult to intercept and best for attacking a HVT or high value target but for a long value target using brahmos will be uneconomical and thats why the Subsonic missiles are still a thing.

Instead of using 1 brahmos one can use about 5 nirbhay ( an eg and not exact cost) to attack a target and cause much more devastation.

The way we can overcome enemy air defences are by using high speeds like brahmos or using a volley attack to saturate the air defences like Americans. Instead of using 20 brahmos to hit targets thinking atleast 50% will penetrate we can use 100 nirbhay missiles to make enemy aur defences incapable of defending and even if 40-60% are shot down then too we have 60 to 40 missiles hitting the target.


Now coming back the nirbhay development has been a very long affair with multiple failures in past and till now only 1 or 2 tests out of a dozen can be termed successful & from past 2-3 years we have been hearing that the program has been shut down but a spin off of the program has been started. The primary reason why drdo is also delaying further testing is because of manik engine being prepared for on board testing  as till now nirbhay has used a russian turbofan engine.

Nirbhay has already demonstrated the sea skimming capability and many other important capabilities in previous trials.

The new tests are supposed to start in few months ( april to june) & its been reported that these tests will take place with the indigenous manik engine onboard, the engine in last few years has seen rigorous ground based trials.

It is told that the new trials will see minor tweaks to ensure the success in trials.

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