Story of missiles development in India

The use of rockets in India is not something new, but dates back to the 18th century. Mysorean rockets were the first iron-cased rockets successfully deployed for military use.There was a regular rocket corps in the Mysore Army, beginning with about 1,200 men in Hyder Ali's time. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu sultan deployed them effectively against East India Company forces during the Anglo mysore wars. These missiles were fitted with swords and traveled several meters through the air before coming down with edges facing the enemy. It is believed that Colonel William Baillie's ammunition stores are were detonated by a hit from one of Hyder Ali's rockets at the  during the second Anglo mysore war, which contributed to a humiliating British defeat.

The Mysore rockets of this period were much more advanced because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant. It enabled longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). Rockets also existed in Europe, but they were not iron-cased and their range was far less as compared to these rockets. Hence, the Britishers took a keen interest int this technology and by reverse engineering them, they introduced this technology to Europe.

Since India was a British colony, research and development suffered and India lagged behind them during that period. But after Independence, the situation started to improve under the leadership of Nehru. But the real improvement came under the leadership of missile man of India, "Dr. APJ kalam"  who accelerated the process and gave new dimensions to it under IGMDP. The IGMDP is one of India's most successful defence research project, as missiles like Agni. Prithvi etc have been developed for the Indian armed forces respectively.

But the road to success was not a smooth one for India. After India test-fired the first Prithvi missile in 1988, and the Agni missile in 1989, the MTCR decided to impose ban and restrict access to any technology that would help India in its missile development program. For example- the USA denied India phase shifters for the phased array radars for Akash. In order to counter it, IGMDP formed many DRDO labs, institutions and industries to build these components. In 2011, the DRDO Chief V K Saraswat stated that- "indigenous content" in India's strategic missiles had gone up to such a level, with ring-laser gyros, composite rocket motors, micro-navigation systems etc., that "no technology control regime" could derail them any longer.

Now, a look at the India missiles-

Of all these missiles, Brahmos stands out. It is named after Indian river Brahmaputra and Russian Moskva. It is the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile whose speed is 2.8 to 3 mach, which is currently being upgraded to 5 mach.In 2016, as India became a member of the Missile technology Control Regime (MTCR), India and Russia are now planning to jointly develop a new generation of Brahmos missiles with 600 km-plus range and an ability to hit protected targets with pinpoint accuracy.