The Indian Navy (IN) has carried out its first successful “co-operative engagement firing” trials using the Medium-range Surface-to Air-Missile (MRSAM) version of the Barak-8 missile system.
A Barak-8 MRSAM missile being test-fired from Kolkata-class destroyer INS Kochi (D 64) on 17 May to demonstrate IN’s "co-operative engagement firing" capability. (Indian Navy )
IN Kolkata-class guided-missile destroyers INS Kochi (D 64) and INS Chennai (D 65) were involved in the first such test-firing from India’s western seaboard in the Arabian Sea on 17 May, according to a statement by the Indian government’s Press Information Bureau (PIB).
“The missiles of both ships were controlled by one ship to intercept different aerial targets at extended ranges,” said PIB, adding that the firing trials were conducted through the collaborative efforts of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the IN, and India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), along with several of its subsidiaries.
The DRDO and IAI jointly developed the 70 km-range Barak-8 MRSAM under a USD1.4 billion programme launched in 2006.
IN spokesperson Captain DK Sharma told Jane’s on 21 May that the Barak-8 firing was executed by “seamlessly” transferring data from one destroyer to the other via locally designed systems.
He said that among the local companies involved in the test-firing were Bharat Dynamics Limited, which series-builds the MRSAM, and the DRDO’s Defence Research and Development Laboratory, a missile system design facility.
The Barak-8 MRSAM, which will arm the Kolkata-class destroyers and other major IN warships, was first tested in Israel in late 2014 and fired from INS Kolkata off India’s western coast a year later. Each Kolkata-class destroyer is expected to carry a complement of 32 Barak-8s.
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