India Developing Indigenous S-400s: Expert Reveals LRSAM System Details

India's efforts to build a long-range surface-to-air missile system (LRSAM) for its military are an attempt to develop an S-400 analog for an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), an Indian Air Force (IAF) veteran has said.

The comments of defence expert Vijainder K. Thakur come days after media reports suggested that India's premier defence research agency Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) had intensified its work on the project.

According to Thakur, the IAF chief previously mentioned Project Kusha in the context of the S-400 deal which New Delhi signed with Moscow in 2017.

Explaining the prime difference between an IADS and a regular missile system, Thakur pointed out that a normal missile system has a radar, which can detect an enemy object depending on the capability of the system, when engaged with a threat with the missile's type it has.

Whereas, in an integrated air defense system like the S-400, one thing caters to all types of aerial threats.

For example, Thakur noted that the Akash missile system can engage targets up to a range of 30-40 kilometers. But the S-400, which is an IADS, can hit targets from 400 kilometers to about 10-15 kilometers.

The military analyst opined that building such a system takes a long time and that is why he termed it as a "complicated" process.

Also, he stressed that it becomes even more challenging as the developer needs to be able to integrate other systems with the country's IADS.

Thakur noted that like in the case of S-400, it doesn't work with just the missiles that come along with the system. It can work with any missile with which it is equipped.

For instance, India has a medium-range surface-to-air missile system (MRSAM). So theoretically, India plans to integrate the MRSAM into the S-400 system, Thakur suggested.

Also, he mentioned that an IADS can integrate radars India has, allowing other independent radars that are not part of the original unit to be integrated into the missile system.

On being asked if the Russian experience inspired India to develop such systems, Thakur responded in the affirmative.

He emphasized that India was technically doing what it has done in the past and it was the path that China also followed about the development of IADS.

Thakur then indicated that Project Kusha wasn't a five or ten-year project. As per his estimates, it would take about 25-30 years to develop such a system.

In his view, these were baby steps that India was taking as it would take a long time because integrating other systems under a single umbrella requires a lot of electronic programming, electronics, and mobility capabilities, and that's why I believe it is a process which could take up to three decades to accomplish.

Meanwhile, ex-DRDO scientist Ravi Gupta, the LRSAM project was crucial for the South Asian sovereign state, considering it has two hostile neighbors that were developing their military capabilities at a fast pace.

He noted that India was a vast country in terms of length and breadth and a long border, a major part of which is hostile and it has witnessed hostilities right from its independence in 1947 both at the western and the northern border.

He asserted that this need is further enhanced because today India is a rapidly rising economy and as the country's economy is growing, its assets are also increasing and these assets are spread across the length and breadth of the nation.

If one talks about air defense in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, short-range systems were good enough because India had to defend its military assets adjoining the border and its neighbors also did not have capabilities to strike deep inside its territory.

On that account, if India has to defend itself against the aggressive postures of these two powers or against any other country that is hostile, it needs to have LRSAMs, he summed up.