 "DRDO successfully completes flight tests of guided Pinaka rocket system")
One of the Indian Army’s most devastating fire support systems, the indigenous guided Pinaka weapon system, has successfully completed its flight tests, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) announced on Thursday.
The Army first witnessed the havoc caused by the Pinaka multiple-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL) during the Kargil War in 1999, when the system, still under development, caused widespread depredation when fired at Pakistani infiltrators’ positions.
Impressed, the Indian Army decided to replace its Soviet-era MBRLs — the venerable GRAD BM-21 — with an indigenous MBRL. The result is the Pinaka.
A Pinaka MBRL unit consists of 18 launchers, each of which fires at the enemy from 12 launcher tubes. Firing in rapid succession, these 216 launcher tubes can rain down seven tonnes of high explosive in just 44 seconds on a target 60 kilometres away, catching enemy troops in the open without giving them time to take cover.
The Pinaka MBRL, named after the legendary bow of Lord Shiva, takes just three minutes to come into and out of action.
The Pinaka project has been successfully led by two DRDO laboratories in Pune—Armament Research & Development Establishment (ARDE) and High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL)—in partnership with two private sector firms, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Tata Power Company Ltd (TPCL).
More From This Section
Built on a rugged 8x8 Tatra vehicle, the early Pinaka Mark I had a range of only 37.5 km and limited accuracy of about 500 metres. In 2016, after the Army demanded better performance, ARDE added a guidance kit to each individual rocket under the 'Enhanced Pinaka' project.
The Enhanced Pinaka has a demonstrated range of 75 km and the ability to strike within 10 metres of its target. This allows a Pinaka battery to destroy a terrorist camp, enemy post, logistics dump, or headquarters without having to send soldiers across the border.
From 2006-10, L&T and Tata Power built and delivered the army’s first two Pinaka regiments. In 2016, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) contracted for the army’s third and fourth regiments. In August 2020, a third order was placed for six regiments, which will increase the Army’s Pinaka inventory to ten units. These will be equipped with the Pinaka-ER rockets currently being tested.
Following these 10 Pinaka regiments will be 12 units of the longer-range Pinaka Mark II MLRS, for which the MoD signed a Rs 2,580 crore contract in August 2020. The total cost of 22 Pinaka regiments will amount to Rs 21,000 crore.
Briefing Business Standard in March 2020, the DRDO had said that each Pinaka Mark II rocket will be guided individually to its target by its own inertial navigation system (INS). An on-board computer will monitor the rocket’s flight path and send a path correction message through a radio link every 20 microseconds. Based on that, the rocket will correct its flight path using thrust vectors, i.e., gases emitted from the propulsion system through nozzles.
While the Pinaka project has been led by nine laboratories of the DRDO, numerous small and medium-scale industries have contributed their expertise. Besides L&T and Tata Power, these include Bharat Earth Movers Ltd, Bharat Electronics Ltd, Tractors India Ltd, Armatic Engineering, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Bharat Dynamics Ltd, Midhani, and ECIL.
A limited degree of foreign expertise has come from SAGEM (France) and Fuchs Electronics (South Africa).
After validating the Pinaka MBRL’s performance, the DRDO transferred the technology to manufacture its rocket ammunition to a Nagpur-based industry partner called Economic Explosives.