Homegrown firepower: Deadly Pinaka rocket gives Army cross-border options

The Enhanced Pinaka has demonstrated twice that range and an ability to strike within 10 metres of where it is aimed

The Pune-based Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) has long been one of the most productive laboratories of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). It has now scored another success with a copybook test of the Enhanced Pinaka rocket.

The Pinaka multi-barrelled rocket launcher (MBRL) is an important indigenous project aimed at providing the army with firepower superiority that would reduce casualties to soldiers in war.

Each Pinaka launcher has 12 tubes, each one firing a rocket that plasters the enemy with 100 kg of high explosive. A salvo from a Pinaka battery, which fields six launchers, brings down on the