NEW DELHI – In yet another boost to the Indian Army, the Smerch guidedmissile-cum-multi barrel rockets successfully hit targets around 90kilometres away at Rajasthan’s Pokhran field firing range on Monday toclear the trial. Developed jointly by India and Russia, two versions of theSmerch – 9MMF and 9.55K – were test-fired.

A team senior Indian army officers and Russian scientists witnessed thetest firing. The missiles/rockets are state-of-art and their direction canbe controlled/changed to hit moving targets or if they deviate from theircourse. The Smerch uses stabilisers made at Kanpur’s Ordnance FactoryBoard. The stabilisers are the wings of the rocket which cannot be firedwithout them.

A similar test firing of the Smerch in 2017 had failed as the rocketsmissed the target and went awry. The 48.5 tonne Smerch with the Indian Armycan fire seven types of rockets.

India is already developing and had in January 2017 and May 2018successfully test-fired an upgraded version of Pinaka multi-barrel rocketlauncher to replace the Smerch. “The Pinaka Rocket converted to a GuidedPinaka was successfully test-fired from Launch Complex-III, ITR, Chandipurtoday. The Pinaka Rocket Mark-II, which evolved from Pinaka Mark-I isequipped with a navigation, guidance and control kit and has beentransformed to a Guided Pinaka. This conversion has considerably enhancedthe range and accuracy of Pinaka. The test-firing has met all missionobjectives.

The radars, electro-optical and telemetry systems at Chandipur tracked andmonitored the vehicle all through the flight-path. The Guided Pinaka isdeveloped jointly by ARDE Pune, RCI Hyderabad and DRDL Hyderabad. ITRChandipur provided the range and launch support,” the Ministry of Defencehas said on January 12, 2017.

The Pinaka Mark-II has a range of more than 70 kilometres and it can fire asalvo of 12 rockets in 44 seconds.