Looking to export its indigenous weapon systems, India has strongly demonstrated the firepower of its Akash surface-to-air weapon system, where a single firing unit simultaneously engaged and destroyed four unmanned targets during the recent Exercise Astrashakti 2023.

Exercise Astrashakti

Looking to export its indigenous weapon systems, India has strongly demonstrated the firepower of its Akash surface-to-air weapon system, where a single firing unit simultaneously engaged and destroyed four unmanned targets during the recent Exercise Astrashakti 2023. With this demonstration during the Air Force Exercise Astrashakti-2023, India has become the first to demonstrate the capability of engaging four targets simultaneously at such ranges by command guidance using a single firing unit

“Two Akash missiles were launched from two launchers and the same launcher was assigned for next two targets. A total of four missiles were launched within a short span and all four targets were successfully engaged at maximum range (around 30 km) simultaneously,” they said.

Explaining the trials, the officials said that during the exercise, four targets were coming from same direction in a close formation and were split to attack their own defence assets from multiple directions simultaneously.

•”The Akash firing unit was deployed with Firing Level Radar, Firing Control Centre (FCC), and two Akash Air Force Launcher launchers having five armed missiles,” they said.

•The FLR was detected and tracked and the air scenario with four targets was updated to a higher echelon.

Akash Weapon System

The Akash Weapon System is indigenously designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and produced by defence public sector units along with other industries. Akash is a medium-range mobile surface-to-air missile system developed by the DRDO and produced by Bharat Dynamics Limited.

Warhead: High-explosive, fragmentation

Warhead weight: 60 kg (130 lb)

Maximum speed: Mach 1.8 to 2.5

Range:  30 km

Akash has been deployed by the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army for the last decade. The current firing was done from the system, which was ordered in September 2019 as a repeat order from the IAF.