Vijay Kumar Saraswat, RCI director, said Feb 10 that [u]the system RCI is working on will be superior to the Patriot-2 and Russia’s S-300 PMU, and will be ready to enter service by 2008. Saraswat claimed the system will have a mobile launcher carrying three surface-to-air, solid-fuel missiles, equipped with directional warheads. [/u]

He said the unnamed system will begin flight trials in mid-2006. RCI will carry out about 10 flights before deploying it with the Indian defense forces.
The DRDO scientist said the indigenous air defense system will have a mission control system that will conduct target acquisition, classification and track estimation, among other functions.

He said another major element is the active phased-array radar system purchased from Israel. Called Sword Fish, the system was purchased in early 2004 for $50 million and is undergoing trials at Hasan in Karnataka state. [/u]

Once the air defense system is operational, the DRDO scientist said, RCI will integrate it with other defense systems via satellite links and a secure digital data link that will enable it to track and transmit data up to a range of 1,000 kilometers. •

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=677035&C=airwar

We’ve all heard the same sort of announcement before.

Does anyone remember what happened to the Trishul missile?