when is the much hyped NSM going to enter service ?

to me it looks like a decent if very range limited weapon against
land targets. A range of 150km means the firing platform has to move deep within the enemy’s air defences to even go after coastal targets…not a good idea unless the firer is a submarine.
I doubt modern short range SAMs and guns will have
much trouble taking it out with a fair amt of ease.

USN ships wont be scared by any number of these pinpricks and
thats what both India and China want to deter in the future. something heavier , faster and nastier is a must. China is also developing its own line of tools for that apart from laying in russian gear.

for manouvers doesnt Sunburn and its cousins throw S-shaped terminal moves to convert the intercept into a much harder crossing engagements for the shooter ? I suspect its a lot harder to deal with a crossing mach2+ target than one coming straight at you?

what is the source of all this detailed information ? is it in
some sales brochure or just “guesses” ?

If matters were so simple as described in above posts I
doubt India would be investing the time & money to equip
its ships and planes with this weapon 😉 Klub was a option
and that seems to have been superceded by the brahmos plans.

Mystic_J, what part of the posted Orbat (yeah they will get some 737 awacs rather than eyerie as if that nit matters) dont you agree with ? 220 F-16 + 110 F-4 sounds mighty good enough to me.

the S-300 has a very rudimentary ATBM capability esp against the latest Chinese IRBM types used by both PLA and PA (not Scud). the S-400 is a unknown quantity to me. indian officials have never observed a real live test wherein it took down a good IRBM.

Its not the missiles that make the difference but the control center, early warning sats and the huge radars like greenpine or its russian equivalent. Without early warning from US sats (which Israel gets), its a crap shoot and chances of successful intercepts decline.

since india doesnt have such sats and wont have it atleast for next 10 yrs, there is little point in buying a expensive system at this stage which will be obsolete by the time india acquires the rest of the “eco-system”.

better to let both russia and israel keep on developing their stuff via
chinese and american cash infusions for now and jump in at the appropriate time.

folks pls check the S-300 for china thread. the first , second and third orders addup to a few hundred TELs and likely 1500 missiles multiplying by four. the third order has just been placed and they wouldnt be spending $1 billion right now if something domestic of similar capability was available in near future.

total investment is surely in the $2.5-3 billion range for the S300 systems alone and definitely the largest heavy-SAM deployment ever in world history.

At the lower end per Huitong’s site they are license making a bunch of stuff like Tor in hundreds of units. perhaps Tunguska too?

the US Govt says everything is allright and under control, so everything must really be ok.

New instructions from the Komissar will follow soon, pls remain
calm.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/sep/10sat.htm