Exercise Astrashakti: Indian Akash air defence missile system destroys 4 targets simultaneously

India demonstrated the firepower of its indigenous Akash missile system, engaging four targets simultaneously at 30 km range.

Looking to export its indigenous weapon systems, India has strongly demonstrated the firepower of its Akash surface-to-air (SAM) 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, defence officials told ANI.

"India demonstrated the firepower of the indigenous Akash missile system, where four targets (unmanned aerial targets) were engaged simultaneously by a single Akash firing unit. The demonstration was conducted by the IAF during Astrashakti 2023 at Suryalanka Air Force Station on December 12," 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 (FLR), Firing Control Centre (FCC), and two Akash Air Force Launcher (AAFL) 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.

The targets were assigned to the Akash Firing Unit to neutralise the threat and the commander issued the firing commands when the system prompted the engagement as per system capability.