Indian DRDO developing Pranash, a new 200km strike range ballistic missile.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has started working on the development of the Pranash, a 200-km range surface-to-surface ballistic missile that would be armed with conventional warheads.

Prahaar fills the short-range tactical battlefield role (Picture source: Indian MoD)

The trials of the single-stage, solid-propellant missile should take place in the forthcoming years. It would also be readied for exports to friendly foreign countries as its strike range is within the permissible limits of international regimes on missile sales.

The Pranash is an advanced version of the 150-km strike range Prahaar missile which was designed for tactical missions. The surface-to-surface ballistic missile will be of use for the Air Force and Army.

Prahaar was developed to provide a cost-effective, quick-reaction, all-weather, all-terrain, highly accurate battlefield support tactical weapon system. The development of the missile was carried out by the DRDO scientists in a span of less than two years. The maneuvering capability, greater acceleration, better accuracy and faster deployment fills the short-range tactical battlefield role as required by the Indian Army to take out strategic and tactical targets. The mobile launch platform carries six missiles that can be deployed in stand-alone and canisterised mode, which can have different kind of warheads meant for different targets and can be fired in salvo mode in all directions covering the entire azimuth plane. This solid-fueled missile can be launched within 2–3 minutes without any preparation, providing significantly better reaction time than liquid-fueled Prithvi ballistic missiles and act as a gap filler in the 150 km (93 miles) range, between the Pinaka Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher and Smerch MBRL in one end and the Prithvi ballistic missiles on the other.