Although this missile in development since 1990's, DRDO has announced only in 2008 that missile development is complete. However, after the evaluations, even though missile did exceptionally well by hitting all its targets in all tests IAF has went ahead and placed orders 2 squadrons as a face saving burial for the project. However, IAF later found he missile performance to be satisfactory and placed orders for 16 more launchers to form 2 more squadrons for India's northeast theater. Now the latest news are that even the Indian Army is evincing interest in Akash. Its good news all the way for DRDO and Akash.
Akash is indeed a very formidable missile, but with few inherent drawbacks in it. First, the missile is too big in size for a 25-30KM missile. Owing to its sheer size, Akasha carrier will be able to carry only 3 ready to fire missiles on it. This is a serious drawback particularly in tactical situations where your enemy is flying to you and after three missiles, you are left with an empty salvo, meaning you need more number of carriers. Second, range of the missile is not sufficient enough to cover the vast aircspace of our country. Even though the rajendra radar can detect and track an incoming target at 60KM away, missile can take it only when it is within 30KM. With the proliferation of anti radiation missiles this window of 30KM is more than enough for the enemy to fire the missile and skoot rendering the missile system useless. Third is its weight. At 720kg, Akash missile is a heavy missile in its class. This restricts the missile carrying vehicle options only to heavy carriers.
With all the aforementioned shortcomings, the scope and areas of enhancement for this system are aplenty. If they can reduce the size and weight of the missile, it will only become much better SAM system. But this requires additional time and resources and would have be worthless investment when aren't many takers for it. Now that the economies of scale looking good, DRDO can dare to invest additional resources and offer its initial takers a much improved product.
- Image of the Akash and its carrier shown above is copyrighted to Frontier India Defense and Strategic News Service
