TIME FOR A ROBUST BMD SHIELD

With nuclear-armed Pakistan and China in the neighbourhood, India must prepare ballistic missile defences at the earliest for protecting its densely populated cities

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The Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system is a long-range, land-based theatre defence weapon that acts as the upper tier of a basic two-tiered defence against ballistic missiles. It is designed to intercept and destroy short, medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during late mid-course or final stage flight– or terminal phase– at altitudes of up to 200 km. This allows it to provide broad area coverage against threats to critical assets such as population centres and industrial resources as well as military forces.

The ability to intercept both inside and outside the atmosphere makes THAAD an important part of layered missile defence concepts, as it falls between the exclusively exo-atmospheric and exclusively endoatmospheric interceptors. This capability makes THAAD different from the Patriot PAC-3 or the future MEADS system, which are point defence options with limited range that are designed to hit a missile just before impact.

There are four main components to THAAD: the launcher, interceptors, radar and fire control. The launcher is mounted on a truck for mobility and storability. There are eight interceptors per launcher. Current configurations of THAAD batteries include six launchers and 48 interceptors, though certain reports indicate that this could be scaled up to nine launchers and 72 interceptors.

The THAAD system utilises the Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2) radar to detect and track enemy missiles at a range of up to 1,000 km. The fire control system is the communication and data-management backbone and is equipped with an indigenous THAAD Fire Control and Communications system. The Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) also provides tracking and cueing information for THAAD from other regional sensors on Aegis and Patriot systems.