Chaff of DRDO impresses IAF, Indian Navy; tie-up to shield warships, fighter jets follows

The Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy have tied up with the Defence Research Development Organisation to get the technology called Chaff that protects one’s warship from an anti-ship missile in the course of a battle. India is now the second country after the United States to develop this ability, a major Aatmanirbhar push in the field of defence.

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The tie-up assumes significance as the Indian navy is currently studying the sinking of Russian missile cruiser Moskva and focusing on how to protect our warships from anti-ship ballistic missiles like the Chinese DF-21.

Chaff

Chaff is a crucial defence technology used to protect fighter aircrafts or naval ships from the enemy’s radar-guided missiles in the course of a war. The significance of this technology lies in the fact that very less quantity of Chaff material deployed in the air acts as a decoy to deflect enemy’s missiles to ensure safety of the fighter aircraft or naval ships.

Chaff creates a metal particle cloud near the warship and deflects the missiles from it.

The DRDO has developed the advanced Chaff technology to defend warships and fighter aircrafts against modern day broadband (including high frequency) radar threat.

Developed by the DRDO, the technology includes all three variants of Chaff rockets namely Short Range Chaff Rocket (SRCR), Medium Range Chaff Rocket (MRCR) and Long Range Chaff Rocket (LRCR), and have been inducted in the Indian Navy after successful user trials.

The DRDO has also developed advanced Chaff cartridge-118/I for the Indian Air Force having major advantages over the chaff available worldwide in terms of its better efficacy against higher frequency radar threat in modern warfare scenario.

After a successfully extensive user trials, the IAF assessed the performance of indigenous chaff cartridge-118/I satisfactory and started the process of induction into Indian Air Force.