PAD is entirely different from PDV. PDV has been derived from liquid fueled Phrithvi which has now been modified into solid fuel based system. But PAD in itself has been conceived as a solid fueled system. Even designers were aware of the fact that anything derived from PDV would not be enough to intercept a 5k range incoming missile.
A 1k crore project. Its envisioned to be complete by 2019 only I believe.
That is interesting, according to Wikipedia and other Indian online sources, the PDV (150km altitude) is developed to replace PAD (80km altitude). And there is no document saying that PDV is a completely new missile. More importantly, as mentioned in this article and others, the maximum speed of PAD & PDV is around Mach 5 which is even lower than my previous estimation.
Ok.............................................
PAD, like other Prithvi missiles, uses dual clustered liquid fuel rocket motor at the 1st stage while PDV have single solid fuel rocket motor at 1st stage.
Certainly, there are some updates on the PDV otherwise it won't be able to increase the altitude. But if you look at the shape of the missile (thanks to those gentlemen posting the pictures), it is very clear that PDV and PAD are both developed from the ballistic missile - Prithvi which don't put speed on the top of its priority. Just have a look at American & Russian's interception missiles, you can find their missiles are clearly designed to perfect the speed.
I thought liquid based missiles are more manouverable and are faster too.
For delicate task of interception IMHO, after a perticular point rather than speed, its maneuverability of missile which is important. By overspeeding you could miss the target missile. Therefore constant speed is important. Good example is this
More manouverable? that kind of low g manuouverable is meaningless for defense missile!
Agreed, but I brought up the issue of speed because Chinmoy wants to use PDV for boosting stage BMD which need the speed of defense missile greatly.
We only know Chinese scientists are working on it but no much details were released except some American reports and observations. It was said that HQ-19 (similar to THAAD) entered the service last year, but there is no official picture/news, let's keep it as rumor.
I never said PDV to be able to intercept any BM during boost phase. I only mentioned that with Phase II PAD, there is a possibility to intercept any 2k range BM on its boost or coasting phase.
Well, same to you, my friend. I never said that you claim PDV to be able to intercept during boosting stage. I said that you "want" to use it for that job, which I pointed out there is no such possibility considering the current features of PDV.
Terminal phase interception is the easiest part of all interceptions since you get more warning time, lower requirement to interceptors. The only problem is that is your last defense line, you miss it then you suffer the blast. That is why people trying to push their interception range up to the space or far to the missile launch site.
Nobody is going to launch a missile from border unless you are highly confident about the safety of the launch site. If Pakistan is stupid enough to do that, the first thing they need to worry is the cheap bomb carried by India fighters.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, their width is not that large. The farthest point should be around 700kms from Indian border. But most of their military bases are much close to India. So they really need to worry.
