IAF, Navy to acquire CHAFF tech to shield warships, aircraft

New Delhi: The Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy have tied up with the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) to get the CHAFF technology, which protects the warship from an anti-ship missile during hostilities. India is now the second country after the United States to develop this ability, a major Aatmanirbhar push in the field of defence.

The developed 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.

What is CHAFF?

In simple words, CHAFF is a critical defence technology used to protect fighter aircrafts or naval ships from enemy radar-guided missile during 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 this advanced CHAFF technology to defend naval Ships 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.