Which of the following statements about India's military arsenal is/are correct? 1. HAMMER is a weapon system built for the Rafale fighter aircraft. 2. SCALP cruise missile is also known as Storm Shadow. 3. BrahMos missiles are built under a joint venture between India and Russia. Select the answer using the code given below:

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2025 GK Q116?

C. Correct — C, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements are accurate, and together they map the mixed origins of India's strike arsenal. HAMMER — Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range — is a French modular guidance and propulsion kit that converts a plain bomb into a stand-off precision weapon; it is integrated on the Rafale and was acquired for the Indian Air Force's Rafales, so statement 1 is right. SCALP-EG and Storm Shadow are the same Anglo-French air-launched cruise missile under two national names, SCALP being the French designation and Storm Shadow the British; it too is carried by the Rafale and gives a deep stand-off strike option, so statement 2 is right. BrahMos is produced by BrahMos Aerospace, the joint venture set up in 1998 between India's Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya, and the name itself is a compound of the Brahmaputra and the Moskva, so statement 3 is right. Nothing to reject, and the answer is the all-inclusive option. (Provisional — pending the official UPSC key.)

(a)1 and 2 only
(b)2 and 3 only
(c)1, 2 and 3
(d)3 only

Answer

Why

Correct — C, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements are accurate, and together they map the mixed origins of India's strike arsenal. HAMMER — Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range — is a French modular guidance and propulsion kit that converts a plain bomb into a stand-off precision weapon; it is integrated on the Rafale and was acquired for the Indian Air Force's Rafales, so statement 1 is right. SCALP-EG and Storm Shadow are the same Anglo-French air-launched cruise missile under two national names, SCALP being the French designation and Storm Shadow the British; it too is carried by the Rafale and gives a deep stand-off strike option, so statement 2 is right. BrahMos is produced by BrahMos Aerospace, the joint venture set up in 1998 between India's Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya, and the name itself is a compound of the Brahmaputra and the Moskva, so statement 3 is right. Nothing to reject, and the answer is the all-inclusive option.

Why the others are wrong

(a)1 and 2 only — Drops the BrahMos joint venture, which is the best-documented of the three — the name is literally a portmanteau of the two countries' rivers.
(b)2 and 3 only — Drops HAMMER, presumably on unfamiliarity. It is a French munition integrated on the Rafale and was part of the Indian package.
(d)3 only — Keeps only the most familiar fact. Both the Rafale-related statements are also true.

Concept

Stand-off weapons let an aircraft strike from beyond the reach of the defender's surface-to-air missiles. They range from glide kits with tens of kilometres of reach, like HAMMER, to turbojet cruise missiles with several hundred kilometres, like SCALP, to supersonic cruise missiles like BrahMos.

The three names sit together because they entered Indian service through different routes. HAMMER and SCALP came with the 36-aircraft Rafale contract signed with France in 2016, the aircraft arriving from 2020. BrahMos came from a co-development partnership rather than a purchase, and is the flagship of that model: an Indian-Russian venture producing land, ship, submarine and air-launched variants, with the air-launched version carried by the Su-30MKI, and exports beginning with a contract to the Philippines. Read together the three illustrate why import substitution in defence is measured not just by who builds a platform but by who owns the design.

Key facts

HAMMER stands for Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range, a French precision-guidance and propulsion kit for bombs.
SCALP-EG (French) and Storm Shadow (British) are the same Anglo-French air-launched cruise missile.
Both are integrated on the Rafale, which India contracted for in 2016 with deliveries from 2020.
BrahMos Aerospace is a 1998 joint venture between India's DRDO and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyeniya.
The name BrahMos combines the Brahmaputra and the Moskva; the Philippines was its first export customer.

Study next

Indian Air Force inventory: Rafale, Su-30MKI, Tejas, Mirage 2000, MiG-29Stand-off weapons and precision-guided munitionsBrahMos variants — land, ship, submarine, air-launched — and BrahMos-NGIndigenous missile programmes: Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Astra, NirbhayDefence exports and the offset policy

Common traps

Treating SCALP and Storm Shadow as two different missiles. They are one weapon with two national names.
Assuming BrahMos is wholly indigenous. It is a joint venture, which is what statement 3 says and why it is true.
Rejecting HAMMER for unfamiliarity — it is a munition rather than a missile, which is why it is less often mentioned.

As a three-statement defence-inventory item where each statement concerns a different acquisition route. Also as direct recall of what an acronym stands for.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between India and which country?
- (a)France
- (b)Israel
- (c)Russia
- (d)United States
Answer(c) Russia — DRDO with NPO Mashinostroyeniya; the name joins the Brahmaputra and the Moskva.
practice — not a real PYQ
The Storm Shadow cruise missile is known in French service as:
- (a)Exocet
- (b)SCALP-EG
- (c)MICA
- (d)Meteor
Answer(b) SCALP-EG — the same Anglo-French weapon under a different national designation.