NEW DELHI, February 06. /ITAR-TASS/. India's Navy has for the first time salvo-fired BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles from board the frigate Trikand built in Kaliningrad, a source close to the Indian Ministry of Defence told Itar-Tass on Thursday in the lobby of the DefExpo-2014 international exhibition of ground and naval armaments.

"This is the world's first salvo-firing of supersonic cruise missiles. The salvo-firing was effected on January 30 off the coast of India's southern state of Karnataka," the source pointed out. "It's just been confirmed that everything went off successfully. Two missiles were fired one after the other with an interval of three seconds".

The source said, "The first missile with a warhead successfully hit the target and the second one – with telemetry – followed the assigned trajectory". "We can launch almost simultaneously eight missiles one after another at three-second intervals", he specified.

The frigate Trikand was built for the Indian Navy at the Baltic shipyard Yantar (amber) in Kaliningrad. The ship was launched on May 25, 2011. The Teg, first of three frigates of Design 11356, built in Kaliningrad under a contract concluded with India in 2005, was turned over to the customer on April 27, 2012. The second one, the Tarkash, was received by the Indian side on November 9 of the same year, and the Tirkand in June 2013. 

The ships of Design 11356 are designed to conduct combat operations in oceanic and sea areas independently and as part of naval force. The frigates are capable of effectively destroying enemy submarines, exercising anti-ship, anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defence of combat ships and vessels that support combat operations of ground troops, and ensuring amphibious landing. They all are armed with BrahMos strike systems (eight missiles).

BrahMos missiles have a range of up to 290 km and are capable of carrying explosive ordnance weighing up to 300 kg at a speed of 2.8 Mach. These are two-tier cruise missiles, 10 metres long and having a diameter of 70 cm.