Norway's NASAMS and Israel's SPYDER mount AAMs in cannisters. But Superpowar India is happy to just mount naked R-73s onto rails on a truck. You know what? The Houthis did actually use R-73s as improvised SAMs against Saudi warplanes. Their effectiveness is high debatable though. They were able to repurpose R-73s to SAMs in workshops.
Point is, why could Supapowar India, with all its technological and industrial prowess be so proud of developing a product that the Houthis could make in workshops in 2022? I think I know why. Its a combination of laziness, corruption, and Jai Hind. SAMAR is not a work-in-progress, its a Jugaad. Its already the final product, proudly Made-in-India. And the Jai Hinds are super proud of Jugaad. This is the standard of progress in Modi's India. Congratulations!
Modern SAMs are designed to engage supersonic aircraft anyway. Both the R-73 and AKASH have supersonic top speeds, so on paper, they shouldn't miss target drones flying in a straight line at subsonic speeds. Not just once, but multiple times. All missiles can fail, but to fail this often in a single public event? What's worse is that the event commentator and the Jai Hinds online are spinning excuses for this. Why bother to improve, if they can just spin excuses? That is why India belongs in the league of 3rd world militaries, and its even more than contented to stay there.
