Revision as of 22:00, 14 December 2016

2014: Agni IV

Agni-IV tested, has China within range

Intercontinental ballistic missiles: India, Pakistan, China and others

Rajat Pandit The Times of India Dec 03 2014

India’s dissuasive nuclear deterrence against China got a tad more credibility in Dec 2014 with the country testing the Agni IV ballistic missile, which has a strike range of 4,000-km, from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast in the morning.

The Agni-IV was tested in “its full deliverable configuration” by the tri-service Strategic Forces Command (SFC) in the first such user trials, after one failed and three successful “developmental trials” between 2010 and 2014.

The actual operational induction of the missile, which was tested for a range of only 3,000-km on Tuesday, will take another couple of years.

DRDO scientists said there were no glitches during the missile’s entire parabolic flight path, which was constantly monitored by longrange radars and electro-optical systems all along the coast, till its splash point in the Bay of Bengal.

The SFC has already inducted the short and intermediate range Prithvi and Agni missiles geared towards Pakistan, which has overtaken India both in terms of missiles and nuclear warheads with covert help from China and North Korea over the years.

The road-mobile Agni-IV and Agni-V , in turn, are specifically meant for deterrence against China, which can target any Indian city with its formidable inventory of missiles.

“With Prithvi and Agni-I, II, III missiles already in the arsenal, Agni-IV further extends the reach and enhances India's effective deterrence capability . Agni-IV is equipped with state-ofthe-art avionics, 5th generation on-board computer and distributed architecture,“ said the DRDO.

2016: Agni-V

Rajat Pandit

See graphic

Only 5 Other Nations Have Such Missiles India is getting ready to test its Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in its final operational configuration from Wheeler Island off Odisha after two years. Defence sources said preparations were on in full swing to launch the nuclearcapable Agni-V from its canister on a launcher truck towards December-end or early January . “There were some minor technical snags in Agni-V , which required tweaking of its internal battery and electronic configurations after its last test in January 2015,“ a source said.

While Agni-V was tested in an “open configuration“ in April 2012 and September 2013, the third test, in January 2015, saw it being fired from a hermetically sealed canister mounted on a Tatra launcher truck. The missile's canister-launch version makes it even deadlier since it gives the armed forces requisite flexibility to swiftly transport and fire the 50-tonne missile from anywhere they want.

Once the Agni-V is inducted, India will join the superexclusive club of countries with ICBMs (missiles with a range of over 5,000-5,500km) alongside the US, Russia, China, France and the UK.

Apart from the shorterrange Prithvi and Dhanush missiles, the SFC has inducted the Agni-I, Agni-II and Agni-III missiles (see graphic).While these missiles are mainly geared towards Pakistan, the Agni-IV and Agni-V are specifically meant for deterrence against China. China, of course, is leagues ahead in terms of its missile and nuclear arsenals (see graphic).

But the Indian defence establishment believes the Ag ni-V is sufficient to take care of existing threat perceptions. As earlier reported by TOI, DRDO has also done some work on developing “manoeuvring warheads or intelligent re-entry vehicles“ to defeat enemy ballistic missile defence systems, as well as MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) for the Agni missiles. An MIRV payload basically means a single missile is capable of carrying several nuclear warheads, each programmed to hit different targets.