India preparing to test fire 5000-km range missile this year
New Delhi, May 13: Encouraged by the series of successes with the medium range ballistic missile Agni-III, India is now planning to test a missile with 5000 km range soon. According to reports, the test of the next progression of Agni missiles will push the country into the select group of nations which have long range ballistic missiles.
Agni-III Project Director Avinash Chander has hinted that the preparation process for the test launch of such a missile was in final stages, adding that the scientists were now awaiting a green signal from the Centre carrying out the test flights that could be a reality anytime by 2008-end.
He said that the launching of the 5,000-km range missile would involve strapping third stage booster rocket on Agni-III missiles powered by solid fuel propellant.
Significantly, along side the longer range Agni missiles, India will also carry out further tests of its special naval missile, an acronym used by DRDO scientists for a submarine launched ballistic missile, and the second test of interceptor missile that will be undertaken by September-October.
Speaking about the special naval missile, DRDO Director General M Natarajan said that his scientists were "heavily engaged" in the project, but, at the same time, refused to be drawn out on when India's first nuclear submarine would roll out. Elaborating on DRDO's future programmes, Natarajan said the primary focus has been the development of strategic systems and technologies. "We are not looking far. If the tests go according to plans, such a system can be deployed in a few years time," he said.
On the other hand, regarding the interceptor missile, Project Director V K Saraswat said this would give India the capability to intercept any incoming missile. He refuted suggestions that the development of such a missile could lead to an arms race and he said that it would give India a stronger defense.
"With such a missile in our arsenal, we don't have to match the capabilities of our adversaries. On the other hand, they will have to think twice as anything they fire at us can be intercepted," he said.
According to Saraswat, it would take three to four more tests to develop a robust anti-missile battery system which could be fielded from the frontline to protect the country's vital assets.
Indian Missile Technology Discussion
India looks to join elite missile club
13 May 2008
NEW DELHI: By 2010-2011, India hopes to gatecrash into a very exclusive club of countries, which have both ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) as well as BMD (ballistic missile defence) capabilities.
Only the US and Russia strictly qualify for this club as of now, if all the three capabilities — ICBM, SLBM and BMD — are taken together, with countries like China not too far behind.
Top defence scientists, on the sidelines of the annual DRDO awards on Monday, told TOI they were quite confident India would have ICBMs and SLBMs, even though their strike ranges would be much lesser than American, Russian or Chinese missiles, as also a functional BMD system soon after the turn of this decade.
Take ICBMs first. "We have already started the design work for Agni-V, with a range of over 5,000-km. It basically involves development of a third composite stage for the two-stage Agni-III," said Agni programme director Avinash Chander.
"We will be ready to test Agni-V by 2010," he added. There will not be an Agni-IV missile, with DRDO leapfrogging from intermediate range Agni-III to the almost ICBM-like Agni-V. "We have the capability to go for even longer ranges but it's for the political leadership to take a decision on such matters," said Chander.
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gauravjkale
- BRFite -Trainee
- Posts: 75
- Joined: 29 May 2007 15:32
- Location: Mumbai
Hypersonic version of BrahMos undergoes successful lab test.
India's showpiece supersonic cruise missile, the BrahMos, has now been successfully tested in a hypersonic version, though under laboratory conditions, according to BrahMos Aerospace chief executive officer, Dr A Sivathanu Pillai.
''We have achieved a speed of Mach 5.26 in our laboratory tests of the hypersonic version of the BrahMos. However, it will take some 15-20 tests under controlled conditions before the missile can be actually test-launched,'' Dr Pillai said.
The test was conducted at the Hyderabad-based Advanced Systems Laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which has developed the missile through a joint venture with Russia's NPO organisation.
The BrahMos missile is currently available in a tri-sonic form (Mach 2.86) and can be described as belonging to the high supersonic class, which describes missiles in the Mach 3-4 category. Hypersonic missiles fly at speeds over Mach 5.
According to Dr Pillai, the Brahmos hypersonic version will not only have higher speed, but will also consume less fuel and require less operational time to deploy. These qualities are expected to provide the missile longer range, and also ensure less reaction time from the enemy.
High speeds also make the missile difficult to detect, and increase the kinetic impact on the target.
The velocity of the missile is directly proportional to the destruction it causes, with higher velocities causing higher damage, Dr Pillai elaborated.
Dr Pillai also said the hypersonic version was powered by a scramjet engine that is also used for launching satellites at low cost.
India's showpiece supersonic cruise missile, the BrahMos, has now been successfully tested in a hypersonic version, though under laboratory conditions, according to BrahMos Aerospace chief executive officer, Dr A Sivathanu Pillai.
''We have achieved a speed of Mach 5.26 in our laboratory tests of the hypersonic version of the BrahMos. However, it will take some 15-20 tests under controlled conditions before the missile can be actually test-launched,'' Dr Pillai said.
The test was conducted at the Hyderabad-based Advanced Systems Laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which has developed the missile through a joint venture with Russia's NPO organisation.
The BrahMos missile is currently available in a tri-sonic form (Mach 2.86) and can be described as belonging to the high supersonic class, which describes missiles in the Mach 3-4 category. Hypersonic missiles fly at speeds over Mach 5.
According to Dr Pillai, the Brahmos hypersonic version will not only have higher speed, but will also consume less fuel and require less operational time to deploy. These qualities are expected to provide the missile longer range, and also ensure less reaction time from the enemy.
High speeds also make the missile difficult to detect, and increase the kinetic impact on the target.
The velocity of the missile is directly proportional to the destruction it causes, with higher velocities causing higher damage, Dr Pillai elaborated.
Dr Pillai also said the hypersonic version was powered by a scramjet engine that is also used for launching satellites at low cost.
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ranganathan
- BRFite
- Posts: 277
- Joined: 06 Feb 2008 23:14
Bhai Saab: Suggest you read google/wiki articles on supersonic, and hypersonic flight regime as well as jet engines, ram jets and scram jets. That will help stabilize flights of fancy.ranganathan wrote:I was under the impression that brahmos-8 (2) was to have a speed of mach 8? 5.26 is just barely hypersonic, I hope they can increase it to high hypersonic speed of mach 7-8
Nothing wrong in hoping, but hoping for on-demand miracle is .... . is waste of time.
Woman to head missile project for the first time
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May ... updatenews
Dr Tessy Thomas, one of the 200 women scientists and technicians working for the DRDO, has been cleared to be appointed to the post of Project Director of Agni-II missile project.
After rising to the ranks of Lt Generals in the army and Air Marshals in the IAF, a woman is now set to head the country's key missile project.
45-year-old Dr Tessy Thomas, one of the around 200 women scientists and technicians working for the DRDO, has been cleared to be appointed to the post of Project Director of the upgraded version of the 2000 km-long nuclear capable Agni-II missile.
Thomas is presently the Associate Project Director of the 3,000 km range Agni-III missile project.
Asked about the new version of Agni-II being planned, Thomas, who was yesterday honoured along with the entire team of Agni-III by the Prime Minister, told PTI that "It is still a confidential project. It will be called Agni-II A (2)."
"I like my job. I feel I am contributing to my nation's security," Thomas, who has named her son after the country's light combat fighter Tejas, said.
A B.Tech from Thrissur Engineering College, Calicut, and M.Tech from Pune, Thomas is an expert on all solid system propellant.
Thomas, who did the post analysis of the failure of the first Agni-III missile, said there were some shortcomings in the test of the missile which were overcome for a smooth flawless test flight on May seven.
There are 20 other women scientists working along with Thomas on the Agni-III programme.
A lot of women scientists like Thomas are propelling India's strategic weapons programme including long range missiles.
According to official figures, there were up to 200 women scientists involved in India's key weapon programmes like missiles, tanks, naval systems and even light combat aircrafts (LCAs).
I really would like to get an understanding as to why such weapon is being tested in the first place. What is the signal....what are they trying to achieve by this. Agni 3 is good enough to garranttee what our doctrine up-holds....thats just a deterence.
You would rather focus on other forms of development ....making better existing systems ....rather than going to test a 5K-6Km ICBM. What is the use of this missile....being realistic...such a weapon should and never be fired or used against anyone.
You would rather focus on other forms of development ....making better existing systems ....rather than going to test a 5K-6Km ICBM. What is the use of this missile....being realistic...such a weapon should and never be fired or used against anyone.
Hi every one, this is my first post here. I have been browsing bharat-rakshak for more than 2 years, finally decided to post.
I have one question especially for arun sir.
What is the maximum permissible diameter of the missile that can be launched from DRDO's pontoon launcher?
(2 m, 2.1 m, 2.2 m, 2.3 m?)
http://www.drdo.com/pub/techfocus/aug04/missile13.htm
I have one question especially for arun sir.
What is the maximum permissible diameter of the missile that can be launched from DRDO's pontoon launcher?
(2 m, 2.1 m, 2.2 m, 2.3 m?)
http://www.drdo.com/pub/techfocus/aug04/missile13.htm
Last edited by SatishG on 14 May 2008 08:18, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Woman to head missile project for the first time
200 women working for DRDO....what utter rubbish. I can say from personal experience that in RCI/ASL the percentage of women is at least 25-30% of the entire technical work force and some cases within certain projects as high as 40% and trust me when I say this. They are not your usual house wife types and I can sincerely say that Thomas-amma is an apt representation of them.thammu wrote:http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May ... updatenews
Dr Tessy Thomas, one of the 200 women scientists and technicians working for the DRDO, has been cleared to be appointed to the post of Project Director of Agni-II missile project.
There are 20 other women scientists working along with Thomas on the Agni-III programme.
A lot of women scientists like Thomas are propelling India's strategic weapons programme including long range missiles.
According to official figures, there were up to 200 women scientists involved in India's key weapon programmes like missiles, tanks, naval systems and even light combat aircrafts (LCAs).
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vina
- BRF Oldie
- Posts: 6046
- Joined: 11 May 2005 06:56
- Location: Doing Nijikaran, Udharikaran and Baazarikaran to Commies and Assorted Leftists
Hmm.. see the difference between this
Aksash Pic
and
This Akash Pic
Are my eyes deceiving me , or is that the Akash mounted on a T-72 chassis , as opposed to the BMP chassis in the first pic ?..
Aksash Pic
and
This Akash Pic
Are my eyes deceiving me , or is that the Akash mounted on a T-72 chassis , as opposed to the BMP chassis in the first pic ?..
Indeed it is a T-72 chasis. How heavy is the T-72 chasis without all the weight of the armour. Is the engine inside the same. Looking at it with a cursory glance, one can make out that the T-72 chasis would offer a much stable platform than a BMP (Anyone who has seen a BMP move a high speed will testify)
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vivek_ahuja
- BRF Oldie
- Posts: 2394
- Joined: 07 Feb 2007 16:58
Developing an SLBM of ICBM class is essential for India to be able to have a survivable and credible strategic deterrent against China.Adm.Menon has again written an article where he says he is not worried about China's underground sub pens,saying that" they have built underground shelters — which is a good thing as far as we are concerned"!
This is a strange deduction and he is quite wrong on this point.He says that China's subs are dangerous only when they are hiding in open waters.I maintain that they are equally dangerous when in hiding in underground pens as they cannot be detected,their operational status is unknown,they cannot be observed by satellites and at any time in a crisis can simply "pop out" of their pens a few hundreds metres away,launch their missiles,pop back in again and reload in safety in their nuclear bomb proof pens! The German sub pens built during WW2 at Brest in France were and are virtually indestructible even to this day,requiring MOAB sized bombs to penetrate the concrete roofs.Any launch of missiles by a sub in open waters is instantly detectible by sats and leaves a reference point for ASW counteratacks.
Note:
(The building of the U-boat bunker started in January 1941 and in September 1941 the first boat, U-372 used the first ready pen. The U-boat bunker at Brest was 333 metres wide, 192 metres long and roughly 17 metres high. The area covered was a record 52,000 square metres. The bunker was actually two structures, the first consisting of 13 pens, A to E and 1 to 8, the second of pens 9 and 10. The thickness of the roof was 3.6m in the first structure and 4.3 above pens 9 and 10. A second layer of concrete was poured over most of the roof making the best protection 6.2 metres.
One of the 5 hits by RAF in the bunker
The RAF (and from 1943 also the USAAF) attacked the base and the bunker from January 1941 over 80 times and lost more than 50 aircraft during the attacks.
But the first successes against the bunker finally came during August 1944, when the RAF (617th Squadron) attacked the bunker at Brest with Lancasters carrying 12,000 pound Tallboy bombs (6,4 meter length).
The attacks came on August 5, 12 and 13 and all in all 26 aircraft dropped one such bomb each at the bunker, scoring 9 direct hits and a few near-misses. Of those only 5 actually penetrated the massive roof and caused surprisingly little damage inside the bunker and none to the U-boats there.)
That China does not send out its SSBNs like the US is very understandable.China's SSBNs are excellent underwater "orchestras" and sending them out often,apart from being acostly affair, would expose their inadequacies to snoopers.China is therefore adopting the "bastion" approach of the erstwhile Soviet union,where they based their monster Typhoon SSBNs in the "bastion" ,protected waters of the Barents Sea.These bastions were created in the '70s not only in the Barents Sea,but also in the Kara Sea,Sea of Norway,Okhotsk Sea,Sea of Japan and the ice bound regions of the Artic Circle.The bastions were protected by minefields,nuclear attack subs,surface ships and aircraft.NATO subs would've had to penetrate thse bastions undetected and sink these subs,an almost impossible task.Sanya is such a bastion for China.The US and other NATO nuclear nations adopted a different approach of dispersing their SSBNs to the far waters of the globe,safe in the knowledge that the range and reach of the missiles would make it almost impossible for the Soviets to track every SSBN,even though the game of hide and seek was conducted with great fervour by both sides.
India has no bastions so far and our geography does not give us that advantage except for one or two areas,where such a bastion approach might be feasible.No hints where! We therefore have to neccessarily develop sub launched ICBMs of at least 5000km,preferably 10,000km,so that our SSBNs can (fortunately,unlike Russian subs transiting the Baltic waters into the Atlantic) enter and exit our naval bases on both seaboards into the Bay of Bengal,Arabian Sea and the South Indian Ocean waters at will,relatively undetected.Our SSBNs will have to develop similar skills that US SSBNs use to hide in the open seas.The key factor ,the "holy grail" of underwater warfare is communicating with subs,especially "boomers.There was an excellent film,"Crimson Tide" with Gene Hackman as a macho sub commander about to launch his missiles in a crisis despite communications being disrupted.India will have to have a series of maritime comm. sats over the IOR in particular and also sat launch vehicles derived from our various ballistic missile types for crisis launches,for such purposes.
Some time ago I advocated an interim "nuclear barge" in protected bastions concept,until we had enough SSBNs in service.The nuclear bastion is still a very attractive one,as China is showing the world.
http://www.newindpress.com/newspages.as ... in+Article&
China’s submarine caves
Wednesday May 14 2008 08:49 IST
Admiral Raja Menon
Caves sheltering missile subs have existed for some years. They are extensive underground fortifications holding mini-cities therein.
The Chinese have entire squadrons of strategic bombers and nuclear submarines underground and always have. The nearest missile base to India, located in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) at Delingha, under the 414 Brigade of the 2nd Artillery corps have three major visible entrances to underground missile storage and ready use bunkers.
So it is not as if missiles that could have been targeted at India were not already stored in bomb proof underground shelters. Delingha has existed for over 20 years and this base has been used as the possible strike centre for all calculations of missile trajectories and missile defence profiles from India. So what is the excitement about the new nuclear bases underground in Hainan? There are some interesting aspects — some important and the other dangerous.
But any serious reader must first ignore two accusations that most press reports have made. The first is that China has built the base secretly. Submarine bases are normally built secretly, unlike Olympic stadiums. The second is that China has made no statements about the base in Sanya. The base is the message, and if that has not been understood, it doesn’t help that some Chinese diplomat needs to give a press briefing on what it stands for.
China made an early start to making nuclear submarines — and failed, in a holistic sense. They perfected the underwater launch of a ballistic missile body in the late sixties, 30 years before the Indians tackled the same problem. They built a submarine type nuclear power reactor in the late seventies, and commissioned a ballistic missile submarine in 1988 and a nuclear attack submarine in 2001.
Both were technological leaps ahead, but operational failures. Part of the problem of why the first two nuclear submarine projects failed, lie in political factors. Poor political support to the navy led to scantfunding. All communist navies look alike.
The army and navy belong to the party, not to the country, and are sworn to defend not the Constitution but the party. For the first forty years the supreme body of the Chinese defence mechanism — the Central Military Commission — had no naval representative. Only the army was considered relevant to maintaining the communists in power. In the eighties, China’s most revered strategist Admiral Liu-Hua-quing (CNO 1982-88) broke into the CMC for the first time, but five years after Deng, the great economic reformer, had in 1979 downplayed all ideas of a seabased nuclear deterrent. Admiral Liu published four strategic objectives for China’s navy and it still reads like a naval strategy written by an Infantryman. Liu and Russia’s Gorschkov faced the same problem — how to build a navy without offending the party’s continentally minded hierarchy and being purged for ideological blasphemy.
Marx was notoriously weak in maritime strategy. The net result was two ballistic missile submarines and four nuclear attack boats spent most of their lives alongside jetties, painted up for ceremonial occasions. They were too unreliable to go to sea on continuous patrols.
New nuclear submarines were first seen building in Hulu-Dao about eight years ago. Hulu-Dao is a disastrous choice as a submarine base with huge shallow water patches between the base and the open seas — ideal for planting sea-bed sensors, to monitor their exit and entry. China has wisely avoided Hulu-Dao and chosen the biggest base, closest to Malacca Straits and South China Sea. This is a dangerous development. On the one hand, they have put the base in Hainan, the closest big naval base to Malacca and Sunda Straits. On the other hand, they have built underground shelters — which is a good thing as far as we are concerned.
The western strategy was to keep 30 per cent of their ballistic missile submarines at sea constantly, to react instantly. They had no underground shelters and relied on being at sea, underwater for their safety. They were considered the ultimate second strike weapon. By building underground shelters, Beijing has signaled its intention not to keep them constantly at sea, and therefore at a lower level of readiness to respond. This again indicates a desire to treat their SSBN fleet as a defensive force capable of even delayed response, and less prone to hair trigger responses. Moreover, a reliance on nuclear ballistic missile submarines are in themselves stabilising, as far as nuclear strategy is concerned. Minimum credible deterrence does not indicate minimum numbers.
They indicate the intention to respond to a first strike, with an indestructible and credible response.Hence, the minimum credible response always means an undetectable SSBN force for medium nuclear powers.An SSBN nuclear force signals a less aggressive nuclear posture.
The dangerous part comes from the complications of preserving the ‘indestructibility’ of the SSBNs. This entails managing the battle space in the areas where they will operate, otherwise called bastions. So, in the near future we may expect to see Chinese nuclear attack subs escorting the SSBNs. We may also expect to see Chinese carrier aviation to fly off attack planes to shoot down the long range search planes that will be looking for the Chinese SSBNs.
All this is going to happen in the South China Sea and probably further south. Our neighbourhood will be converted into the kind of Cold War cauldron reminescent of the Greenland-Iceland gap, grippingly described by Tom Clancy in his best work — ‘Red Storm Rising.’ A corollary of course is that the littoral powers could influence the outcome and will increasingly be pressured to make alternative choices. Chinese nuclear doctrine does not declare a no-first-use clause against nuclear weapon powers, and nuclear submarines are second strike platforms, so prima-facie, the new subs are not built with India in mind. Of more serious concern are the new SSBNs, which are the ultimate sea-denial weapons, forever contesting the safety of surface vessels thousands of miles from their home base, as the British submarine Conqueror did with the Argentinian Belgrano 6000 miles from home in 1982.
A passive India might have been able to ignore the rapid escalation of naval power in South China Sea if it wasn’t for two factors. One is that ASEAN will be overwhelmed by Chinese power, as it was once before in the 15th century. The region might therefore increasingly turn away from a weak India. Many have written about the rise of India and China eventually leading to a clash of interests. Some have speculated that such an area could well be South East Asia. The other is that China has already kicked us in the teeth by giving Pakistan a missile factory in Fatehjung to produce missiles to target Delhi at $ 800,000 a piece. Their intentions are clear. They will confront us not just on two fronts, but many – including the economic one where the dumping of below cost-price engineering goods will kill off one Indian industry after another.
Looking down in humility, tightening one’s belt and keeping a low profile is clearly not pacifying an increasingly assertive dragon.
About the author: Admiral Raja Menon is the Chairman of the Task Force on Net Assessment and Simulation, National Security Council Secretariat
This is a strange deduction and he is quite wrong on this point.He says that China's subs are dangerous only when they are hiding in open waters.I maintain that they are equally dangerous when in hiding in underground pens as they cannot be detected,their operational status is unknown,they cannot be observed by satellites and at any time in a crisis can simply "pop out" of their pens a few hundreds metres away,launch their missiles,pop back in again and reload in safety in their nuclear bomb proof pens! The German sub pens built during WW2 at Brest in France were and are virtually indestructible even to this day,requiring MOAB sized bombs to penetrate the concrete roofs.Any launch of missiles by a sub in open waters is instantly detectible by sats and leaves a reference point for ASW counteratacks.
Note:
(The building of the U-boat bunker started in January 1941 and in September 1941 the first boat, U-372 used the first ready pen. The U-boat bunker at Brest was 333 metres wide, 192 metres long and roughly 17 metres high. The area covered was a record 52,000 square metres. The bunker was actually two structures, the first consisting of 13 pens, A to E and 1 to 8, the second of pens 9 and 10. The thickness of the roof was 3.6m in the first structure and 4.3 above pens 9 and 10. A second layer of concrete was poured over most of the roof making the best protection 6.2 metres.
One of the 5 hits by RAF in the bunker
The RAF (and from 1943 also the USAAF) attacked the base and the bunker from January 1941 over 80 times and lost more than 50 aircraft during the attacks.
But the first successes against the bunker finally came during August 1944, when the RAF (617th Squadron) attacked the bunker at Brest with Lancasters carrying 12,000 pound Tallboy bombs (6,4 meter length).
The attacks came on August 5, 12 and 13 and all in all 26 aircraft dropped one such bomb each at the bunker, scoring 9 direct hits and a few near-misses. Of those only 5 actually penetrated the massive roof and caused surprisingly little damage inside the bunker and none to the U-boats there.)
That China does not send out its SSBNs like the US is very understandable.China's SSBNs are excellent underwater "orchestras" and sending them out often,apart from being acostly affair, would expose their inadequacies to snoopers.China is therefore adopting the "bastion" approach of the erstwhile Soviet union,where they based their monster Typhoon SSBNs in the "bastion" ,protected waters of the Barents Sea.These bastions were created in the '70s not only in the Barents Sea,but also in the Kara Sea,Sea of Norway,Okhotsk Sea,Sea of Japan and the ice bound regions of the Artic Circle.The bastions were protected by minefields,nuclear attack subs,surface ships and aircraft.NATO subs would've had to penetrate thse bastions undetected and sink these subs,an almost impossible task.Sanya is such a bastion for China.The US and other NATO nuclear nations adopted a different approach of dispersing their SSBNs to the far waters of the globe,safe in the knowledge that the range and reach of the missiles would make it almost impossible for the Soviets to track every SSBN,even though the game of hide and seek was conducted with great fervour by both sides.
India has no bastions so far and our geography does not give us that advantage except for one or two areas,where such a bastion approach might be feasible.No hints where! We therefore have to neccessarily develop sub launched ICBMs of at least 5000km,preferably 10,000km,so that our SSBNs can (fortunately,unlike Russian subs transiting the Baltic waters into the Atlantic) enter and exit our naval bases on both seaboards into the Bay of Bengal,Arabian Sea and the South Indian Ocean waters at will,relatively undetected.Our SSBNs will have to develop similar skills that US SSBNs use to hide in the open seas.The key factor ,the "holy grail" of underwater warfare is communicating with subs,especially "boomers.There was an excellent film,"Crimson Tide" with Gene Hackman as a macho sub commander about to launch his missiles in a crisis despite communications being disrupted.India will have to have a series of maritime comm. sats over the IOR in particular and also sat launch vehicles derived from our various ballistic missile types for crisis launches,for such purposes.
Some time ago I advocated an interim "nuclear barge" in protected bastions concept,until we had enough SSBNs in service.The nuclear bastion is still a very attractive one,as China is showing the world.
http://www.newindpress.com/newspages.as ... in+Article&
China’s submarine caves
Wednesday May 14 2008 08:49 IST
Admiral Raja Menon
Caves sheltering missile subs have existed for some years. They are extensive underground fortifications holding mini-cities therein.
The Chinese have entire squadrons of strategic bombers and nuclear submarines underground and always have. The nearest missile base to India, located in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) at Delingha, under the 414 Brigade of the 2nd Artillery corps have three major visible entrances to underground missile storage and ready use bunkers.
So it is not as if missiles that could have been targeted at India were not already stored in bomb proof underground shelters. Delingha has existed for over 20 years and this base has been used as the possible strike centre for all calculations of missile trajectories and missile defence profiles from India. So what is the excitement about the new nuclear bases underground in Hainan? There are some interesting aspects — some important and the other dangerous.
But any serious reader must first ignore two accusations that most press reports have made. The first is that China has built the base secretly. Submarine bases are normally built secretly, unlike Olympic stadiums. The second is that China has made no statements about the base in Sanya. The base is the message, and if that has not been understood, it doesn’t help that some Chinese diplomat needs to give a press briefing on what it stands for.
China made an early start to making nuclear submarines — and failed, in a holistic sense. They perfected the underwater launch of a ballistic missile body in the late sixties, 30 years before the Indians tackled the same problem. They built a submarine type nuclear power reactor in the late seventies, and commissioned a ballistic missile submarine in 1988 and a nuclear attack submarine in 2001.
Both were technological leaps ahead, but operational failures. Part of the problem of why the first two nuclear submarine projects failed, lie in political factors. Poor political support to the navy led to scantfunding. All communist navies look alike.
The army and navy belong to the party, not to the country, and are sworn to defend not the Constitution but the party. For the first forty years the supreme body of the Chinese defence mechanism — the Central Military Commission — had no naval representative. Only the army was considered relevant to maintaining the communists in power. In the eighties, China’s most revered strategist Admiral Liu-Hua-quing (CNO 1982-88) broke into the CMC for the first time, but five years after Deng, the great economic reformer, had in 1979 downplayed all ideas of a seabased nuclear deterrent. Admiral Liu published four strategic objectives for China’s navy and it still reads like a naval strategy written by an Infantryman. Liu and Russia’s Gorschkov faced the same problem — how to build a navy without offending the party’s continentally minded hierarchy and being purged for ideological blasphemy.
Marx was notoriously weak in maritime strategy. The net result was two ballistic missile submarines and four nuclear attack boats spent most of their lives alongside jetties, painted up for ceremonial occasions. They were too unreliable to go to sea on continuous patrols.
New nuclear submarines were first seen building in Hulu-Dao about eight years ago. Hulu-Dao is a disastrous choice as a submarine base with huge shallow water patches between the base and the open seas — ideal for planting sea-bed sensors, to monitor their exit and entry. China has wisely avoided Hulu-Dao and chosen the biggest base, closest to Malacca Straits and South China Sea. This is a dangerous development. On the one hand, they have put the base in Hainan, the closest big naval base to Malacca and Sunda Straits. On the other hand, they have built underground shelters — which is a good thing as far as we are concerned.
The western strategy was to keep 30 per cent of their ballistic missile submarines at sea constantly, to react instantly. They had no underground shelters and relied on being at sea, underwater for their safety. They were considered the ultimate second strike weapon. By building underground shelters, Beijing has signaled its intention not to keep them constantly at sea, and therefore at a lower level of readiness to respond. This again indicates a desire to treat their SSBN fleet as a defensive force capable of even delayed response, and less prone to hair trigger responses. Moreover, a reliance on nuclear ballistic missile submarines are in themselves stabilising, as far as nuclear strategy is concerned. Minimum credible deterrence does not indicate minimum numbers.
They indicate the intention to respond to a first strike, with an indestructible and credible response.Hence, the minimum credible response always means an undetectable SSBN force for medium nuclear powers.An SSBN nuclear force signals a less aggressive nuclear posture.
The dangerous part comes from the complications of preserving the ‘indestructibility’ of the SSBNs. This entails managing the battle space in the areas where they will operate, otherwise called bastions. So, in the near future we may expect to see Chinese nuclear attack subs escorting the SSBNs. We may also expect to see Chinese carrier aviation to fly off attack planes to shoot down the long range search planes that will be looking for the Chinese SSBNs.
All this is going to happen in the South China Sea and probably further south. Our neighbourhood will be converted into the kind of Cold War cauldron reminescent of the Greenland-Iceland gap, grippingly described by Tom Clancy in his best work — ‘Red Storm Rising.’ A corollary of course is that the littoral powers could influence the outcome and will increasingly be pressured to make alternative choices. Chinese nuclear doctrine does not declare a no-first-use clause against nuclear weapon powers, and nuclear submarines are second strike platforms, so prima-facie, the new subs are not built with India in mind. Of more serious concern are the new SSBNs, which are the ultimate sea-denial weapons, forever contesting the safety of surface vessels thousands of miles from their home base, as the British submarine Conqueror did with the Argentinian Belgrano 6000 miles from home in 1982.
A passive India might have been able to ignore the rapid escalation of naval power in South China Sea if it wasn’t for two factors. One is that ASEAN will be overwhelmed by Chinese power, as it was once before in the 15th century. The region might therefore increasingly turn away from a weak India. Many have written about the rise of India and China eventually leading to a clash of interests. Some have speculated that such an area could well be South East Asia. The other is that China has already kicked us in the teeth by giving Pakistan a missile factory in Fatehjung to produce missiles to target Delhi at $ 800,000 a piece. Their intentions are clear. They will confront us not just on two fronts, but many – including the economic one where the dumping of below cost-price engineering goods will kill off one Indian industry after another.
Looking down in humility, tightening one’s belt and keeping a low profile is clearly not pacifying an increasingly assertive dragon.
About the author: Admiral Raja Menon is the Chairman of the Task Force on Net Assessment and Simulation, National Security Council Secretariat
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KSubramanian
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Army wants 4,100 anti-tank missiles
This is just killing our own products. 
Just before the Nag trials this summer. Now I wonder why such announcements are made.By SRIDHAR KUMARASWAMI
New Delhi, May 21: The Indian Army is planning to buy 4,100 2-T Milan anti-tank guided missiles. A meeting attended by the top Army and ministry of defence (MoD) officials, including Army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor and the Army’s director-general of infantry was held on Wednesday at South Block. The Army’s plans to purchase the anti-tank missiles and the meeting held on Wednesday are significant, given the sudden tensions with Pakistan that erupted on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Milan anti-tank missiles are manufactured by European consortium MBDA. The 2-T (tandem) military warhead of the missile, that the Indian Army plans to buy, can "destroy modern reactive armour". The Milan missiles are portable, anti-tank weapons and have been used by the Indian Army previously in its infantry and on vehicles. The missile systems have previously been built under license by Bharat dynamics.
The launch crew of a Milan missile system consists of two persons — a gunner who carries the firing system and the loader who carries the missiles. After identifying the target, the missile is launched from the launch container. After the missile is clear of the gunner, the "sustainer rocket" is ignited. The missiles can be fired using tripods fitted on tanks and other vehicles as well. The T-90 tanks of the Indian Army are currently fitted with anti-tank missiles.
The move to acquire these missiles comes after tension at the LoC in the Tangdhar and Mendhar sectors and the recent infiltration and militant attack in the Samba sector. The move to buy the anti-tank guided missiles is being seen as an effort to beef up the defence of the country and ensure that the security forces are not caught napping in the wake of any eventuality.
This is just killing our own products. this announcement is made for immediate threat perception, it is not killing the Nag missile. this missile is under test, how it can be produced in such a large number if suppose a war break out in july.Just before the Nag trials this summer. Now I wonder why such announcements are made.
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ranganathan
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saumitra_j
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Relax mate, 2T Milan and Nag are completely different weapon systems even though their primary purpose (anti tank) is the same. Milan is carried by infantry soldiers while Nag is self propelled (BMP2/Dhruv); Milan is SACLOS (Semi Automatic, Command to Line of Sight) while Nag has its own sensor (IIR is ready, MMW is in the works). Different systems, different regimes of use, same end result! We need both and not either of them. Also, Milan is licensed produced by BDL so it is not completely imported either.KSubramanian wrote:Just before the Nag trials this summer. Now I wonder why such announcements are made.
cheers,
Saumitra
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saumitra_j
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Sum - I think the procurement of Milan - 2T is more to replenish the stock as opposed to any sudden new requirement - I suspect the purchase should happen without too much trouble as long as it has been budgeted for. However, the writer has put his own spin with sentences such as:sum wrote:Planning is fine but will the government go ahead and make the purchases or go into coma like in other purchases??
The move to acquire these missiles comes after tension at the LoC in the Tangdhar and Mendhar sectors and the recent infiltration and militant attack in the Samba sector
Classic DDM at work here
as no army would aquire a weapon system such as an anti tank missile as a response to some incidents at the border!Seems like a logical step to go towards tandem warhead missile, considering ERA equipped tanks are increasing with our adversaries. IA is already doing so with Konkurs-M and now Milan-2T. Actually the deal has been in the pipeline for quite a long time now since 2003 when the MoU was signed with EADS.
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saumitra_j
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Thanks for the update Abhisham. I didn't know that we did not have the ones with Tandem warhead already! A quick check on this BR page says precisely that. So it is quite logical that they go for the 2T now. Considering the timelines (MoU in 2003) I guess this is about the right time to see them in IA service, given normal procurement timesAbhisham wrote:Seems like a logical step to go towards tandem warhead missile, considering ERA equipped tanks are increasing with our adversaries. IA is already doing so with Konkurs-M and now Milan-2T. Actually the deal has been in the pipeline for quite a long time now since 2003 when the MoU was signed with EADS.
It's a T-72, even a minor glance is enough to prove it. 6 roadwheels, typical exhaust position. Here's a few more images from different angles.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 747615.JPG
http://bp2.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 704491.JPG
The T-55 is ancient, and is almost as underpowered as the BMP.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 747615.JPG
http://bp2.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 704491.JPG
The T-55 is ancient, and is almost as underpowered as the BMP.
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KSubramanian
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Thanks for pointing that out buddy, I think I jumped the gun there. My mind immediately went to the NAG trials sometime next month and I thought I smelt something but it was just me and my conspiracy theory churning mind.ranganathan wrote:
Relax mate, 2T Milan and Nag are completely different weapon systems even though their primary purpose (anti tank) is the same. Milan is carried by infantry soldiers while Nag is self propelled (BMP2/Dhruv);
Thanks for the infoAbhisham wrote:
Seems like a logical step to go towards tandem warhead missile, considering ERA equipped tanks are increasing with our adversaries. IA is already doing so with Konkurs-M and now Milan-2T. Actually the deal has been in the pipeline for quite a long time now since 2003 when the MoU was signed with EADS.
I believe its same launch platform as the one used by SA-6 which is based on BMP-2?rocky wrote:It's a T-72, even a minor glance is enough to prove it. 6 roadwheels, typical exhaust position. Here's a few more images from different angles.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 747615.JPG
http://bp2.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 704491.JPG
The T-55 is ancient, and is almost as underpowered as the BMP.
The SA-6 was mounted on a 2P25 or 3M9 self-propelled vehicle, but it wasn't the T-72 chassis. The key differences are - absence of the return rollers for the tracks on the SA-6, and the large open windows in front of the chassis, the slope of the glacis, etc. Here's a few pictures:John wrote:I believe its same launch platform as the one used by SA-6 which is based on BMP-2?rocky wrote:It's a T-72, even a minor glance is enough to prove it. 6 roadwheels, typical exhaust position. Here's a few more images from different angles.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 747615.JPG
http://bp2.blogger.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/SBg ... 704491.JPG
The T-55 is ancient, and is almost as underpowered as the BMP.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/miss ... 0K-002.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... e/SA-6.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/469lmq
The Indian Army version of the Akash is now on the T-72 chassis, there were reports not too long ago about this request from the Army; my guess is that the Army tried it's best to create new obstacles in the program, but DRDO replied swiftly and prepared the T-72 chassis based solution in record time. Now the Army is making new excuses to not accept the Akash, whereas the Air Force has already accept the truck-based version.
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=39106
Army test fires Prithvi – II, achieves near perfect accuracy
Friday, May 23, 2008
The surface-to-surface Ballistic Missile Prithvi-II was successfully launched from ITR, Chandipur, Balasore off Orissa coast at 10:26 this morning. Prithvi – II has a range of 350 Kms with a flight duration of 483 seconds reaching a peak altitude of 43.5 kms. Prithvi-II is inducted into Army and today’s launch was carried out as part of Army training. Taken from routine production lot, the Missile was launched with an improved Aided Inertial Navigation and achieved single digit accuracy reaching close to zero Circular Error Probability (CEP). The missile has the features to deceive any Anti Ballistic Missiles. Top Army Officials and Top DRDO Scientists witnessed the launch. Dr V.K. Saraswat, Chief Controller R & D oversaw all the operations of the missile launch. Shri SP Dash, Director, ITR, Shri DS Reddy, Project Director and other scientists led the team of Scientists. The Defence Minister Shri AK Antony congratulated all the scientists of DRDO on the successful launch of Prithvi-II. Shri M Natarajan, Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri has also congratulated the scientists and wished them many more glorious achievements.
Army test fires Prithvi – II, achieves near perfect accuracy
Friday, May 23, 2008
The surface-to-surface Ballistic Missile Prithvi-II was successfully launched from ITR, Chandipur, Balasore off Orissa coast at 10:26 this morning. Prithvi – II has a range of 350 Kms with a flight duration of 483 seconds reaching a peak altitude of 43.5 kms. Prithvi-II is inducted into Army and today’s launch was carried out as part of Army training. Taken from routine production lot, the Missile was launched with an improved Aided Inertial Navigation and achieved single digit accuracy reaching close to zero Circular Error Probability (CEP). The missile has the features to deceive any Anti Ballistic Missiles. Top Army Officials and Top DRDO Scientists witnessed the launch. Dr V.K. Saraswat, Chief Controller R & D oversaw all the operations of the missile launch. Shri SP Dash, Director, ITR, Shri DS Reddy, Project Director and other scientists led the team of Scientists. The Defence Minister Shri AK Antony congratulated all the scientists of DRDO on the successful launch of Prithvi-II. Shri M Natarajan, Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri has also congratulated the scientists and wished them many more glorious achievements.
http://www.domain-b.com/aero/mil_avi/mi ... vi_II.html
However, some data released in the statement today does not tally with knowledge about the missile as it rests in the public domain. The statement says that the missile tested today has a range of 350 km and that it reached a peak altitude of 43.5 km. As far as is known the Prithvi-II (SS-250) has a range of 250 km. The missile has been developed for the Indian Air Force and is a single-stage, dual-engine, liquid fuel, road-mobile, short-range, surface-to-surface missile. It is the Prithvi-III (SS-350) which is credited with a range of 350 km.