AGNI-VI will be the next big thing for India to become a Super Power


India's most formidable missile, the over 5,000-km range Agni-V, is now ready for user trials by the military after it underwent its fourth and final test-firing+ from the integrated test range off the Odisha coast on Monday.

The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Agni-V, dubbed a "game-changer" in strategic deterrence because it brings the whole of China and much more within its strike envelope, was fired from its canister on a launcher truck just after 11am.

Powered by three-stage rocket motors, the 50-tonne missile tore into space to a height of 500 km before following its predetermined flight-path to the "splash point" in southern Indian Ocean 20 minutes later. President Pranab Mukherjee and PM Modi congratulated DRDO.

The Agni-V test, monitored by radars and tracking systems, met all the mission objectives. The country has achieved a very high-level of self-reliance in missile technologies," said the defence minister's scientific adviser G Satheesh Reddy. 

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, among others, congratulated DRDO scientists for the "successful" test-firing of Agni-V, which is designed to carry a 1.5-tonne nucleartipped warhead.

TOI was the first to report in its December 14 edition+ the impending test of Agni-V, which will now undergo at least two user-trials by the tri-service Strategic Forces Command (SFC) before full-scale production and induction.

It will take another couple of years for Agni-V to be inducted into SFC, which manages the country's nuclear arsenal, in adequate numbers. But India has now virtually gate-crashed into the exclusive club of the US, Russia, China, France and UK, which have ICBMs.

The missile's canisterlaunch final operational version is significant because it gives the armed forces the requisite operational flexibility to swiftly transport and launch the missile from wherever they want within a matter of minutes. The hermetically-sealed canister gives the missile higher reliability, enhanced mobility, less maintenance and longer shelf-life.

Some more fireworks are likely again over the Bay of Bengal when SFC conducts user-trials of the 4,000-km Agni-IV, which is also designed with China in mind, in the first week of January. Apart from the shorterrange Prithvi and Dhanush missiles, SFC has inducted the Agni-I (700km), Agni-II (2,000km) and Agni-III (3,000km) missiles till now.

Also in the works is Agni-VI, which will be armed with "manoeuvring warheads or intelligent re-entry vehicles" to defeat enemy defence systems or MIRVs (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles). An MIRV payload basically means a single missile is capable of carrying several nuclear warheads, each programmed to hit different targets

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Network Centric Warfare Capabilities & INDIAN ARMED FORCES

Image
By: Next Generation Weapons Technology Network Centric Warfare and Indian Navy & IAF and land based units. More satellites will be launched as grid as launched previously. In addition to making platforms and infrastructure for network centricity, the Navy has also made organizational changes to create and efficiently manage the transition to seamless Network Centric capabilities. The creation of a new post of Assistant Chief of Naval S taff (Communications Space and Network Centric Operations) is step in the process to migrate from a ‘Platform Centric Navy’ to a ‘Network Enabled Navy’. During various exercises, Network Centric Warfare (NCW) has been one of the crucial aspects being validated. During the various coordinated exercises conducted by the Army with the Air Force, the endeavor has been to validate and integrate the use of all available assets, including satellites, UAVs and HUMINT (Human intelligence) to assist commanders at all levels in taking dynamic and pr
Read more

The Heat is on!! for INDIA as China Unveils its 5th Gen Stealth J20 Fighter Jet ; Pakistan expresses interest to buy

Image
China on Tuesday unveiled its J-20 stealth fighter jet at its biggest air show which will have major implications for India as it is the first indigenously-made fifth-generation Chinese aircraft which Pakistan has shown interest in acquiring. Two J-20 aircraft which made waves in the Chinese media in the last few years flew at the Zhuhai city air show where the Pakistan Air Force is also taking part flying with its J-17 Thunder jets which are jointly manufactured with China. This is the first, public show of the J-20 warplane. Pakistan, the largest importer of Chinese arms has said earlier that it is in talks with China to buy the FC-31 - an export variant of the same aircraft. The FC-31 was briefly flown in the 2014 Zhuhai airshow. The stealth aircraft is regarded as major breakthrough for China which is otherwise mostly reliant on Russian aircraft including advanced versions of Sukhois. India is yet to make stealth aircraft which can penetrate through enemy radars. The J
Read more

Where Is Article 370 Now!!!!, That Rohingyas And Bangladeshis Are Being Settled In Jammu And Ladakh ???

Image
Jammu is up in arms against the authorities. This time, it is not against discriminatory policies being pursued by the successive Kashmir-dominated and Valley-centric governments in Jammu & Kashmir since 1947, but against the settlement of Rohingyas from Myanmar in Jammu and Ladakh, both strategically vital for national security. According to the late Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the number of Rohingya Muslims living in different parts of Jammu city and around it, was 5,107 in 2010 (AINS, 10 October 2015). And, as per Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s June 2016 Assembly statement, there were 13,400 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis living in camps in Jammu. She said “Bathindi Ka Plot is home to the highest number of Rohingya Muslims” (The Hindustan Times, 5 December 2016). The break-up of Rohingyas settled in the state is as follows: Jammu – 5,086, Jammu’s Samba district – 634 and Ladakh – 7,664. The total number is 13, 334. The Jammu Chamber of C
Read more