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| ADDITION TO THE ARSENAL: Agni V being uploaded on to its road mobile launcher. Photo: V.V. Krishnan |
For India, Agni V is more than just its first intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM). With a range of over 5,000 km, this road-and
rail-mobile missile can be fired from deep within the country and still
reach all parts of China, especially the latter's populous and
economically important eastern seaboard.
The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) created Agni V
by adding a third stage to Agni III, a missile with a range of 3,500 km
while carrying a 1.5 tonne payload that was first successfully tested
five years ago.
Both Agni III and V have a diameter of two metres, making them capable
of carrying several warheads known as Multiple Independently Targeted
Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV). (Agni I and II have a diameter of one metre
and the first stage of the Agni IV has a diameter of 1.2 metres.)
Firing MIRVs requires what is known as a “Post Boost Control Vehicle,” a
manoeuvrable platform that sits atop the rocket and holds the warheads.
After the missile has lofted it into a ballistic trajectory, the
platform must be able to release each warhead with the orientation and
velocity needed to reach its target.
As India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has already
demonstrated the ability to put multiple satellites into orbit in the
course of a single launch, developing a Post Boost Control Vehicle
should be technologically straightforward. However, developing compact
nuclear warheads could be a significant hurdle in acquiring MIRV
capability. Published information on U.S. systems suggests that each
re-entry vehicle will need to weigh less than 500 kg. First generation
missile-borne nuclear warheads typically weigh twice as much.
India now has a range of nuclear-capable Agni missiles in its arsenal,
starting with Agni I that can strike targets 700 km away. These missiles
use solid propellants and can therefore be launched at short notice.
They are also carried on mobile launchers, making it more difficult for
an enemy to locate and destroy them.
In China and Pakistan
But India's nuclear-armed neighbours, China and Pakistan, have powerful missiles of their own.
China's strategic forces still rely heavily on ballistic missiles using
liquid propellants. Its first missile, the “Dong Feng 1” (DF-1), was a
copy of the Soviet R-2 missile, and relied on technology and designs
provided by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. The next missile, DF-2,
was designed to be capable of landing a nuclear warhead on Japan.
The country then went on to build more advanced ballistic missiles,
still using liquid propulsion, which also became the basis for its Long
March launch vehicles. These include the DF-3, the DF-4 and the DF-5.
China switched to solid propulsion when it developed its first submarine
launched ballistic missile, the “Ju Lang 1” (JL-1). The land version of
the missile was designed as the “DF-21.”
A more powerful, solid propellant missile, the DF-31, is now beginning
to be deployed. The submarine version of the missile, the JL-2, will be
carried aboard China's new Type 094 Jin-class nuclear-powered
submarines, the first of which was launched in 2004.
“China is progressively replacing its older liquid-fuelled DF-3 and DF-4
missiles with the new solid-fuelled two-stage DF-21 missile,” according
to a 2010 assessment prepared by the International Strategic and
Security Studies Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies
(NIAS) in Bangalore.
Although it was within China's capabilities to equip the DF-31 with
MIRVs, there was no clarity on whether this had actually been done, the
assessment noted. Official U.S. sources have maintained that as the
country was developing this capability, its DF-31 and all variants of
that missile were currently equipped with only a single warhead.
A 2007 report from the NIAS group pointed out that China has deployed
the DF-3, the DF-4 and the DF-21 missiles in bases in the Qinghai and
Yunnan provinces. From those locations, these missiles would be able to
reach all of India.
Pakistan, for its part, has produced a range of missiles using a mix of imported technology and indigenous capability.
Improving on sounding rocket technology supplied by the French company,
Sud Aviation, to the Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research
Commission (SUPARCO), it developed the Abdali (also known as Hatf-1).
But the missile is estimated to have a range of only about 100 km.
Its Ghaznavi missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead, is a shortened
version of China's M11 solid propellant missile supplied by the latter
in the 1990s.
Ghauri, which uses liquid propellants, is based on North Korea's No Dong
missile. The technology for this missile was imported by the A.Q. Khan
Laboratories, which provided uranium enrichment technology to the North
Koreans. The range of this missile has been put at about 950 km with a
1,000 kg nuclear warhead.
China also appears to have supplied the technology for the solid
propellant M9 missile, with the Pakistani version being called the
Shaheen-1. The NIAS team believes that the Shaheen-2, which was first
tested in March 2004, has involved a second stage being added.
The missile would then have a range of 1,200 km compared to 730 km for
its predecessor. If so, large parts of India, including places as far
south as Hyderabad, would be within its reach.
But the range estimated for the Shaheen-2 assumed that it has a diameter
of one metre, notes Rajaram Nagappa, who heads the strategic studies
group at NIAS. But it was difficult to accurately estimate the diameter
from publicly available images of the missile. If, as some reports
suggest, the missile has a diameter of 1.4 metres (the same as China's
DF-21), then its range would be considerably greater.
“Though constrained by the availability and production of uranium,
Pakistan has a credible deterrent structure in place that would be
largely organised around the Shaheen-1 and -2 missiles,” according to
the NIAS 2010 assessment.
gopalraj@thehindu.co.in
Source : The HIndu
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