Agni-V, India's first ICBM test-fired successfully

[whitestar_999]

some clarification:
1.India does not have functional MIRV tech yet(read today's TOI P17 Tessy Thomas,Agni project director statement where she mentioned it as next target).

2.the so called missile defense shield even of USA after spending tens of billions of $ can only stop 1-2 missiles with a probability in the range of 90%. intercepting a missile with another missile is like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet midway in the air kinda like something you see in movies.it is very difficult & almost impossible if you consider a scenario of 4-5 or more missiles coming.missile defense shield is only to prevent 1-2 missiles from rouge states like north korea or some terrorist organization getting their hands on a missile.it is useless against a nation like USA or Russia having 1000s of missiles on an automated launch control.

3.no matter what weapon you have it is useless if you can't use it fast enough.India does not have any well defined central nuclear command which even Pakistan has.it will probably take us 15 minutes to half an hour just to assemble the warhead & delivery system like agni.of course pakistan can not annihilate our launching facilities in this time but china has the resources though it will mean an all out nuclear war so very unlikely but possibility is there.it also means that if someday a terrorist organization uses a nuclear device against India Pakistan will have ~30 minutes to talk to indian leadership to convince them it is not them(even if they are lying) not to mention US/world intervention(similar to aftermath of mumbai attack but much more pressure).

conclusion:more than nukes it is the conventional military strength & strong political leadership which will benefit us more instead of 10000Km 12MIRV(multiple independently-launchable re-entry vehicle) capable Agni.....

 

[dashing.sujay]

conclusion:more than nukes it is the conventional military strength & strong political leadership which will benefit us more instead of 10000km 12mirv(multiple independently-launchable re-entry vehicle) capable agni.....

...

+ 1

 

[NIGHTMARE]

some clarification:
1.India does not have functional MIRV tech yet(read today's TOI P17 Tessy Thomas,Agni project director statement where she mentioned it as next target).

India is developing it. I heard India investing in Agni-6 SLBM with MIRV 6000 km range and the best is part SLBM.

2.the so called missile defense shield even of USA after spending tens of billions of $ can only stop 1-2 missiles with a probability in the range of 90%. intercepting a missile with another missile is like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet midway in the air kinda like something you see in movies.it is very difficult & almost impossible if you consider a scenario of 4-5 or more missiles coming.missile defense shield is only to prevent 1-2 missiles from rouge states like north korea or some terrorist organization getting their hands on a missile.it is useless against a nation like USA or Russia having 1000s of missiles on an automated launch contro

l.

This is reality, no system is fail-proof, especially system such as iron dome (Used by Israel)which was developed only within 3 years and is still improving. The recent attack by Gaza were two rockets hit Be'er Sheva school and residential neighborhood; senior official to Haaretz.

Over 200 rockets were fired at Israel, only 60 of 200+ were identified as to hit protected area, the system launch 60 interceptors which managed to intercept 56, this is 93% of success! Iron Dome is still in operational testing and will improve, there is no analogue system in the world to Iron Dome.

I think we are already operating Spyder air defense system.

3.no matter what weapon you have it is useless if you can't use it fast enough.India does not have any well defined central nuclear command which even Pakistan has.it will probably take us 15 minutes to half an hour just to assemble the warhead & delivery system like agni.of course pakistan can not annihilate our launching facilities in this time but china has the resources though it will mean an all out nuclear war so very unlikely but possibility is there.it also means that if someday a terrorist organization uses a nuclear device against India Pakistan will have ~30 minutes to talk to indian leadership to convince them it is not them(even if they are lying) not to mention US/world intervention(similar to aftermath of mumbai attack but much more pressure).

Our worthy politicians are busy watching porn in the Assemblies and doing sex ! And that's more interesting by far, than discussing national security issues, which is kinda boring, what?

 

[CommanderShawnzer]

some clarification:
India does not have any well defined central nuclear command which even Pakistan has

we have.do some research please

The Indian Strategic Forces Command (SFC), sometimes called The Strategic Nuclear Command forms part of India's Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). It is responsible for the management and administration of the country's tactical and strategic nuclear weapons stockpile. It was created on January 4, 2003.
It is the responsibility of the SFC to operationalize the directives of the NCA under the leadership of a Commander-in-Chief of the rank of Air Marshal (or its equivalent). It will have the sole responsibility of initiating the process of delivering nuclear weapons and warheads, after acquiring explicit approval from the NCA. The exact selection of the target area shall be decided by the SFC through a calibrated, cumulative process involving various levels of decision-making, and with formal approval by the NCA.
The SFC manages and administers all strategic forces by exercising complete command and control over nuclear assets, and producing all contingency plans as needed to fulfil the required tasks. Since its inception, the SFC’s Command, Control and Communication systems have been firmly established, and the command has attained a high state of operational readiness.

Strategic Forces Command

Our worthy politicians are busy watching porn in the Assemblies and doing sex ! And that's more interesting by far, than discussing national security issues, which is kinda boring, what?

No,our politicos do other important activities, mostly they are busy watching thier Swiss bank accounts fill.now that's intresting

 

[ajaymailed]

India is developing it. I heard India investing in Agni-6 SLBM with MIRV 6000 km range and the best is part SLBM.

All composite Three Stage SLBM on a decently silent Ballistic missile Submarine, with MIRVs and evasive maneuvers in Mid-course & terminal stages will be culmination of Indias missile program. Development of Agni-3 was probably the first step of this endeavor.

3.no matter what weapon you have it is useless if you can't use it fast enough.India does not have any well defined central nuclear command which even Pakistan has.it will probably take us 15 minutes to half an hour just to assemble the warhead & delivery system like agni.of course pakistan can not annihilate our launching facilities in this time but china has the resources though it will mean an all out nuclear war so very unlikely but possibility is there.it also means that if someday a terrorist organization uses a nuclear device against India Pakistan will have ~30 minutes to talk to indian leadership to convince them it is not them(even if they are lying) not to mention US/world intervention(similar to aftermath of mumbai attack but much more pressure).


conclusion:more than nukes it is the conventional military strength & strong political leadership which will benefit us more instead of 10000Km 12MIRV(multiple independently-launchable re-entry vehicle) capable Agni.....

we can discuss so many scenarios of nuclear war but basically its critical to have the capability, regardless of how command, control or politicians work. We can change the policy anytime, mate the warheads into the missiles in peacetime itself, it all depends on political situation, level of preparedness, reaction time. WMDs are as important conventional military strength, probably more important in Indian Scenario considering two of our neighbors have lots of nukes.

 

[asingh]

I thought it had MIRV.

 

[CommanderShawnzer]

we can discuss so many hypothetical scenarios of nuclear war but basically its critical to have the capability, regardless of how command, control or politicians work. We can change the policy anytime, mate the warheads into the missiles in peacetime itself, it all depends on political situation, level of preparedness, reaction time. WMDs are as important conventional military strength, probably more important in Indian Scenario considering two of our neighbors have lots of nukes.

apart from nukes one neighbor has terrosists while another neighbor has lots of infantry

 

[ajaymailed]

actually India may have been a bit late in developing these kind of long range weapons thanks to US pressure and lack of any serious R&D in 60s & 70s. Nukes were originally meant for China and without having credible delivery systems reaching anywhere in china, there wouldn't be any credible deterrence. Attempt in 1970s met with failure and program didn't start again untill in 1983. Thanks to MTCR and US pressure, Agni program faced furthers delays. Compared to this India started nuke development in late 60s and tested in 74, while ISRO started developing four-stage launch vehicle in 1970s and tested in 80.

if Project Valiant in 1970s was a success, todays missile force would have been completely different and far ahead. That normally should have been the timeline of Indias missile program, we indeed had the resources, outside help to achieve such a capability long ago but god had other plans.

 

[CommanderShawnzer]

this is a thread where true patriots marvel at thier country's nuke power

 

[icebags]

some clarification:
2.the so called missile defense shield even of USA after spending tens of billions of $ can only stop 1-2 missiles with a probability in the range of 90%. intercepting a missile with another missile is like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet midway in the air kinda like something you see in movies.it is very difficult & almost impossible if you consider a scenario of 4-5 or more missiles coming.missile defense shield is only to prevent 1-2 missiles from rouge states like north korea or some terrorist organization getting their hands on a missile.it is useless against a nation like USA or Russia having 1000s of missiles on an automated launch control.

conclusion:more than nukes it is the conventional military strength & strong political leadership which will benefit us more instead of 10000Km 12MIRV(multiple independently-launchable re-entry vehicle) capable Agni.....

2.> missile defense is pretty effective, read nightmare's post, also take example from the 1991 iraq war, iraq fired lots of scud missile to israel, and probably 80% of those incoming missiles were shot down by patriot missiles.

conclusion > nukes & long range ballistic missiles are not exactly conventional fighting tools. it's like a pike-man facing a swordsman. no matter how heavily armored a swordsman is, he will think twice before engaging a pikeman. its a tool of global political warfare.

 

[whitestar_999]

@CommanderShawnzer,i know about NCA & SFC & that is why i used the words "not have any well defined central nuclear command".read this:
India Together: Whose command, whose control over the nuclear complex? - 14 August 2011
also India still does not have a CDS like in USA even though the draft/report was prepared years ago.at the expense of sounding like an old person let me tell you something.i was there in 1991 reading papers during infamous financial meltdown of India & the rhetoric in regional papers about how this is going to be a 2nd east india company after economy was forced to open up.again in 1996-97 during duncan & gates era reading hindi newspapers would led you to believe that India is going to be sold off.i had read about how opening up telecom sector to privatization will rob India of its glory(getting a landline connection after waiting for 2-3 years was a celebrated occasion).all this experience has led to one conclusion only.if the policy is modern,beneficial for most & takes in to account long terms goals not just short one then it will most likely either never implemented or implemented with unfair means(just so you know the man who can be considered as one of the founding person of this telecom revolution,then telecom minister Sukhram actually did it for bribe!if he had been an honest person even telecom revolution would have been late by a few years).

@NIGHTMARE,you are comparing multi barrel rocket launchers with ballistic & cruise missiles.just so you know intercepting such rocket attacks is relatively very easy & technology is there for at least a decade now i think.why do you think USA's defense shield program is criticized in senate if it is so successful?reason being that USA military had a hard time convincing senators about creating a system after spending almost $10 billion which can only be effectively used against 2-3 missile attack by rouge nations/actors but of no use against nations like China & Russia.spyder defense system is an anti-aircraft missile system not to be used against ballistic missiles.laws of physics makes it very hard to intercept even 1 ICBM let alone successfully stop a simultaneous attack of 5-6 ICBM's & more.unless someone develop a quantum computer which can calculate trillions of calculations in fraction of a second it is not possible to design a guidance system which can simultaneously track & intercept large no. of incoming ballistic missiles.

@ajaymailed,India can already take care of threat from Pakistan with a 700KM range agni-I.however what did you saw during operation Parakram of 2001 after parliament attack.it took 1 month(yes you are reading it correct!) to fully operationalize indian army leading to a huge embarrassment for the govt & probably the reason why India couldn't launch any counter offensive.this leads to army & govt coming up with the so called cold start doctrine(kinda like pc cold boot) to reduce the reaction time.army now routinely does exercises to improve its cold start performance.similarly with the mumbai attacks where intelligence & security failures occured at almost all levels.just so you know the NSG commandos couldn't reach mumbai earlier because they didn't had an empty runway & plane to take-off not to mention traffic jam reaching the available runway which lead to govt proposing a dedicated plane & runway at the NSG location hub itself!!did nukes helped at that time?no.even a basic nuclear capacity is enough to deter other nuclear powers(ex.north korea).hell a country can blackmail the world by just declaring that it will release all the technical knowhow(centrifuge designs etc) on internet if it can not even use its nuclear weapons & this will stop any impending attack on that country.

 

[ajaymailed]

2.> missile defense is pretty effective, read nightmare's post, also take example from the 1991 iraq war, iraq fired lots of scud missile to israel, and probably 80% of those incoming missiles were shot down by patriot missiles.

he may talking about longer range missiles than Scuds. ICBMs & IRBMs are much harder to intercept due to the extremely high speed of reentry vehicle. A bullet is four to five times slower than rentry vehicle of an typical MRBM or IRBM.

ICBMs are even more faster, would incorporate even better technologies like
MIRVs, Decoys, Maneuverable RVs, Post-boost vehicles which makes life much difficult for any missile defense. Despite having three-tier defence systems, US is struggling to achieve a decent success against modern ICBMs. The Russian Topol-M for instance can easily handle any Missile defence measures US can throw at it.e

For its advertized range, Agni-Vs speed is quite astonishing, DRDO publicly stated it has reached 7000 meters per second. thats real close to orbital velocity
It would be exciting if DRDO released images of Agni-Vs splash down in Indian Ocean caught by Navy ships. should be one heck of fireball in a hurry towards its destination. would imagine it being similar to a meteor.

@ajaymailed,India can already take care of threat from Pakistan with a 700KM range agni-I.however what did you saw during operation Parakram of 2001 after parliament attack.it took 1 month(yes you are reading it correct!) to fully operationalize indian army leading to a huge embarrassment for the govt & probably the reason why India couldn't launch any counter offensive.this leads to army & govt coming up with the so called cold start doctrine(kinda like pc cold boot) to reduce the reaction time.army now routinely does exercises to improve its cold start performance.similarly with the mumbai attacks where intelligence & security failures occured at almost all levels.just so you know the NSG commandos couldn't reach mumbai earlier because they didn't had an empty runway & plane to take-off not to mention traffic jam reaching the available runway which lead to govt proposing a dedicated plane & runway at the NSG location hub itself!!did nukes helped at that time?no.even a basic nuclear capacity is enough to deter other nuclear powers(ex.north korea).hell a country can blackmail the world by just declaring that it will release all the technical knowhow(centrifuge designs etc) on internet if it can not even use its nuclear weapons & this will stop any impending attack on that country.

How WMDs are related to Indian Army preparedness or special forces capability to react and act quickly? . why blame WMDs, if there were problems with Indian Army or special forces. WMDs are supposed to be weapons of last resort, only to be employed in worst case scenario.

no.even a basic nuclear capacity is enough to deter other nuclear powers(ex.north korea).hell a country can blackmail the world by just declaring that it will release all the technical knowhow(centrifuge designs etc) on internet if it can not even use its nuclear weapons & this will stop any impending attack on that country

Detterance is the key word. We need enemy to understand, if they tried to mess with us, the damage will be unacceptable. just like Pakistan threatens India with nuclear holocaust, thats called detterance.

I dunno whats the meaning of basic nuclear capacity? , right now i don't think India has advanced proven credible nuclear capacity like that of P5 countries, basic capacity is what we have proved in 1998 tests. we probably think its enough. any more advanced warhead designs will need to proven through tests. Its unlikely that india may test anytime in near future as long we are comfortable with basic nuclear capacity.

 

[whitestar_999]

my point is that highlighting Agni V as some kind of panacea for all our defense troubles is wrong when our army is struggling in even maintaining its conventional military strength.relying too much on WMD's probably was the reason of lax attitude towards conventional military strength after 1998 tests which resulted in serious problems during Kargil conflict which later resulted in India becoming top weapons importer of the world.instead of developing our own tanks,guns & airplanes we are buying everything.this does not even include the failures of Arjuna tank,LCA & many more such projects.

by basic nuclear capacity i meant a simple nuclear device loaded on a plane,carried by a specialized unit etc & does not include likes of ballistic missiles,SLBMs etc.after all there is no point in using agni V against Pakistan which presents the most security challenge to India.instead of now spending too much resources on developing next variant of Agni India should focus on improving its core & conventional military strength.this also means developing our own guns,tanks & planes instead of buying them.this is the reason why China who once was amongst largest arms importer is now set to become one of the top arms exporter in coming years.

 

[ajaymailed]

my point is that highlighting Agni V as some kind of panacea for all our defense troubles is wrong when our army is struggling in even maintaining its conventional military strength.

thats absolutely wrong notion, i dunno who is even giving that idea.
Agni-V was a leap in technological capability as far nuclear system delivery is concerned, its give a huge boost in deterrence against China. It does give us some capabilities that only P5 countries and may be Israel possess. but thats just about it

relying too much on WMD's probably was the reason of lax attitude towards conventional military strength after 1998 tests which resulted in serious problems during Kargil conflict which later resulted in India becoming top weapons importer of the world.instead of developing our own tanks,guns & airplanes we are buying everything.this does not even include the failures of Arjuna tank,LCA & many more such projects.

I don't agree with that. The reasons of kargil conflict are quite clearly known and so are the reason for india importing lots n lots arms and problem with indigenous weapon systems. Its little to do with india going nuclear in 1998. Kargil happened just one year later, unlikely to have any relation.

by basic nuclear capacity i meant a simple nuclear device loaded on a plane,carried by a specialized unit etc & does not include likes of ballistic missiles,SLBMs etc.after all there is no point in using agni V against Pakistan which presents the most security challenge to India.

Agni V, SLBMs is absolutely of no use against Pakistan

basically
India had to go nuclear in 1974 because of China.
Agni-II, III, IV, V, SLBM, Arihant, are china specific. developed keeping China in mind. Indian Military itself would not have been so big in first place if 62 didn't happen

instead of now spending too much resources on developing next variant of Agni India should focus on improving its core & conventional military strength.this also means developing our own guns,tanks & planes instead of buying them

We surely don't spend too much on Agni missile program. The development of Agni-V costed 2500 crores as per media reports. Thats not much compared to what India spends on conventional forces.

compared to 40 billion dollar defence budget this year, money spent on developing missile force will be quite insignificant.

Challenges & failures in developing our own guns, tanks & planes is a different story, we can surely discuss further about it but we will going completely off topic.

 

[whitestar_999]

india didn't go nuclear in 1998.it did in 1974 25 years before kargil as you stated.i might have erred in posting 1998 date in my earlier statement about lax attitude but still the central part remain valid about laxity after conducting nuclear test albeit in 1974.

by spending too much i didn't just mean money but resources like time,personnel,attention,focus etc.most probably an average indian know about agni project but does not know about failures & restrictions of kaveri engine in Tejas.if such utilization of resources were to be spend on projects like Tejas & Arjun much better results would be expected.

 

[ajaymailed]

by spending too much i didn't just mean money but resources like time,personnel,attention,focus etc.most probably an average indian know about agni project but does not know about failures & restrictions of kaveri engine in Tejas.if such utilization of resources were to be spend on projects like Tejas & Arjun much better results would be expected.

one main problem is we can import as many fighters or tanks which could easily better Tejas or Arjun but we cannot import Russian or US ICBMs. Developing them indigenously is the only option.

some indigenous projects failed because India simply didn't have technology know-how, some because of mismanagement, delays, some because armed forces thought imported content is much better. But DRDO, HAL, ADA etc are really large organizations, do have resources to come out with conventional weapon systems as well.
The main challenge was Military always compares the best of systems they can import with DRDOs indigenous product. DRDO has been unable to or struggling to meet that requirement of matching the world class conventional systems.

take Tejas for example, even if we forget Kaveri engine, IAF requirements made it mandatory for Tejas to have even more powerful engine than GE F404 which was currently powering Tejas test flights. So they selected GE F414, but it would another 2 to 3 yrs to intergrate that engine into Tejas.

Joint Venture development seems to be the better way of going at it, Brahmos, PAK-FA etc. are some good examples. India is going go sink in billions of dollars into fifth-gen russian fighter but we have to see whats the benefit for our industry.

 

[whitestar_999]

i agree but just like i said before no matter how powerful the weapon is it is useless if can't be used fast enough.problem with imported arms is it takes years to complete not to mention issues related to spare parts etc.the $10 billion MMRCA deal will take anywhere ~5-7 years to finally deliver all planes.as i see it an indigenous squad of 4th gen fighter crafts is much better than 4 4.5 generation technically superior planes imported from abroad both costing almost same.also India does have basic technical know how or how can we have space & missile program.Brazil has inferior space program capabilities compared to us yet India bought Embraer jets for VVIPs including PM from Brazil.more than know how it is the lax & incorrect attitude & policies of govt as well as mistakes committed on army's part for DRDO's blunders.

P.S.don't remember but i read some articles in Times Crest edition & sunday edition about army's faulty policies too regarding relying too much on imported hardware & neglecting bigger picture.Chinese actually reverse engineered russian planes to bring out their own cheaper variant & then even sold it to other countries.i am not supporting this but Indian army should also take into account bigger picture where half a generation behind indigenous weapon can be much more of value than the latest gen imported weapon.after all in war numbers also matters.it is not a simple equation like like 1 4.5 gen plane=2 4 gen planes.

 

[ajaymailed]

i agree but just like i said before no matter how powerful the weapon is it is useless if can't be used fast enough.problem with imported arms is it takes years to complete not to mention issues related to spare parts etc.the $10 billion MMRCA deal will take anywhere ~5-7 years to finally deliver all planes.as i see it an indigenous squad of 4th gen fighter crafts is much better than 4 4.5 generation technically superior planes imported from abroad both costing almost same.also India does have basic technical know how or how can we have space & missile program.Brazil has inferior space program capabilities compared to us yet India bought Embraer jets for VVIPs including PM from Brazil.more than know how it is the lax & incorrect attitude & policies of govt as well as mistakes committed on army's part for DRDO's blunders.

P.S.don't remember but i read some articles in Times Crest edition & sunday edition about army's faulty policies too regarding relying too much on imported hardware & neglecting bigger picture.Chinese actually reverse engineered russian planes to bring out their own cheaper variant & then even sold it to other countries.i am not supporting this but Indian army should also take into account bigger picture where half a generation behind indigenous weapon can be much more of value than the latest gen imported weapon.after all in war numbers also matters.it is not a simple equation like like 1 4.5 gen plane=2 4 gen planes.

HAL may not even have infrastructure good enough to produce rafale. they need time to learn how to produce rafale. But MMRCA is expected to give us lot of boost in improving aircraft production capabilities. Defence PSUs are even worse than R&D Labs.

.also India does have basic technical know how or how can we have space & missile program.Brazil has inferior space program capabilities compared to us yet India bought Embraer jets for VVIPs including PM from Brazil.more than know how it is the lax & incorrect attitude & policies of govt as well as mistakes committed on army's part for DRDO's blunders.

That does mean Aviation & Space are that much different. Israel, SKorea, etc many countries have better technological capabilities yet no-where compared to Indian Space program.

BTW i didn't even know Brazil has got a space program.

 

[CommanderShawnzer]

@ajaymailed,whitestar_999 : dudes. you two are going a bit offtopic with all the indian arms vs imported arms discussion.please keep discusssion limited to agni-V and related stuff
we can create another thread to debate this : indian arms vs imported arms

 

[whitestar_999]

well it is my opinion that discussing agni V viz-a-viz its implications for indian defense scenario is all related which inevitably includes the indigenous vs imported arms discussions since the main highlight of Agni V is being indigenous.still i believe i have discussed what ever there is to discuss about this so worry not.from my side i am ending my discussion.Agni V no doubt is a significant achievement for India now let's hope this success can be repeated in other defense sectors like planes,tanks etc.