New Delhi (Defence Correspondent): Last month India tested a nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a range of around 3,500 km from a nuclear-powered submarine in the Bay of Bengal. This turned out to be a talking point about India’s major boost to its nuclear deterrence and strategic capabilities.
A week before this, India had successfully tested a domestically developed long-range hypersonic missile too, that helped it attain a key milestone in military development that puts it in a small group of global elites possessing this advanced technology. The missile, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and industry partners, can carry payloads for ranges exceeding 1,500 km (930 miles) for the armed forces.
This undoubtedly puts India among the small cohort of nations to have bolstered their missile game to this level, but the two recent additions alone did not contribute to rising India’s game.
India has been developing and using various missile systems since its independence, including ballistic, cruise, anti-ship, air-defence, air-to-air, and anti-missile systems.
India’s hypersonic missile can travel at Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound) and has a range of over 1,500 kilometers. This alone puts India in an elite group of countries that have developed hypersonic missiles, including the US, Russia, and China.
Additionally, in terms of the ballistic missiles India is one of seven countries in the world with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The country also boasts of being counted as one of the four countries with an effectively advanced anti-ballistic missile systems.
Not only this but India’s AD-2 missile, that is in development and is expected to have a range of more than 5,000 kilometers is believed to hold a capacity of intercepting intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
On the universal pedestal India’s missile defence system that includes the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) program, which consists of the Prithvi Air Defence (PAD), Advanced Air Defence (AAD), and the Agni series of missiles, has been much talked about and speaks volumes about India’s global stance in the missile production race.
However, regardless of the regular additions of such cutting edge technology into its missile artillery, India, in this ever rising hi-tech universe of modern warfare, needs to continue revising its innovation.
Why? Because the world’s most advanced militaries have set the bar high already, specially with the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) owned by The United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and North Korea.
The United States, Russia, and a few other countries also have developed anti-aircraft missile systems like the US SAM MIM-104 “Patriot”, an all-weather, all-altitude air defence system that counters tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and advanced aircraft. AT the same time, the Russian anti-aircraft system S-400 Triumf also has kept the arena tight.
Needless to say that the missile technologies, in today’s world, as we have seen in the Russia Ukraine war or be it the Israel going to war with Gaza, have proven to be of the utmost significance as far as the modern age wars are concerned.
At this hour, what goes in India’s favour is that not only has India made its place in this global battle but at the same time, it is also advancing its research and development to innovate in the same field to be able to not only produce the best but also share it and export its missile technology.
