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Agni III: India's fire on the
horizon
By David Isenberg
The
Indian Defense Ministry announced on August 16 that it
planned to start production of a nuclear-capable medium
range ballistic missile - Agni III - that likely will
have a range of at least 3,000 kilometers.
But
according to an earlier report by The Times of India, it
is likely to be tested only toward the end of 2003 or
early 2004, and given that testing normally precedes
production, operational deployment of the missile will
most probably not take place until 2004 at the earliest.
This announcement was one of 15 initiatives
launched by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee last
week to mark the 55th anniversary of India's
independence from British rule. The government also
announced that it would begin production and deployment
of the supersonic cruise missile Brahmos, which can be
launched from ships, submarines or planes. India also
plans to jointly produce 11 advanced light helicopters
with Russia and assemble an unspecified number of T-90
tanks from kits imported from Russia.
The Agni
has been developed mainly by the Indian Defense Research
and Development Laboratory under the Defense Research
and Development Organization (DRDO). India is also
developing army and air force versions of the
short-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile Prithvi;
the Trishul, a surface-to-air missile that targets
aircraft and can counter sea-skimming missiles; and the
anti-tank Nag missile.
The announcement marks
the latest version of the Agni (meaning fire), which has
a long history. According to the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the Agni I was first tested in
1989, though program development began in 1979. The
first Agni missiles achieved a maximum range of 1,500
kilometers, covering all of Pakistan and large areas of
southwestern China, but the combination of first-stage
solid fuel and second-stage liquid fuel propulsion
systems made deployment and launch operations clumsy and
immobile, requiring half a day of preparation. The
liquid fuel was volatile, requiring loading just before
launch. Also, the rocket was fairly inaccurate (circular
error probability of 100 meters) and had an inefficient
launch control system.
Before India declared
itself a nuclear-weapon power in 1998, the Agni I was
officially not acknowledged as an intermediate-range
ballistic missile, but a mere "technology demonstrator".
Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, then head of India's integrated
guided missile development program, declared that the
Agni I would be accurate enough to be used with
conventional warheads. No one, however, seriously
believed that India would use a Rs 300 million (US$6.2
million) weapon to knock down a few buildings some 2,000
kilometers away.
The Agni program was suspended
in 1994 owing to technological problems and diplomatic
pressure from the United States. The program resumed
under the Bharatiya Janata Party government in 1998,
with a rail-mobile version, the Agni II; a two-stage
solid fuel missile with a declared range of 2,000 to
2,500 kilometers and a 1,000 kilogram payload that was
tested in April 1999 and again in January 2001.
The range of the missile can be altered by
appropriately configuring the payload mass (ie,
constructing different-sized warheads). At a length of
20 meters and a weight of 16 tonnes, the Agni II is an
improvement over its predecessor, which had a length of
21 meters and a weight of 19 tonnes.
The Agni II
incorporates a far more accurate terminal navigation and
guidance system that constantly updates information
about the missile flight path using global positioning
system information provided by ground-based beacons.
It is thought that the most likely warhead the
Agni II would carry is a one-tonne nuclear device, using
a 43-45-kiloton thermonuclear design that India claims
was tested successfully on May 11, 1998. Then-DRDO
director Kalam confirmed in April 1999 that nuclear
warheads could be fitted on the Agni II.
The
Agni II is thought to contain technology illegally
acquired from Germany, such as hydraulic cylinders that
were installed in mobile launching platforms.
In
the aftermath of the undeclared 1999 Kargil war with
Pakistan, India seriously started thinking about its
intermediate range ballistic missiles. Two crucial
decisions were taken. The government announced that the
Agni II would go to the army. The second important
decision was that there was a need for a range of Agni
systems to cater to various nuclear requirements. For
example, a single-stage solid fuel Agni IA with a 700
kilometer range was test fired for presumed use against
Pakistan, with the earlier Agni II and the coming Agni
III slated for deterrence against China.
India
announced in June 2001 that it had begun limited
production of the Agni II and would deploy it this year.
The Indian army has ordered 700-km-range Agni missiles,
to be delivered in the next two years.
According
to the Federation of American Scientists, the Agni II
will reportedly always be in a ready-to-fire mode and
could be launched within 15 minutes. Over 600
communications channels inside the rocket and in ground
launch control, with 24 kilometers of wiring, have been
eliminated to allow for a single control system. There
are now only 10 pairs of communications channels with
one-eighth the original wiring.
Currently, the
most advanced version of the Agni can reach 2,500
kilometers, sufficient to hit most targets in Pakistan
and parts of western China. But most of northeast China,
including Beijing, remain out of reach, even if the
missile were based in northeast India, east of
Bangladesh.
A past RAND study argued that
a missile with a range of 3,500 to 5,000 kilometers
was necessary to put China’s most valued assets at risk.
That range is thought to require the development of a
new ballistic missile.
Despite its pursuit of
ballistic missiles, however, India’s most likely
delivery platforms for the time being are its
fighter-bomber aircraft, as a classified internal review
conducted by the Indian air force in the summer of 2001
says. The Agni III may be coming, but it remains some
years away from being operational.
(©2002 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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