NEW DELHI: India on Thursday morning successfully conducted the "first pre-induction trial" of its over 5,000-km range Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile, which brings the whole of Asia and China as well parts of Europe and Africa within its nuclear strike envelope.
Sources said the country's most formidable missile will undergo one more such pre-induction trial "within this year" before it is inducted into the Agni-V regiment already raised by the tri-Service Strategic Forces Command (SFC) with the requisite command and control structures.
Once that happens, India will gate-crash into the super-exclusive club of countries with ICBMs (missiles with a range of over 5,000-5,500km) like the US, Russia, China, France and the UK. While a belligerent North Korea over the last six-seven month has rattled the US with tests of its two new ICBMs, Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, expert opinion is still divided whether they are fully-operational and deployed as of now.
India, of course, wants a credible strategic deterrent against an aggressive and expansionist China, which has a large arsenal of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. The SFC already has regiments of the Prithvi-II (350-km), Agni-I (700-km), Agni-II (2,000-km) & Agni-III (3,000-km) missiles, which are mainly meant to deter Pakistan from any misadventure. The Agni-IV (4,000-km) and Agni-V (over 5,000-km), in turn, have been developed with China in mind.
The over 50-tonne Agni-V, designed to carry a 1.5-tonne nuclear warhead, has been tested four times in "developmental or experimental trials" earlier. The missile was tested in an "open configuration" in April 2012 and September 2013, while it was test-fired from hermetically sealed canisters mounted on transport-cum-tilting launcher trucks in January 2015 and December 2016.
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