Agni-VI: India’s Last Big Thing?

[INDIAPOSITIVE]

India did not display its nuclear-capable Agni-V missiles during the Republic Day parade Monday, where US President Barack Obama was the Chief Guest.

Agni missile series always have been showcased in India’s Republic day parade right from days of Agni-TD in mid 90’s, While Media was kept in dark regarding real reasons behind why it was missing from the parade. Murmurs making rounds for last few years have been that Americans are asking India to Cap further missile developments.

Agni-V first test fired in 2012 made it to many International media reports, Dubbed China Centric missile by International Media there was still touch of uncomfortableness felt by their military planners. Officially dubbed as 5000+ range missiles it was quickly debunked by Chinese Defence Experts who dubbed it as a missile which can hit target up to 8000 km with lighter payloads. Agni-V can hit target in all of China and can cover 70% of Europe.

DRDO is already working on new Agni-VI which will be a three-stage missile which will be heavier and thicker than the Agni-V. Agni-VI officially will have a range of 6000 km but with the lighter payload will have a strike range of 8,000 km to 10,000 km. Agni-VI will be able to carry 3 tonne warheads thrice that of Agni-V which can carry only 1.1 Tonne warheads. Agni-VI will be the first missile to have the capability to carry 4 or 6 multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles [MIRV] payloads.

While debut launch of the missile likely will happen in 2017-18 time-frame according to DRDO. There will be Intense International pressure on India to go slow or stop further development of long-range missiles which will be hard to be dubbed as ” China Centric ” due to increasing range of this missile.

India quietly also tested K-4 missile which is an intermediate-range nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with range of 3500 km last year, DRDO is also working on new K-5 SLBM which will be bigger and heavier but of the same length of K-4 but also will be capable to carry MIRV payloads up to 6000km which will enter into service with Follow-up Arihant class submarines which India will be working on in near future.

DRDO already has offered Land-variant of K-4 to Strategic Forces Command which is highly mobile due to its smaller size compared to current land based version of Agni missiles. After recent successful test of Canister based Agni-V, It will be Now be interesting to see if DRDO will get Political backing on further developments of long-range missiles or focus will shift to bring improvements and refinements in current generation of long-range missiles is yet to be seen.


Agni-VI: India’s Last Big Thing? | idrw.org

 

[trident2010]

I think India should stop after A6 and then modernise all the missile inventory to make them state of the art. Remove Prithvi from service and deploy Shourya, A2-6, Brahmos, Nirbhay and LRCM for land based and K-15 to K-6 for submarines. Make the missiles MIRVed where possible.

 

[shontumontu]

8K is max. What we will ever need, provided they can be launched through subs. They need to be mirv'ed so that they can cover a larger area.

1 sub carrying 12 such missiles at least, and 6 such subs is a good second strike absolute wiper capability. I mean for the size of earth.

And honestly we do not have enemies except Pakistan and China. Good diplomacy is a better deterrent to war.

 

[Judge]

We need to be able to cover Continental America in its entirety as well before we stop the range expansion.

 

[Blue_Eyes]

A simple answer to this question is NO

 

[PARIKRAMA]

Need of the future is sleeker smaller sized compact missiles which are configured to mobile launchers, which has multiple warheads (MIRV), land/sea/air variants.... Imagine A4 17-22 Tonne config for A5 or a bulava same size similar range SLBM. That is what we need going forward.... Range can be always enhanced with a bit lowering of warhead weight to some extent or may be adding additional stage (which may take 2-3 years to test and certify). Do phase out the old ones with massive size lower range which we made when we had lower tech expertise and limited know how of rocket fuel mix. But definitely a bulava or compact sleeker missiles should be our future goal.

 

[Guynextdoor2]

This will obviously not be the last one. Other missiles, smaller and more mobile will be developed.

 

[DeathInvader]

We cannot stop only to that. New threats emerge every day. Today we are friends with some country, tomorrow we may not. And we can't wake up then suddenly realizing that it was a mistake not to develop the range. Unless we don't have missiles that can reach any part of the globe we can't stop. However, focus should be kept on modernizing and evolving the current tech of all missiles.
Also, our navigational system is under process too, soon we could have our own GPS that will navigate the missiles. Hence room for that should be left in the current one's and focus should be made on increasing range, efficiency and potency.