How far India’s interceptor missile is successful to counter the neighbour countries?

India’s missile programmes have good reason to be satisfied.

A new, fully solid interceptor missile developed at the Defence Research and Development Organization successfully destroyed a Prithvi-missile. DRDO first demonstrated its capabilities in missile defence with a notified Prithvi that played the role of attacker.

The new Advanced Air Defence interceptor missile that has just been tested is said to compare favourably with the U.S. Patriot Advanced Capablity-3 missile. Although Israeli radars were used to pick up the incoming target missile but the DRDO needed to carry out considerable software development so that the attacking missile course could be deduced from the radar data and the interceptor missile dispatched accordingly.

Neighboring Pakistan has in its armoury a range of missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. With a 700 kg payload, it is estimated that the Ghaznavi could have a range of about 350 km, Shaheen-I of about 495 km, the Ghauri of over 920 km and Shaheen-II of more than 2000 km.

The longer the range of the missile, the faster the warhead is propelled and the more difficult become the problems of interception. India’s unease with such dangerous missiles and that too in neighbouring countries showing alarming signs of instability, explains its eagerness to have some form of defence against these missiles.

Pakistan is hardly likely to stand idle, it might to, for instance, choose to deploy a large number of missiles carrying warheads to overwhelm Indian missile defenses.

So, an impenetrable missile shield against a nuclear armed neighbour is a very need indeed. If even a few nuclear warheads were to get through the devastation would be unimaginable, especially if one or more of those warheads fall on large cities. What the world and India needed is to control Pakistan in such a way that it neither feels threatened nor is a source of threat to others.

But India raided new high with successful conducting a test of new supersonic interceptor missile. As a part of the exercise, two missiles were test fired against each other from two different missile test ranges located in Orissa. While the target missile, derivative of Prithvi was test fired from Integrated Test Range at Chandipur on-sea- at 11 am from a mobile launcher and the second one blasted off 2.40 miles later from another mobile launcher from the inner wheeler island Orissa. The missile of the Chandipur was assumed as the attacker while the missile of Wheeler Island was accepted as defender.

The attacker missile was destroyed by the defender missile at an altitude of 15 km from launch surface at supersonic speed. This test has proved that the interceptor system is even slightly better than Patriot Advanced Capability of the USA in terms of interception, altitude and range against incoming ballistic missiles.

The aim and objective of the exercise was to test the missile’s ability to provide an air shield to important Indian metros against hostile attacks. Besides, this missile would be moved closer to the Indo-Pak and China-India borders during crisis or war time on.

The basis of this test India is developing a robust anti-missile defence system that will have high speed interceptions for engaging ballistic missiles in the range of 5000 km and above. Presently India has shown its capability to handle targets class in the class upto 2000-2500 km. The country would be in a position to tackle any missile attack from their neighbouring countries i.e. China and Pakistan. The country would also join Israel, Russia and the USA in developing and possessing such technology once the system is rolled out.