India has tested a rail-mobile version of its nuclear-capable Agni-Prime medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM). The development puts India in a small group of nations that have developed this kind of technology, and comes as New Delhi seeks to enhance its conventional and nuclear missile forces amid similar efforts by its two major adversaries, China and Pakistan.
India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the country’s main military research and development agency, announced the successful test firing of an Agni-Prime from a rail-based mobile launcher system on September 24. The test, which the DRDO says involved a “full operational scenario,” was carried out at an undisclosed site in the country in collaboration with India’s Strategic Forces Command (SFC).
India’s Minister of Defense Rajnath Singh posted on X today: “This successful flight test has put India in the group of select nations having capabilities that have developed a canisterized launch system from an on-the-move rail network.”
As seen in publicly released video imagery, the missile launcher is integrated inside a modified boxcar, with clamshell-type doors on the top. Doors on the sides of the boxcar open up to allow the blast from the missile’s rocket motor to vent out the sides. Interestingly, the boxcar appears to be fitted with an extendable arm that serves to move overhead electrical wires. This is an important consideration since almost all of India’s broad-gauge rail network is electrified.
The Agni-Prime (or Agni-P) is designed to have a range of between 1,000 and 2,000 kilometers (621 and 1,243 miles). In its road-mobile form, the missile has already been introduced to service, according to the DRDO.
Ultimately, the missile is expected to complement or replace India’s previous Agni-I, with a range of 700 kilometers (435 miles), and Agni-II, which also has a range of 2,000 kilometers. According to the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank, India currently has 12 Agni-I and eight Agni-II launchers in service.
The rail-based version of the launch system includes the containerized Agni-P missile, as well as an independent launch capability, communication systems, and undisclosed protection features.
There have been suggestions that the rail-based missile test attracted particular interest from China, with the Chinese missile and satellite-tracking vessel Yuan Wang 5 having been noted in the Indian Ocean ahead of the launch.
At the same time, India declared a no-fly zone over the Bay of Bengal consistent with a missile test for September 24–25.
India’s continued efforts to enhance its nuclear-capable missile force come amid China’s rapid military buildup. India also has long-running border disputes with Beijing. Meanwhile, there are continued tensions between India and its neighbor Pakistan, the two countries briefly going to war in May of this year. China and Pakistan maintain close relationships, also at a military level.
According to recent assessments, China has around 600 nuclear warheads, far more than either India (roughly 180 warheads) or Pakistan (around 170).
With its maximum range of 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles), the Agni-P is able to cover all of Pakistan but could also be used to strike targets in the southwest of China. By making the missile rail-mobile, the number of targets within China that can be held at risk is significantly increased.
The possibility has also been raised that India might field its Agni-P missiles with conventional warheads, which would follow the practice established for earlier members of the Agni missile family and provide for additional flexibility.
But it’s as a part of India’s nuclear forces that the rail-mobile Agni-P is most significant.
After all, a railcar-based missile launcher offers New Delhi a relatively cheap way of fielding additional ballistic missiles in a way that would make them much less vulnerable to preemptive or counterattacks.
In an operational context, the rail-based launcher would exploit India’s very extensive railway network — around 40,000 miles in all — allowing missiles to be rapidly dispersed in a way that would be challenging for any opponent to detect and monitor. With rail tunnels available throughout India, these would provide ready-made hardened bunkers for the rail-mobile missile launchers to be concealed in. Not only would this make them harder to destroy, but it would also be a major challenge for an adversary to track their movements.
In this way, the rail-based Agni-P could be rolled out of a tunnel, fired, and then rolled back into the tunnel or moved to another one very rapidly, making them extremely hard to destroy. They could also be moved around in disguised cars, among other normal rail cars, making them almost impossible to spot for daily operations. At the same time, decoy cars could be produced very easily, further complicating detection and targeting by any adversary.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union fielded a rail-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), known as the RT-23 Molodets, and the Kremlin had also previously planned to reintroduce this capability, with a system called Barguzin, before canceling that project to focus on the Avangard hypersonic missile.
In the past, the United States also explored rail-mobile ICBMs on different occasions as one of many options to help reduce the vulnerability of its strategic missile forces.
More recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in this method of missile fielding. Notably, North Korea has also begun to test-fire ballistic missiles from a railway-based system, as you can read about here. China, too, is developing a rail-based version of its DF-41 ICBM.
Although a timeline for its possible operational fielding is unclear at this point, the testing of a rail-mobile version of the Agni-Prime is a significant development for India. It’s also one that could have far-reaching implications both for its own strategic forces and for the balance of power in the region.
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