DRDO finalises design for new missile to counter China’s arsenal

The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has finalised the design for a 1,500-kilometer range conventionally armed ballistic missile with an anti-ship variant to counter the threat from China’s rapidly expanding missile arsenal.

The DRDO is now awaiting the go-ahead from the Narendra Modi government to move to the development stage of the still unnamed conventionally armed missile which aims to counter China’s land-based threat from across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Yunnan provinces as well as deter any ship-based threat in the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, and Arabian Sea, according to a report in the Hindustan Times.

While India has an arsenal of nuclear cruise and ballistic missiles to tackle threats from land and sea it does not have any conventional ballistic missile for this role.

The missile will not only deter any carrier-based strike group from threatening India from the Indian Ocean but also provide land-based protection to its own aircraft carriers in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea through coastal deployment, the Hindustan Times report states.

With Chinese aircraft carriers expected to enter the Indian Ocean area by 2025 in accordance with President Xi Jinping’s ambition to make the country a global superpower, India needs a conventional intermediate-range ballistic missile to target any sea-based threat to the country ‘s over 7,000-kilometer coastline and island territories. The missile will give the Indian Navy more muscle in addition to the existing submarine based conventional ballistic missile like BA-02 with a range of over 700 km.

China has built an arsenal of conventional land-based missiles with its 4,000 km range Dong Feng 26 that can target even an American air force base in the US territory of Guam in the Indo-Pacific.

China also has an anti-ship conventional missile DF 21 D with a range of 1550 km which the country’s media claims as having the capability to take on US Navy aircraft carriers conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.