By Ankit Panda
India successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile with a 3,000 km range.
Recently, India secretly tested its most advanced submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) to date. The K-4 SLBM gives India the ability to strike a land target 3,000 km away from an undersea firing platform and is a significant boon to India’s nuclear weapons program, extending India’s ability to credibly deter a nuclear-armed rival from attacking first. A robust sea-based deterrent is necessary to field a credible second-strike capability and the K-4 SLBM does just that.
According to The Hindu, the K-4 was tested on March 24, 2014, a few weeks shy of the 16th anniversary of India’s controversial 1998 Pokhran-II nuclear tests. The test went off without a hitch:
The launch took place from a pontoon submerged more than 30 metres deep in the sea off the Visakhapatnam coast. After a powerful gas generator ejected it from the pontoon submerged in the Bay of Bengal, the K-4 missile rose into the air, took a turn towards the designated target, sped across 3,000 km in the sky and dropped into the Indian Ocean.
Read the full story at The Diplomat