Nuclear notebook

Indian nuclear forces, 2015

Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

2015, Vol. 71(5) 7783
! The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0096340215599788
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Abstract
With several long-range ballistic missiles in development, the Indian nuclear posture is entering an important
new phase. After nearly two decades of focusing on nuclear competition with Pakistan, New Delhi seems to
now be paying attention to its future strategic relationship with China. India is estimated to have produced
approximately 540 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium, enough for 135 to 180 nuclear warheads, though not
all of that material is being used. The authors estimate that India has produced between 110 and 120 nuclear
warheads. The countrys fighter-bombers still constitute the backbone of its operational nuclear strike force,
but it has made considerable progress in developing credible land-based ballistic missiles as well. They include
the Agni-4, which will be capable of delivering a single nuclear warhead more than 3,500 kilometers, and
therefore able to strike Beijing and Shanghai from northern India. In 2014, India conducted its first ever sea
trial of a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

Keywords
China, defense, ICBM, India, nuclear weapon, Pakistan, SLBM, SSBN

ndias drive to develop a nuclear triad

reached an important milestone in
2014 with the first nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarine deploying on
its initial, brief, sea-trial voyage. Now,
with several long-range ballistic missiles
in development, the Indian nuclear posture is entering an important and dynamic new phase. After nearly two
decades of concentrating on competition
with Pakistan, Indias nuclear outlook now
seems to be focused more toward its
future strategic relationship with China.
India is estimated to have produced
approximately 540 kilograms (kg) of
weapon-grade plutonium (IPFM, 2013:
21), sufficient for 135 to 180 nuclear warheads; however, not all of the material

has been converted into nuclear warheads. Based on available information

about its nuclear-capable delivery vehicles, we estimate that India has produced
110 to 120 nuclear warheads. It will need
more than that to arm new missiles it is
developing. In addition to the Dhruva
plutonium production reactor near
Mumbai, India plans to construct a
second reactor near Visakhapatnam, on
the east coast. An unsafeguarded prototype fast breeder reactor is also under
construction 650 kilometers (km) south
at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic
Research (IGCAR) near Kalpakkam,
which will significantly increase Indias
plutonium production capacity once it
becomes operational.

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Aircraft
Despite Indias considerable progress in
developing credible ballistic missiles, its
fighter-bombers still constitute the backbone of Indias operational nuclear
strike force. Two or three squadrons of
Mirage 2000H and Jaguar IS/IB aircraft
are thought to provide India with a flexible capability to conduct nuclear strike
operations deep into Pakistan and China.
The Indian Air Forces Mirage 2000H
fighter-bombers, which are undergoing
upgrades to extend their service life
and enhance their capabilities, are deployed at Maharajpur (Gwalior) Air
Force Station with Squadrons 1 and 7 of
the 40th Wing; we estimate that one of
the squadrons has a secondary nuclear
mission. The French-supplied Mirage
has served a nuclear strike role in the
French air force for many years.
India also has four operational squadrons of Jaguar IS/IB aircraft; two of the
squadrons may be assigned a secondary
nuclear strike mission. The Jaguar,
designed jointly by France and Britain,
was nuclear-capable when deployed by
those countries. An upgrade of Indias
Jaguar fleet is scheduled for completion
in December 2017 (Government of India,
2012). The domestically manufactured,
Soviet-origin MiG-27 Flogger fleet,
sometimes rumored to have a nuclear
strike mission, is also undergoing an
upgrade (Government of India, 2012).
The original nuclear aircraft are aging,
and India may be searching for a modern
fighter-bomber that could potentially
take over the air-based nuclear strike
role. One potential candidate is the
Rafale, produced by France, which uses
the aircraft in such a role. After initially
announcing plans to buy 126 Rafale
fighter-bombers from France, however,
the high cost appears to have caused

the Indian government to consider reducing the number to 36 for now (Tran and
Raghuvanshi, 2015).

Land-based missiles
India has four types of land-based nuclearcapable missiles that appear to be operational: the short-range Prithvi-2 and Agni1, the medium-range Agni-2, and the intermediate-range Agni-3. At least two other
longer-range Agni missiles are under development: the Agni-4 and Agni-5 (see Table 1).
It remains unclear how many of these
missile types India plans to keep in its
arsenal. Some may serve as technology
development programs for longerrange missiles. Although the Indian government has made no statements about
the future composition of its land-based
missile force, intermediate-range and
medium-range missiles could potentially be discontinued, with only shortand long-range missiles deployed in the
future to provide a mix of strike options
against near and distant targets. Otherwise India appears to plan a very diverse
and expensive missile force.
The Indian ballistic missile force
remains dominated by the short-range
Prithvi system. Initially, the 150 km range
Prithvi-1 was thought to be nuclear, but it
appears that the system might be conventional and being replaced with the
Prahaar short-range missile system. The
Indian government stated in 2013 that the
Prithvi-2 missile was the first to be developed under the countrys prestigious
Integrated Guided Missile Development
Program (IGMDP) for Indias nuclear
deterrence (Government of India, 2013).
The Prithvi-2 can deliver a nuclear or
conventional warhead to a range of 250
kilometers (155 miles). After test launches
in 2011, 2012, and 2013, the Indian

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Table 1. Indian nuclear forces, 2015

TYPE

NUMBER OF
LAUNCHERS

NATO
DESIGNATION

YEAR
DEPLOYED

RANGE1
(KILOMETERS)

WARHEAD X YIELD
(KILOTONS)

NUMBER OF
WARHEADS

Aircraft
Vajra

Mirage 2000H

~32

1985

1,850

1 x bomb

~32

Shamsher

Jaguar IS/IB

~16

1981

1,600

1 x bomb

~16

SUBTOTAL

~48

~48

Land-based ballistic missiles

Prithvi-2

N.A.

~24

2003

250

1 x 12

~24

Agni-1

N.A.

~20

20072

700+

1 x 40

~20

Agni-2

N.A.

~8

20113

2,000+

1 x 40

~8

Agni-3

N.A.

~4

2014?

3,200+

1 x 40

~4

Agni-4

N.A.

N.A.

(2016)

3,500+

1 x 40

N.A.

Agni-5

N.A.

N.A.

(2017)

5,200+

1 x 40

N.A.

SUBTOTAL

~564

~56

Sea-based ballistic missiles

Dhanush

N.A.

(2013)

350

1 x 12

K-15

(Sagarika)

(12)

(2017)

700

1 x 12

(12)

K-4

N.A.

N.A.

~3,000

1x?

N.A.

SUBTOTAL

(14)

(14)

TOTAL

~106 (118)

1 Range listed is unrefueled combat range with drop tanks.

2 Agni-1 first began induction with the 334th Missile Group in 2004 but did not become operational until 2007.
3 Agni-2 first began induction with the 335th Missile Group in 2008 but did not become operational until 2011.
4 The missile and warhead inventory may be larger than the number of launchers, some of which can be reused to fire additional missiles.
5 The number in parenthesis includes 12 warheads possibly produced for the first SSBN for a total stockpile of roughly 118 warheads.

government reported the range as 350 km

(see, for example, Government of India,
2012), but the US National Air and Space
Intelligence Center (NASIC) lists the
range as 250 km (NASIC, 2013: 13). The
350-km range version is sometimes
called Prithvi-3 and has been converted
to the ship-launched Dhanush missile.
Given its small size (9 meters long and 1
meter in diameter), the Prithvi is difficult
to spot in satellite images and therefore
little is known about where it is deployed.
The two-stage, solid fuel, road-mobile
Agni-1 missile became operational in 2007,
three years after its introduction into the
armed forces. The short-range missile is
capable of delivering a nuclear or conventional warhead to a distance of approximately 700 km (435 miles). The mission of

the Agni-1 is thought to be focused on targeting Pakistan, and an estimated 20

launchers are deployed in western India,
possibly with the 334th Missile Group.
The two-stage, solid-fuel, rail-mobile
Agni-2 is an improvement on the Agni-1,
and can deliver a nuclear or conventional
warhead more than 2,000 km (1,243
miles). The missile possibly began being
introduced into the armed forces in 2004,
but technical issues delayed operational
capability until 2011. Fewer than 10
launchers are thought to be deployed in
northern India, possibly with the 335th
Missile Group. Targeting is likely focused
on western, central, and southern China.
The Agni-3, a two-stage, solid-fuel,
rail-mobile, intermediate-range ballistic
missile is capable of delivering a nuclear

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warhead 3,200-plus km (1,988-plus

miles). The Indian Ministry of Defence
declared in 2014 that the Agni-3 is in
the arsenal of the armed forces (Indian
Ministry of Defence, 2014: 86), and the
Indian militarys Strategic Forces Command conducted its third user trial on
April 16, 2015 from the Wheeler Island
Test Range. If the Agni-3 is operational,
there are probably fewer than 10 launchers. Several years ago an army spokesperson remarked that with this missile,
India can even strike Shanghai (IndoAsian News Service, 2008), but this
would require launching the Agni-3
from the northeastern corner of India.
India is also developing the Agni-4 missile, a two-stage, solid fuel, rail-mobile
intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of delivering a single nuclear warhead 3,500-plus km (2,175-plus miles).
The Indian Ministry of Defence lists the
range as 4,000 km (2,486 miles) (Indian
Ministry of Defence, 2014). Following the
final development test on January 14, 2014,
the Ministry declared that Agni-4 serial
production will begin shortly (Indian
Ministry of Defence, 2014: 86). A second
flight test conducted on December 2, 2014
was the Armys first Agni-4 launch (Indian
Ministry of Defence, 2014). The missile
will undergo a small number of induction
tests before it becomes operational.
Although the Agni-4 will be capable of
striking targets in nearly all of China
from northern India, including Beijing
and Shanghai, India is also developing
the longer-range Agni-5, a three-stage,
solid-fuel, rail-mobile, intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a warhead more than 5,000 km
(3,100-plus miles). The extra range will
allow the Indian military to establish
Agni-5 bases in central and southern
India, further away from China.

India is modifying the Agni-5 launcher

to carry the missile in a sealed canister. The
new canister design will reduce the reaction time drastically . . . just a few minutes
from stop-to-launch, according to Avinash Chander (Pandit, 2013b), the Agni program engineer who headed Indias Defence
Research and Development Organisation
from 2013 until he was sacked by the government of new Prime Minister Narendra
Modi in January 2015the same month the
organization launched the Agni-5 from a
canister launcher for the first time. The
missile was in its deliverable configuration that enables launch of the missile
within a very short time as compared to
an open launch, the organization later
stated (Defence Research and Development Organisation, 2015: 4).
Moreover, unlike previous Agni-5
flight tests that took place from railmobile launchers, the January 2015 flight
test appeared to use a new road-mobile
launcher with the canister erected by
four hydraulic arms from a six- or
seven-axle trailer towed by a three-axle
truck. Although the Defence Research
and Development Organisation released
a video of the 2015 launch, the frame did
not show the new road-mobile launcher
(Defence Research and Development
Organisation, undated a), unlike videos
of the 2012 and 2013 launches that clearly
showed the rail-mobile launchers
(Defence Research and Development
Organisation, undated b, undated c).
Despite widespread speculation in
news media articles and on social media
that the Agni-5 will be equipped with multiple warheadseven multiple independently targetable
reentry vehicles
(MIRVs)there is good reason to doubt
that India can or will add multiple warheads or MIRVs to its arsenal in the
near future.1 There are no reports of

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MIRV technologies being flight-tested,

and loading multiple warheads on the
Agni-5 would reduce its extra range,
which was a key reason for developing
the missile in the first place. The Agni-5
is estimated to be capable of delivering a
payload of 1.5 tons (the same as the Agni-3
and -4), and Indias first- and secondgeneration warheads, even modified versions, are relatively heavy compared with
warheads developed by other nuclear
weapon states that deploy MIRVs. It
took the Soviet Union and the United
States hundreds of nuclear tests and
many years of effort to develop reentry
vehicles small enough to equip a ballistic
missile with a MIRV. Moreover, deploying missiles with multiple warheads
would invite serious questions about the
credibility of Indias minimum deterrent
doctrine; using MIRVs would reflect a
strategy aimed at quickly striking many
targets, and would also run the risk of triggering a warhead race with Indias adversaries. It remains to be seen whether
Chinas decision to equip some of its
silo-based ICBMs with MIRVs will trigger a similar development in India.

Naval nuclear weapons

India is developing two naval nuclear
weapon systems: a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) and a
ship-launched ballistic missile.
After three decades of development,
Indias first SSBN, the Arihant, finally
sailed on sea trials in 2014.2 The reactor
on the Arihant first went critical in
August 2013 (Indian Ministry of Defence,
2014: 38). The Arihant is equipped with 12
launch tubes designed to launch the 700km (435-mile) range K-15 (Sagarika) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
A second SSBN is possibly under

construction (Deccan Herald, 2014), and

India might have plans to build three,
although rumors about six are probably
mistaken. A base for the SSBNs is rumored
to be under construction near Rambilli on
Indias east coast (Pandit, 2013a).
The utility of the K-15 is very limited; it
would not be able to target Islamabad,
only southern Pakistan, and would have
to sail very close to the countrys coast
to do so. Moreover, the K-15 would not
be able to target China at all, unless the
SSBN sailed through the Singapore Strait
deep into the South China Sea. Due to
these circumstances, the Arihant SSBN/
K-15 SLBM weapon system should be
seen as a technology development program intended to develop a more capable
missile, rather than as a credible and
secure means of retaliation. In March
2014, India was said to have test-launched
a K-4 SLBM from a submerged launch
platform, apparently to a range of more
than 3,000 km. The Arihant would probably require modification to carry the K-4.
Indias third sea-based missile is the
Dhanush, a 400-km (249-mile) singlestage, liquid-fuel, short-range ballistic
missile designed to launch from the
back of two specially configured Sukanya-class patrol vessels (Subhadra and
Suvarna). The utility of the Dhanush as
a strategic deterrence weapon, however,
is severely limited by its short range; it
would have to sail very close to the Pakistani or Chinese coasts to target facilities
in those countries, making it highly vulnerable to counterattack.

Cruise missiles
There are also unconfirmed rumors that
India is developing a nuclear-capable
cruise missile, the Nirbhay. Neither the
Indian government nor the US

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intelligence community has yet mentioned the missile having any nuclear
capability.3 The Nirbhay has been
flight-tested several times, most recently
on October 17, 2014, to a range of about
1,000 kilometers (621 miles).
Notes
1. For a review of rumors and statements about
Indian MIRVs, see Kristensen (2013).
2. For more on the history of the Arihant, see
Norris and Kristensen (2010).
3. India would also need a smaller, lighter warhead if it were to develop a nuclear-capable
cruise missile. For more on this, see Norris
and Kristensen (2010).

References
Deccan Herald (2014) Work on second nuclear sub
reactor begins. December 1. Available at: http://
www.deccanherald.com/content/445065/worksecond-nuclear-sub-reactor.html.
Defence Research and Development Organisation
(2015) DRDO test-fires canisterised Agni 5 ICBM.
DRDO Newsletter 35(3): 45. Available at: http://
drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/newsletter/2015/Mar_15.pdf.
Defence Research and Development Organisation
(undated a) Canistered Agni 5 ICBM test fire.
Video of event that occurred on January 31, 2015.
Available at: http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/
index.jsp?pg=videoplay.jsp&vn=video/agni5_
Canisterised.mp4.
Defence Research and Development Organisation
(undated b) Second successful launch of Agni 5.
Video of event that occurred on September 15,
2013. Available at: http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/index.jsp?pg=videoplay.jsp&vn=video/agni_
5.mp4.
Defence Research and Development Organisation
(undated c) Agni 5 launched successfully. Video
of event that occurred on April 19, 2012. Available
at: http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/index.jsp?pg
=videoplay.jsp&vn=video/AGNI%20A5-02.mp4.
Government of India (2012) Upgradation of aircraft.
Press Information Bureau, April 30. Available at:
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=82793.
Government of India (2013) Prithvi does it again. Press
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http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=99911.
Indian Ministry of Defence (2014) Annual Report
201314. Available at: http://mod.nic.in/writereaddata/AnnualReport2013-14-ENG.pdf.

Indo-Asian News Service (2008) Agni-III not targeted

at any particular country: Army. India Today,
May 8. Available at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/
story/Agni-IIInottargetedatanyparticular
country:Army/1/7972.html.
IPFM (2013) Global fissile material report 2013: Increasing transparency of nuclear warhead and fissile
material stocks as a step toward disarmament.
International Panel on Fissile Materials. Available
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Kristensen HM (2013) Indias missile modernization
beyond minimum deterrence. FAS Strategic Security Blog, October 4. Available at: http://fas.org/
blogs/security/2013/10/indianmirv/.
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(2013) Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat. NASIC1031-0985-13. Available at: http://fas.org/blogs/
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7681. Available at: http://bos.sagepub.com/content/66/5/76.full.
Pandit R (2013a) India readies hi-tech naval base to
keep eye on China. Times of India, March 26. Available
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india/India-readies-hi-tech-naval-base-to-keepeye-on-China/articleshow/19203910.cms.
Pandit R (2013b) India can develop 10,000km range
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Author biographies
Hans M. Kristensen is the director of the
Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in Washington, DC. His work focuses on researching and
writing about the status of nuclear weapons and
the policies that direct them. Kristensen is a coauthor of the world nuclear forces overview in
the SIPRI Yearbook (Oxford University Press)
and a frequent adviser to the news media on
nuclear weapons policy and operations. Inquiries should be directed to FAS, 1725 DeSales St.
NW, Sixth Floor, Washington, DC 20036, USA;
(202) 546-3300.

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Robert S. Norris is a senior fellow with the

Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC. His principal areas of expertise include
writing and research on all aspects of the
nuclear weapons programs of the United
States, Russia, Britain, France, and China, as

well as India, Pakistan, and Israel. He is the

author of Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie
R. Groves, the Manhattan Projects Indispensable Man (Steerforth Press, 2002). He has coauthored the Nuclear Notebook column since
May 1987.

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