Agni-V, the 5000 km Indian ballistic missile is set for launch today evening. Standing 17 meters tall and weighing 50 tonnes, it is not something which can be carried in our pockets, but is portable enough to be put on a rail-road flat or a road mobile carrier to be moved around at will.
update 1: The China Killer Agni-V was successfully launched on Thursday, after a delay due to bad weather on Wednesday.
Described as ‘user friendly’, Agni-V is designed to be put into a canister and is probably to be tested with one such today. It would be of interest to see whether the IRBM (though misquoted as ICBM in Indian media), go thorough without a hitch, unlike the first Agni-3 failure in 2006 or the North Korean Unha-3 rocket launch failure last week.
Incidentally, the North Koreans launched a Unha rocket one week before the Indian Agni-3 launch in 2006, an act which has been repeated now. Touch wood!
BTW after the launch, especially if all goes well, we might hear the GoI denying that the Agni-V is a China specific missile. But make no mistake, it is designed to be a ‘China Killer’ and the first one targeting China. The reported range of about 5000 km is just what the doctor ordered to pepper China with nuclear dust.
But even here, unless some of the Agni-V are launched from the North-East either Assam or Arunachal Pradesh, extreme North East China - the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang will escape the rain-of-fire.
I had a lot of distrust about the range-maps floating around on the internet. Having been a sailor, it is ingrained by now that the Earth is not as exactly displayed on the maps. The usual tendency for people is to pick up a pair of Compass from their geometry box and draw a circle with a radius of approximately 5000 km. But because of the curvature of Earth the geographical distance when projected on a map should appear oblong towards the poles. Besides, the projection based on which the map is drawn is another problem. If you don’t believe me, draw some lines in East/West and North/South directions here [http://serverx.esri.com/javascript_examples/compare_measurements.htm] and see for yourself. (To draw a line, click ‘Draw polyline’ button first).
Breaking my head on how to accurately draw a circle on Google maps found me on a page which would do the job. So here are the range maps when Agni-V is fired from Guwahati (Assam), Nagercoil (Tamil Nadu) and Delhi.
(range maps drawn with online tool at maps.huge.info)
update: The above range map is superseded by a better map in the post about delay in the launch due to bad weather.
Firing an Agni-V from the peninsular India would be a damp squib. That IRBM would not be able to reach Australia, Suez canal or even Beijing. All that brouhaha for dusting Singapore, Islamabad and Dubai?
:-P
Firing it from Assam would still not help us punch Australia, but sure can obliterate Beijing, Seoul and even do a Hiroshima on Tokyo. Not bad.
But most of the Agni-V’s are likely to be located in the vicinity of Delhi, as the national capital is the only one planned to be protected with a missile shield. And from Delhi, the IRBM would fall short of Beijing, but can drop a hint at Moscow and shut down the Suez.
So there you are.
By the way did you see the way the ‘circular’ range turns into an ‘oblong’ when we move from Nagercoil (relatively near the Equator) to Guwahati or Delhi (north of Tropic of Cancer)? Compare that with this one -
My Mischievous half mutters, ‘Wait till the launch - there is one more issue to poke at them’.
>:->
update 1: The China Killer Agni-V was successfully launched on Thursday, after a delay due to bad weather on Wednesday.
Described as ‘user friendly’, Agni-V is designed to be put into a canister and is probably to be tested with one such today. It would be of interest to see whether the IRBM (though misquoted as ICBM in Indian media), go thorough without a hitch, unlike the first Agni-3 failure in 2006 or the North Korean Unha-3 rocket launch failure last week.
Incidentally, the North Koreans launched a Unha rocket one week before the Indian Agni-3 launch in 2006, an act which has been repeated now. Touch wood!
BTW after the launch, especially if all goes well, we might hear the GoI denying that the Agni-V is a China specific missile. But make no mistake, it is designed to be a ‘China Killer’ and the first one targeting China. The reported range of about 5000 km is just what the doctor ordered to pepper China with nuclear dust.
But even here, unless some of the Agni-V are launched from the North-East either Assam or Arunachal Pradesh, extreme North East China - the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang will escape the rain-of-fire.
I had a lot of distrust about the range-maps floating around on the internet. Having been a sailor, it is ingrained by now that the Earth is not as exactly displayed on the maps. The usual tendency for people is to pick up a pair of Compass from their geometry box and draw a circle with a radius of approximately 5000 km. But because of the curvature of Earth the geographical distance when projected on a map should appear oblong towards the poles. Besides, the projection based on which the map is drawn is another problem. If you don’t believe me, draw some lines in East/West and North/South directions here [http://serverx.esri.com/javascript_examples/compare_measurements.htm] and see for yourself. (To draw a line, click ‘Draw polyline’ button first).
Breaking my head on how to accurately draw a circle on Google maps found me on a page which would do the job. So here are the range maps when Agni-V is fired from Guwahati (Assam), Nagercoil (Tamil Nadu) and Delhi.
(range maps drawn with online tool at maps.huge.info)
update: The above range map is superseded by a better map in the post about delay in the launch due to bad weather.
Firing an Agni-V from the peninsular India would be a damp squib. That IRBM would not be able to reach Australia, Suez canal or even Beijing. All that brouhaha for dusting Singapore, Islamabad and Dubai?
:-P
Firing it from Assam would still not help us punch Australia, but sure can obliterate Beijing, Seoul and even do a Hiroshima on Tokyo. Not bad.
But most of the Agni-V’s are likely to be located in the vicinity of Delhi, as the national capital is the only one planned to be protected with a missile shield. And from Delhi, the IRBM would fall short of Beijing, but can drop a hint at Moscow and shut down the Suez.
So there you are.
By the way did you see the way the ‘circular’ range turns into an ‘oblong’ when we move from Nagercoil (relatively near the Equator) to Guwahati or Delhi (north of Tropic of Cancer)? Compare that with this one -
My Mischievous half mutters, ‘Wait till the launch - there is one more issue to poke at them’.
>:->
No comments:
Post a Comment