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India Commissions Second Ballistic Missile Submarine
October 2024
By Libby Flatoff
The Indian Navy commissioned a second indigenously designed ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arighaat, which Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said would “help in establishing strategic balance” in the region.
The commissioning ceremony and Singh’s remarks took place Aug. 29 at the Visakhapatnam Naval Yard, the headquarters of India’s Eastern Naval Command on the Bay of Bengal, according to a same-day press release from the Indian Defense Ministry.
The Arighaat and its predecessor, the INS Arihant, each will have up to four K-4 missiles having an expected range of 3,500 kilometers. (See ACT, March 2020.) Currently, they are equipped with an older submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the K-15, which has a range of 750 kilometers. (See ACT, December 2022.) Within the submarine, each SLBM launch tube can hold three K-15 missiles or one K-4 missile. The K-4 missiles are expected to be deployed in 2025, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
In December 2023, India conducted two successful underwater tests of the K-4 missiles within six days. After these tests, a source told the Times of India that “the K-4 is now virtually ready for its serial production to kick off. The two tests have demonstrated its capability to emerge straight from underwater and undertake its parabolic trajectory.”
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have SLBMs with a range of more than 5,000 kilometers. The K-4 missiles, once equipped, will narrow the capability gap between India and other nuclear-armed states. “Although India’s sea-based nuclear deterrent remains in relative infancy, the country clearly has an ambition to field a sophisticated naval nuclear force with ballistic missile submarines at its core,” Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists, told CNN on Sept. 14.
This year, India accomplished several successful tests to modernize its arsenal, including one involving the Agni-5 missile, the country’s first domestically produced missile capable of carrying multiple independently targeted warheads, the Agni-5 missile, which has independent targeting capability. (See ACT, April 2024.)