Deltacamelately

Dirt cheap, only if you mean the version of your times.
Sir, however the version now used is called the Halogen Counter.

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I am the DARK that Rise to Kill..And Soar to Redeem!

kuku

I would not want to be seen carrying one around these type of trains, then again i do not want to be around these trains without one either.

You might have been around such weapons.
How sensitive are these things? How much would a missile give off?

And how do you start? Continuously follow them (is that possible on the ground or from the space for the existing opponents?)
How could someone be certain of the route that the train will take, even if once it is spotted?

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cheers

nebula82

Great news on the success of Agni-III.

On a slightly different note, what is the current status of the ballistic missile defence shield? Have they conducted any trials yet? Is it going to be entirely indigenous or are they looking to other countries to suppliy their anti-ballistic missile needs (e.g. US Patriots)?

Thx,
Nebula82.

nebula82

Yeah.

Shouldn’t India upgrade its defence posture from this minimum deterrence doctrine to something like mid-level deterrence or maximum level deterrence? It would ensure a much greater degree of effectiveness and survivability in a war I think.

Considering India's immediate neighbours, I see no reason why India shouldn't pursue a maximum deterrence policy.

Thx,
Nebula82.

Deltacamelately

These terminologies are solely for international politics and foreign affairs. Any nation with a NFU policy has to maintain a real threat perception vs stockpile equation so as to have a second strike capability and thus the deterance and will definitely take into account the survivality metrics of its arsenal. India is no exception.

Officer of Engineers

Never had that horror but have been trained to deal with those issues.

They're safe but detectable from even a 100 metres away.

A cell phone does wonders.

You're missing the point here. It is a civilian track, not a military one, meaning that you cannot guarantee no eyes or even an .303 punching holes in that rocket, rendering it useless. There is a reason why there are 10s of miles between civilian access and the silos.

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Chimo

Officer of Engineers

It's a wonderful detection system from my time, Major. If you can pee in the dark and see your name, you found a nuke.

ravi12

The Hindu : Front Page : Agni-I test-fired successfully


I understand that the complete shifting has not yet taken place and the Indian armed forces major reliance is on aircrafts (which actually means the "army" has no role in this).

One thing I understand is that, the army will definitely go for missiles, simply because that is the only way they get to say anything in the nuke space.

It shows agni I tested, agni II has been inducted and is said to be operational, however the army as such hasnt tested it yet. So for upto 700 kms, the answer is yes - but for more than that, not yet.

and of course, agni III is still in its development trials, I expect it to be inducted and operational around 2011-2012. One thing to take care in the whole thing- The I, II and III have been used for many items (and sometimes interchangebly)as such and these numbers brandished should not be taken as some holy grail.

antimony

Apart from Sumku and the Colonel's (valid) point regarding how easy it would be catch out nuke trains, I would not like to trust the Indian Railways infrastructure with something like a nuke. The current IR infrastructure is similar to what I have seen in American railway museums; in one word, antiquated. We stil employ people with hammers and spikes to test if lines are ok. I am not sure I will be ready to trust IR unless they upgrade their security/ signalling infrastructure

Sumku

Your Inference is Bang on Target. Neither you need a "Geiger counter" nor a "Halogen Counter", all you need to Sabotage a Nuke Trains is perhaps 100 KGs of HE's[Like RDX or C4], a max of 4-5 men and as OoE very correctly pointed out

Officer of Engineers

Extremely misleading. As of now, we know the nukes are stored away from the delivery vehicles (both missiles and aircrafts). This essentially means that there is only one nuclear release HQ. Before either aircrafts or missiles get their nukes, a central authority has to decide where nukes go.

If we take the Chinese as the example of this, their exercises reflect that they need at least 24 hours to mate a warhead onto a missile wheras they need only 5 hours to mate it to an aircraft ... and that does not take into the missile failure rates ... which according to publish reports is around 40% for the superpower arsenals.

Sumku

Wooow, If I am not wrong then by what you are suggesting that 40% of Missiles in the arsenals of Worlds Superpowers fail/or would not reach the designated target etc upon firing?
Either I have gotten this completely wrong, or ........

Officer of Engineers

Let me make this clear. Publish reports SUGGESTS that 40% of the superpowers' arsenals would not function as designed, meaning from failure to launch, off course, stage separation, and warhead failure.

Actual test data on the arsenal reliability is class protected info.

Sumku

OoE, Sir, Can I please have a link to such a report[it at all there is].

Officer of Engineers

It was at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | It is 5 Minutes to Midnight but they've replaced their search engine and I cannot find the associated documents. The original search criteria (arsenal reliability) did bring up a lot of documents but not the ones I originally read ... and I did not bother to save them, thinking I could always find them again.