India Tests Intermediate Range Undersea Missile K-4 Secretly

India has tested of its intermediate range undersea missile, K-4 secretly.

The nuclear capable missile was fired from a submerged pontoon positioned nearly 30 feet deep sea offshore Vizag coast Monday, The Indian Express news daily quoted an unnamed defense source as saying Tuesday.

The news daily reported that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are tightlipped about the secret test.

Although the result of the test was not known, the source claimed it’s take off was smooth as a powerful gas generator successfully ejected it from the pontoon.

A defence scientist said the K-4 missile will supplement its cousin 750-km range K-15 missile (renamed as B-05). Nuclear powered INS Arihant submarine which is likely to be commissioned in the Navy shortly will be equipped with four K-4 missiles or 12 K-15 missiles. The missile has to go for three/four more trials before being inducted in the navy.

The underwater launched ballistic missile is about 12 metres long with a diameter of 1.3 metres. It weighs around 17 tonnes and is capable of delivering two tonne warhead up to a distance of over 3,500 km. The missile is powered by solid rocket propellant. High power long range tracking systems were spread along its trajectory to track the flight path.

Working very covertly under the secret K-project for last nearly two decades, prime focus of the DRDO was to make the weapon system lighter and faster having both cruise and ballistic variants. A very few countries have the triad of firing nuclear tipped missiles from air, land and undersea. Other countries, which have the capability, include Russia, USA, France, Britain (UK) and China.

As reported by 'The Express' earlier this manoeuvrable missile having an innovative system of interlacing in three dimensions can also cruise at a hypersonic speed. This exceptional feature of the weapon system makes it difficult to be tracked easily and destroyed by any anti-ballistic missile defence systems. The missile has a high accuracy of close to zero circular error probability (CEP).