Rocket Force of INDIA: Will it be a GAME CHANGER for India
Saturday, November 20, 2021 | Chimniii Desk
Key Highlights
- The Indian rocket force will require between 50,000 and 70,000 soldiers and three to four ballistic missile brigades, each of which will be deployed independently in separate parts of the eastern and western areas.
- Pakistan's development of nuclear-armed short-range rockets such as the NASR, in addition to operational-range MLRS, indicates that India will no longer show asymmetric restraint.
- India has yet to significantly increase the number of road-mobile tactical ballistic missiles in its arsenal, and for whatever reason, the Indian Army has refrained from doing so.
- Shaurya and Prahaar are two road-mobile tactical ballistic missiles that have seen limited induction; nevertheless, to establish a Rocket force, both of these missiles will need to be inducted in huge numbers due to their overwhelming conventional strike capability.
- India's cruise missile has largely been the prohibitively expensive BrahMos, and to conduct saturated attacks, India's Rocket force will require significantly less expensive alternatives of all sizes and shapes, which will require the development of both short and long-range subsonic cruise missiles that are currently missing due to the delays plaguing India's subsonic cruise missile programmes.
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General Bipin Rawat, India's Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), stated that India is "considering building a rocket force" as part of its attempts to strengthen its military capabilities. While this statement may have surprised many, few are discussing the cost of developing a force to support a land-based ballistic and cruise missile inventory.
The Indian rocket force will require between 50,000 and 70,000 soldiers and three to four ballistic missile brigades, each of which will be deployed independently in separate parts of the eastern and western areas.
Creating a dedicated rocket force will require five to six times the equipment and personnel that we currently have under Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which was formerly responsible for land-based ballistic missiles. Increased equipment and personnel demand additional cash to train and build inventory, which is frequently more difficult and time-consuming.
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HOW IS A ROCKET FORCE DEFINED?
When you think of war or military activity, images of soldiers, tanks, and fighter planes engaging in conflict with enemy assets and participating in bloody engagements typified by a high death toll and destruction of military capabilities come to mind. However, this method of warfare is becoming obsolete.
Future battles are likely to focus on striking a crushing blow to the adversary's strategic and critical infrastructure without sacrificing legions of troops on the ground. And the means will be missiles.
Long-range, lethal missiles have long been valued more for the deterrent effect they provide than for their effectiveness in scaring the adversary.
"The future battlefield is likely to be mostly contactless, with unmanned warfare, stand-off weapons, cyber and covert operations taking precedence over tank against tank or hand-to-hand combat." "According to Brigadier Bimal Monga's article in the CLAWS Journal.
Monga notes that "all major countries are developing assets and organisations to cement their positions."
Space assets, galvanise cyber capabilities, give their special forces a new edge, and fine-tune their hybrid warfare options "'. Additionally, he notes that "an equal emphasis has been placed on increasing missile inventories and reinventing the company's employment attitude." "'.
When it comes to missiles and how they will be employed in future battles, Monga asserts that China "stole a march on the US and Russia by quietly, efficiently, and covertly expanding her skills and capabilities in rocketry." "'. Major powers are concentrating their efforts on the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) as they seek to establish a missile capability.
WHAT ARE THE CAPABILITIES OF THE PLARF?
People Liberation Army Rocket Force
Maj Gen (retd) PK Mallick writes in a 2021 paper published by the Vivekanda International Foundation that the PLA Second Artillery Force, which he describes as "China's largest nuclear weapons stakeholder," was renamed the Rocket Force and "elevated from a military branch to a military service" in 2015, becoming the Chinese military's fourth service alongside the army, air force, and navy.
The PLARF is responsible for controlling and operating China's land-based conventional and nuclear missiles. According to Maj Gen (retd) Mallick, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that PLARF will be "a strategic pillar for our country's great power status and a critical cornerstone in ensuring our national security." "'.
According to Brig. Monga, PLARF maintains an arsenal of approximately 2,500 ballistic missiles, which are distinguished from cruise missiles by their ability to fly greater distances and carry larger payloads. The PLARF is entrusted with performing "two distinct types of warfighting campaigns — nuclear counter-attack and conventional missile strike — in order to maintain strategic deterrence and undertake precision attacks." ", he continues.
He cites US Department of Defense data to assert that PLARF possesses "DF-16 missiles with a range of approximately 800-1,000 kilometres, DF-21 medium-range ballistic missiles, and the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile in a conventional capacity..." about 1,200 intermediate-range ballistic missiles and a number of ground-launched CJ-10 cruise missiles
missiles having a range of around 1,500 kilometres "'.
Where PLARF is a game changer, Brig. Monga notes, is that "although a number of countries kept strategic assets for deterrence or coercion, China added a new dimension to the matrix by putting conventional missiles alongside nuclear-capable missiles." "'.
The strategy is predicated on the notion that "it would fight future wars in which the boundary separating nuclear and non-nuclear activities would be blurred." ", he continues.
India's capital, New Delhi, is only 400 kilometres from Tibet, whereas the distance between Indian and Chinese borders is over 4,000 kilometres. Additionally, the PLA possesses realistic missile defence capabilities and is perfectly capable of intercepting Agni V missiles aimed at strategic targets in China.
China's short-range tactical missiles pose a significant threat to India as well "Monga cites strategic specialists in China.
HOW CAN SUCH A FORCE ASSIST?
The PLARF enables China to transition its missiles from a purely deterrence function to one in which they can be utilised to gain tactical advantage in war scenarios.
According to Maj Gen (retd) Mallick, the Chinese president's request for the PLARF to be prepared to conduct "comprehensive deterrence and warfighting" may imply that "the force, including its nuclear component, will not be limited to strictly deterrence functions but may adopt a more active posture."
Brig. Monga elaborates on what such a role might entail, stating that more than half of the force is "deployed to carry conventional loads in support of air power against 'critical strategic and operational targets,' including command and control facilities, communications and transportation nodes, air and missile defences, and airbases." "'.
These are the targets that air and drone strikes, as well as land-based systems, have historically been designed to attack.
Brig. Monga, presenting a scenario featuring the deployment of PLARF weapons, asserts that China possesses the capability to conduct "an offensive preceded by an aggressive missile campaign aimed at and damaging important military and civic infrastructure."
Infrastructure, resulting in widespread devastation, morale loss, and the polarisation of public opinion against the government "'.
This would result in a "whole-of-nation (and military forces) response from the onset, which may still be ineffective and carry the risk of worsening the crisis," he argues "'.
"Now, what if we had our own credible conventional missile inventory?" Would the Chinese continue to launch missiles at us, fully aware that they may provoke retaliation?
Comparable and rapid retort? "he inquires.
The Principle of Aggregation
While the general grounds for establishing an IRF are self-evident – such as the requirement to develop a symmetric counterweight to the PLARF and to embrace standoff warfare – the question arises as to why India has chosen a separate "Rocket Force" structure.
After all, the Indian arsenal already includes ground-launched vectors capable of strategic strike, albeit scattered among several services. That is, however, the point. The IRF's goal is to centralise these capabilities under an unified command and control structure for maximum use in a combined force environment, rather than dispersing them across services and subject to different service plans.
Any IRF requires both mass and precision, and immediately aggregating current assets from the three services would accomplish this.
Given that theaterization is still a work in progress, it is likely that the best method to foster the development of strategic standoff strike as a discipline within the Indian military would be to pry essential capabilities from service-based silos.
This would avoid inter-service rivalries impeding the establishment of a sound employment doctrine while increasing inter-service dependency. After all, an IRF would require IA logistics while utilising ISR inputs from the IAF and the Indian Navy (IN) until its own essential capabilities in these domains mature.
Rather than that, the establishment of the IRF's own network, which would be connected to the three services' networks, might serve as a springboard for greater military cohesion in India. This collaboration would also extend to procurement, as the IRF would attempt to use economies of scale in terms of both strike vectors and ISR assets such as satellites.
Such views are mirrored by former DRDO Chairman V.K Saraswat (who is now a member of NITI Aayog), who stated to this writer that establishing a distinct IRF would "enable economies of scale, the development of an appropriate doctrine of employment, and the aggregation necessary for massed fires." Saraswat, a long-time advocate of an IRF-style institution, feels that an IRF might actually launch India into the era of non-contact conflict.
The Possible Force Combination
This aggregation approach, however, will very certainly remain limited to ground-launched vectors. The IN, it appears, views itself as a platform-centric force and will not cede control of its vessel-launched land assault cruise missiles (LACMs) to any IRF.
Similarly, it is unknown whether the IAF would agree to do the same thing with regard to its own air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). These systems will mostly certainly remain entwined with the ideological framework of these services.
While the IRF may acquire control of future long-range ALCMs carried by IAF jets, the military would be unwilling to relinquish control of any of its multirole planes. Naturally, having control over the vector but not the platform from which it is launched reduces the former's use to the IRF.
Given the IN's reluctance to lose control of its ship-launched long-range vectors, the long-range land attack cruise missile (LRLACM) under development, which is intended to be carried by its primary surface combatants, may be safely ruled out of the IRF mix.
On the other hand, the IRF may include coastal batteries armed with the Brahmos anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). Thus, future land-based long-range ASCMs derived from the subsonic Nirbhay cruise missile, as well as anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), are also being developed.
These types of technologies are almost certain to play a significant role in India's future anti-access/area denial architecture in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Regardless, the IA's and IAF's current Brahmos regiments will also join the IRF.
However, while the Brahmos is extremely precise and capable of pursuing even time-sensitive targets when equipped with an MMW seeker, it is also heavily reliant on imported content. While India has indigenousized the INS, airframe, booster, and even the front-end seeker of the basic model in recent years, the missile's control and propulsion components remain Russian.
Additionally, these subsystems will continue to be imported for the baseline Brahmos, as per the rules of the Indo-Russian joint venture that produces the Brahmos. The imported componentry of Brahmos contributes to the missile's increased cost. Additionally, the missile's 200 kg warhead precludes it from targeting wide area targets.
Although the IA currently has four Brahmos regiments with a hundred missiles each and the IAF has an undetermined number, any future IRF would like to have a lot cheaper ballistic missile with comparable range and a far larger warhead.
The Pralay missile, which has a range of 400-500 kilometres and is capable of carrying at least a 700 kg warhead, has already been designed by the DRDO, however it has not yet been tested.
The Pralay takes advantage of advancements in domestic solid rocket propulsion technology, on-board computing, and guidance systems to deliver a significant explosive payload despite its small size. Two Pralays will be launched from a truck equipped with a launcher capable of navigating even mountain highways.
The introduction of the Pralay will free up Brahmos units to pursue ephemeral targets and those posing a greater risk of collateral damage, while the Pralay will assault broader area targets such as logistic nodes and force concentrations.
Apart from the Pralay, the IRF may also have jurisdiction over the Prahar 2/Pranash SRBM. While the SRBM is an operational range system, the IRF is likely to claim it from the IA's Artillery Corps due to its guidance package, warhead size (200 kg), and the fact that its maximum range considerably beyond the capability of a standard IA formation headquarters to "see," "plan," and "execute."
It will be fascinating to see whether any IRF seeking rapid expansion also claims future artillery rockets with a range of 250-300 kilometres that are now being developed and can be launched from existing Pinaka multi-barrel launchers. If the IRF achieves this, the age-old question of whether it will obtain the vector but not the launcher will almost certainly resurface.
Even the Pralay SRBM, while appealing, would have a limited strategic range. And, while it can offer bulk due to its lower cost than the Brahmos, there appears to be a need for systems capable of prosecuting targets 1,000-2,000 kilometres afar.
India will need to develop the capability to launch precision conventional attacks on targets deep inside China in order to impose prohibitive costs on the Chinese leadership and compel them to end the fight. The IRF is projected to rely heavily on a pool of LACMs in this area.
While a Brahmos with a range of 800 kilometres is being developed and may be expanded further, the backbone will be the Nirbhay Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) variant, which is expected to enter IAF service in significant numbers in the coming years. Notably, the IAF, not the IA, is more likely to be the first operator of a subsonic GLCM.
However, GLCMs will not eliminate the necessity for longer-range ballistic missiles than the Pralay that can be utilised for conventional reasons (at least until new generation hypersonic systems become available).
These ballistic missiles would be able to reach their targets far more quickly, carry a heavier warhead, and be more difficult to intercept. After all, an IRF concept of operations will entail posing a diverse missile defence challenge to the adversary in terms of trajectories, speeds, payloads, and guidance packages.
A natural companion to GLCMs would be the recently tested medium-range canisterized road-mobile Agni-Prime.
Naturally, if systems such as the Agni-Prime are also assigned a conventional mission, issues of pre-launch ambiguity and entanglement would become more acute, as this system is intended to integrate with India's Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which is responsible for the country's nuclear deterrent.
While no government on Earth has the technology to definitely discern between incoming nuclear and conventional warheads, Indian planners believe Pakistan's ability to distinguish between different types of ballistic missiles launched at it is unknown.
This is a significant reason why the Pralay's testing was halted until recently, while Indian nuclear strategists grappled with the deterrent stability concerns that systems like the Pralay – and, by extension, an IRF that employs it – might bring. However, the PLARF threat to India, which is in any case entwined, has rendered such self-limiting ideas obsolete.
Pakistan's development of nuclear-armed short-range rockets such as the NASR, in addition to operational-range MLRS, indicates that India will no longer show asymmetric restraint.
While questions regarding the exact mix of systems that will be brought under the control of the IRF must be settled, disagreements over the extent to which the IRF should gain mass must also be resolved. Of course, mass is critical to an IRF's deterrence value, since it credibly implies the capability and intent to utilise the systems within its scope.
During the current Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, it was suggested that both sides abstain from utilising their SRBMs due to their status as prized assets. The IRF will inevitably grow in size, and this will need overcoming India's conventional bureaucratic bean counting.
Establishment of a Missile Inventory
India's land-based ballistic annual production rate has been at an all-time low, and annual missile production is still in the double digits, with the majority of missiles being operated by India's Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which sparingly conducts user trials at a rate that appears to be primarily focused on nuclear delivery rather than conventional strikes.
Apart from the Prithivi short-range ballistic missiles from the 1980s, the Agni family of short- and long-range missiles has been developed and procured at a tempo consistent with a nuclear strike.
India has yet to significantly increase the number of road-mobile tactical ballistic missiles in its arsenal, and for whatever reason, the Indian Army has refrained from doing so.
Shaurya and Prahaar are two road-mobile tactical ballistic missiles that have seen limited induction; nevertheless, to establish a Rocket force, both of these missiles will need to be inducted in huge numbers due to their overwhelming conventional strike capability.
India's cruise missile has largely been the prohibitively expensive BrahMos, and to conduct saturated attacks, India's Rocket force will require significantly less expensive alternatives of all sizes and shapes, which will require the development of both short and long-range subsonic cruise missiles that are currently missing due to the delays plaguing India's subsonic cruise missile programmes.
Ballistic missile training
Rocket forces also require extensive training in military exercises that use ballistic missiles, which has never occurred in India, and the majority of ballistic missiles in India have been tested from designated test ranges rather than weapons ranges or during military exercises.
The PLA Rocket Force alone has conducted live drills with 200 ballistic missiles in various War exercises over the previous few months, while space exploration has accelerated in recent years.
Are we able to afford it?
The last time the Indian Army sought to establish a Mountain Strike Corps to serve as a quick reaction force and counter-offensive force against China along the LAC, it failed to allocate the initial funding of approximately Rs65,000 crore, as dreams of raising a corps of 90,000 men for the Himalayan frontiers, with two divisions armed with integral air assets such as attack and transport helicopters and drones never materialised.