The first clear image of India's nuclear ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arihant, the Naval arm of India's nuclear triad
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today flagged off first Made-in-India nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant from Vizag for sea trials.
INS Arihant is a 6000-tonne vessel and has 83 Megawatt Indian designed and built pressurised water reactor. All systems on board will be tested at this stage; it will be followed by submergence and weapon firing trials.
If all trials go as planned, the submarine can be inducted within the next two years.
The submarine is designed to carry four nuclear-tipped submarine-launched ballistic missiles called the K-4 which have a range of 3,500 kilometres or a dozen Bo 5 missiles which can strike targets about 700 kilometres away.
When the submarine is declared fighting-fit, India will become one of only six countries in the world with the knowledge of designing, engineering and operating a nuclear submarine.
Nuclear submarines are the ultimate stealth weapon. Highly mobile and technically capable of remaining underwater for months if required, a ballistic missile submarine effectively gives a nuclear power like India the ability to keep shifting a mobile nuclear base which needs to be prepared to strike after authorised launch codes are transmitted from the country's nuclear command.
Detecting nuclear submarines underwater has become a finely calibrated art practiced by the superpowers through decades of the Cold War. The more quiet a nuclear submarine, the more stealthy it is.
India presently operates another nuclear submarine, the INS Chakra, a nuclear attack submarine of the Akula-2 class from Russia. The Chakra does not carry nuclear weapons but would likely be deployed with the Arihant during its pre-commissioning trials to protect this key nuclear asset.