What can India learn from China’s FOBS experiment?
- Even the most steadfast might be shaken by the term “future” in the setting of Sino-Indian ties. Last year’s deadly border conflict between India and China resulted from a decades-long stalemate between Beijing and Delhi on the boundary issue, which the Chinese leadership has steadfastly refused to resolve.
- When a pre-emptive adversary attack is a real possibility, even exceptional payloads such as FOBS that need massive, silo-based rockets fall short of perfection. In addition, China’s FOBS aren’t only for India. Because, at the absolute least, China’s FOBS capacity will enable the PLA’s leadership to shift additional resources, this is another concern that India must address.
Long-range cruise and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) targeting India exploit their FOBS capacity to attack nations halfway across the globe. - As a first step, India will need to significantly increase its nuclear stockpile and the methods by which it can deliver it. Agni-V ICBMs and SLBMS capable of MIRV should be procured rapidly. Commercial satellite photographs from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveal that China has initiated the construction of much more than 100 additional silos for ICBMs, a total that Western intelligence agencies believe to be far higher than 350.
- As a result, India has to considerably grow its nuclear weapons stockpile to exceed China’s and Pakistan’s combined nuclear stockpiles. Precision strikes against the adversary’s road and rail mobility missiles can only be carried out with real-time vision and data fusion driven by Edge Computing. The Indian government should also put money on nuclear-powered submersibles and long-range cruise missiles.
Second, India must significantly expand the number of military satellites in orbit around the Earth (LEO). Use existing real-time information sharing agreements with friendly nations to follow any deorbiting Chinese spacecraft. - There should be a space aircraft form of this launch system built. The GSLV launch vehicle may be used to propel this space aircraft into orbit. Such a space aircraft may place espionage sensors and transport weapons from space, if necessary.
Fractional Orbital Bombardment System
Western defense specialists are concerned that China may have tested an orbiting bombardment weapon last summer, as reported by the Financial Times. A nuclear-capable glider was launched into orbit by China’s Long March rocket using a technology that allowed the glider to travel at hypersonic speeds toward its target.
If this information is accurate, it shows that China was making rapid progress in building weapons that can, to a significant part, avoid current pro-missile (ABM) defenses and the associated warning systems existing in America and the European Union.
As far as we know, China did not invent the Fraction Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). Russia developed an orbit bombardment system in the 1960s that could transport a nuclear warhead into orbit at a lower trajectory than ordinary fixed-trajectory ballistic missiles.
The maximum altitude of the missile will be around 150 km. Energetically, this would require a launch vehicle capable of placing the weapon ‘in orbit’. However the orbit was only a fraction of the full orbit, not continuous, and so there would be little need to control a precise orbit or maintain it for long.
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