New Chinese ballistic missile poses threat: Navy Chief

NEW DELHI: A new Chinese anti-carrier ballistic missile being developed posed a different kind of "threat" in the region requiring a new set of measures to "combat" it, Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma said on Friday.

"If it (DF-21D) is a fully functional system, it generates a quite a different category of threat that is there and certainly requires new measures to combat it," he told a press conference.

The Naval Chief was reacting to a query about development of the new Chinese anti-aircraft carrier ballistic missile Dong Feng 21D and whether it would be a game changer.

Verma said the statements issued by the US Pacific Command about the missile and its capabilities seemed to suggest that it was close to operationalisation.

He said technically it was difficult to have such a missile system that has to hit a mobile aircraft carrier and would require a great amount of surveillance back up to use it.

Recent reports from the US have suggested that DF-21D would be world's first Anti-ship ballistic missile capable of targeting a moving aircraft carrier strike group from long-range and land-based mobile launchers.

Asked about the Chinese Jin Class submarines and the submarines carried by them, Verma said, "It has got a strategic missile, which is tremendous in terms of ranges."