Why India Spiked US on offer of Javelin ATGM In Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2009, it was for the first time an Indian Army soldier assigned to the 31st Armored Division fired a Javelin missile while taking instruction from a US soldier. Later Indian Army started Trials of Javelin and spike ATGM fire-and-forget missile, under varied conditions in plains, deserts and mountains. While battle Proven Javelin ATGM was cleared for Purchase in 2012 but Washington was reluctant to provide full military knowhow or licensed “transfer of technology (ToT)” – to allow India to indigenously manufacture the “tank killers” in large numbers after an initial off-the-shelf purchase. Indian army had estimated 2,000 launchers and 24,000 missiles required which were planned for production by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics (BDL) after getting requisite ToT from the selected foreign vendor. Indian Army after been snubbed cleared Israeli Spike ATGM, but US rushed back year later with Promise to provide full Transfer of technology (ToT) and to sweeten the deal also offered Joint development of Next Generation Javelin ATGM , But Indian Army this time didn’t change its mind and asked MOD to stick with Israeli spike Deal . Indian army which has an “authorized holding” for over 81,000 different kinds of ATGM still has large Inventory of older 2nd Generation Milan (2-km range) and Konkurs (4-km) ATGMs, produced by BDL under license from French and Russian companies, which are wire-guided and do not have fire-and-forget capabilities. United States was fully aware at the time of Evaluation that if selected they have to provide TOT for local production after Initial off the shelf purchase, US Flip-flops already delayed ATGM deal for 2 years and if US Proposal was accepted, it could have further delayed the deal since US is yet to submit their proposal and Indian Army could have missed 2017 deadline to arm its Infantry with Generation ATGM. Co-development deal with US could have meant killing development of Nag ATGM by DRDO. According to sources close to idrw.org Javelin been battle proven is also more expensive then Spike, but Indian Army found both to have comparable warhead effectiveness and both could be fired with excellent results in “fire and forget” mode. Javelin provided smaller firing signature but Israeli agreed to provide better training and simulation equipment as part of the package, which might have clinched the deal for them. Spike with lightweight steady tripod provided better tracking of moving target for longer period of time , which was little difficult to do with Javelin under Indian Army Evaluation Tests . Army did find that Javelin could be also used to take down Heavily Fortified Bunkers or enemy strong hold. Good News is that DRDO also has been cleared to work on Home Grown Nag ATGM which will also be ready in next 3 years, Nag ATGM will be much lighter then Spike ATGM’s weight of 34kg and will be built to better suit Indian weather conditions . Last year DRDO test fired new generation anti-tank Cannon-launched Laser Guided Missile (CLGM) which can destroy any target in 3 km to 5 km range. CLGM creates a heat signature on the target with Laser which helps missile recognizes the target and can hit target even if the target is moving.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 08:48:27 +0000
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