Armour Piercer

Aditya Kakkar

India has seemingly chosen indigenisation over modernisation after the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight tested the indigenously developed third generation anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), Nag, twice on September 8 against two different targets in the ranges of Rajasthan. A similar test in the month of June earlier with the launcher system Nag Missile Carrier (NAMICA) had convinced DRDO of its efficacy. The Nag is meant to eventually replace foreign-made missiles to become the Indian military’s first and primary anti-tank weapon.

TANK KILLERS – ATGMs on display during Aero India 2015

This development was swiftly followed by reports that the ministry of defence (MoD) had cancelled the USD500 million deal for Spike ATGM with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems of Israel after price negotiations were already completed. In fact, Rafael had entered into a joint venture with the Kalyani group and set up a missile sub-systems manufacturing facility near Hyderabad which was inaugurated in August 2017.

The DRDO now has the arduous task of developing a Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) for the army as soon as possible to make up for the cancelled project. Interestingly, the Israeli-made Spike ATGM was chosen over Javelin ATGM made by US-based Raytheon-Lockheed Martin by the MoD.

Nag is a fire-and-forget ATGM with ‘top attack’ capabilities and a range of about four kilometres while the NAMICA is an Indian license-produced variant of the Soviet-era BMP-II armoured infantry fighting vehicle. NAMICA can launch Nag missiles from a retractable armoured launcher that contains four launch tubes and a