06 Feb 14. Kalashnikov seeks Indian manufacturing partner. Kalashnikov Concern, Russia’s nascent light weapons holding, is negotiating with prospective partners in India to product small arms for that market, said its exports director Andrei Baryshnikov. “India is a market with major potential for us, and we are marketing here all the weapons in our product range, including assault rifles, sniper rifles, and high-precision weapons,” he said at the Defexpo India arms exhibition in New Delhi on 6 February, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti. “Taking into account the specifics of Indian legislation, we are considering possibly establishing joint arms production ventures,” he added. A joint venture could produce military weapons as well as civilian and sporting arms, he said.(Source: IHS Jane’s)
08 Feb 14. MBDA offers MMP ATGW to Indian Army. MBDA has offered its Missile Moyenne Portée (MMP) to the Indian Army. MBDA has entered discussions with the Indian Army to offer its Missile Moyenne
Portée (MMP) anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW), a company representative told IHS Jane’s at Defexpo on 7 February. In 2010 India launched a major programme for up to 8,000 light anti-tank missiles to replace the MBDA MILAN 2T missiles in service with (and still in production for) the Indian Army. At the launch of the Indian requirement, MBDA did not have any suitable ‘fire-and-forget’ missiles within its products and so did not enter the competition. However, the company has since developed the MMP missile to meet French Army requirements, receiving a contract for 2,850 missiles in December 2013. Having developed the MMP, which MBDA feels is a good match for the Indian requirement, the company is now offering the system to India. The Indian Army has currently only conducted trials with the Israeli Rafael Spike ATGW, while US companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are looking to enter their jointly produced Javelin system into the contest. To bid the MMP, MBDA is teaming up with Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), which is already the company’s local partner for Indian production of the MILAN missile. The MMP being offered would be built in India to exactly the same configuration as the French Army’s MMPs. MBDA France is currently carrying out the testing and qualification process for the MMP, which is planned to be completed by 2016. Deliveries to France will then start in 2017. The MMP has three operating modes: fire and forget; man in the loop; and lock-on after launch. It has a dual-mode seeker (IR/TV), is fully digitised, and features a multipurpose tandem warhead, two-stage main propulsion, real-time datalink, and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) firing capability. The system has a range of 4 km and can be fired from confined spaces. According to MBDA, one of the missile’s key advantages lies in its uncooled infrared sensor, allowing for immediate firing once a target is acquired. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
06 Feb 14. India, US clear path for Javelin to compete for ATGW requirement. India’s MoD is in advanced negotiations with the US
government to allow the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin-designed Javelin anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system to compete for an urgent Indian Army requirement. A senior Pentagon team met with MoD officials in New Delhi on 7 February in an attempt to overcome political and legal obstacles that had earlier precluded the United States from transferring technology to India to locally build Javelins. “We are looking to address all past questions on the Javelin Joint Venture (JJV) and to move forward positively,” William Blair, Raytheon’s head of the Asia-Pacific region, told IHS Jane’s at the Defexpo exhibition in New Delhi. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
06 Feb 14. Indian Army poised to conduct assault rifle trials. The Indian Army is expected to begin long-delayed trials involving four competing multi-calibre 5.56 x 45 mm assault rifles in May in support of its requirement for 66,000 rifles, estimated to cost about USD300m. T