MBDA TO TRANSFER TECHNOLOGY FOR MILAN 2-T MISSILE TO INDIA
By Bulbul Singh
28 Jan 09. MBDA of France and Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), the sole Indian missile production agency have entered into a license agreement for production of 4000 pieces of Milan 2-T Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM). Each missile will cost around $14000 and the entire production will be completed in three years.
Under the contract, the technology for the Milan 2-T ATGM will be transferred to BDL by the French company. Sources in the Indian defence ministry said, “The joint collaboration between MBDA and BDL could extend in future years to other missiles produced by the French company including the ASTER family of missiles.”
Milan 2T has a tandem warhead which defeats targets protected with Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA). The tandem charge warhead has two stages or more of detonation.
However, the fate of the Milan Extended Range(ER) project between MBDA and BDL is still uncertain. Despite an MoU signed between India and France in 2005 to jointly produce the Milan ER missile, the project is still on the table.
In 2005 MBDA and BDL signed an MoU to establish the industrial basis for the development and production of Indan Milan ER for both the Indian and French armies as well as for the export market.
The proposed Milan ER featured anti-jamming capability, with extended range, while retaining the wire-based guidance to meet the requirements specified by both India and France
BDL has been producing MBDA’s Milan 2 anti-tank system under license for the Indian armed forces since 1981 and supplied over 30,000 Milan-2 ATGMs to the Indian Army to be mounted on tanks, BMP-2, and other armoured vehicles.
India’s homegrown ATGM, Nag, under development since 1990 is still delayed. The Nag is a third-generation, top attack, fire and
forget missile using Infrared guidance.
The Nag is slated to gradually replace the two-km-range Milan and
four-km-range Konkurs ATGMs currently in use. So far around 40 tests of Nag missiles have been carried out proving various subsystems
and integrated systems. “Nag will be ready for Users Trials early next year, after which they will enter into production and induction phase,” said an Indian Defence Ministry official.
Nag is a third generation fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile. The missile uses a tandem HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) warhead to penetrate the reactive armour of the latest tanks.
The current Indian ATGM armory includes Milan-2 and Konkurs, manufactured by BDL under license from France and Russia. Besides, Kornets from Russia and Spike from Israel have been procured in small quantities for trials and testing. In addition, India is also procuring unknown numbers of Konkurs-M missiles from Russia.