The Indian Anti-tank Nag missile

The advanced third generation, hit-to-kill anti-tank Nag missile is expected to be inducted into the Indian army by the end of the year after the completion of the user trial. S.S.Mishra, project director (Nag), told The Hindu that "We are ready to induct in large numbers by November-December as the user trials are planned to be completed by June."

Suprior range

He said "the land version of the indeginiously developed tactical weapon system was superior in terms of range (four km) to the Javelin of the US and the Spike of Israel.With the Indian army seeking an air-borne version,DRDO scientist have begun work on developing such a variant by extending the range to seven km. The air-borne version named Helina, to be mounted on an ALH helicopter would be ready in two and a half years as the system had to be reworked."

Top attack capability

"Equipped with imagining infrared seeker (IIR), it has lock-on-before launch (LOBL) capability with the seeker tracking the target even before firing.The missile which could be operated during day and night has top attack capability. Since all modern tanks are fitted with explosive reactive armour (ERA) to negate the effect of a missile's war head, the lethal capability of Nag had been increased by enabling it to carry one of the most powerful tandem war heads to defeat futuristic battle tanks. When a missile is fired, a pre-cursor charge would initially tackle ERA, followed by the main charge within 250 microseconds. That way the effect of the ERA is nullified," he said.

Further according to him, "each Namica, a dedicated missile carrier, would have 12 Nag missiles, eight of them in ready to fire mode. The missile has 10 year, maintenance free shelf life."

So, let's wait and watch...

Reference

"Anti-tank Nag missile to be ready by year-end," The Hindu, 28 January 2008, p.7.