India completes price negotiation for Israeli Spike ATGMs

 

India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has completed price negotiations with Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems for Spike anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) systems for the Indian Army for an estimated USD1 billion.
Industry sources said on 26 May that the MoD's contract negotiation committee concluded consultations to acquire 275 launchers and 5,500 Spike missiles in completed and kit form along with an undisclosed number of simulators.
The deal also includes a technology transfer to India's state-owned Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) to build another 1,500 systems and around 30,000 additional missiles.
The contract for the manportable, fire-and-forget ATGMs featuring third-generation active/passive guidance systems, and a top-attack capability is likely to be confirmed before or during the visit of Israeli president Reuven Rivlin to India later this year, official sources said.
Deliveries are expected to be completed 48-60 months thereafter, while BDL will continue to licence-build the Spike for the next 20-25 years.
India's Kalyani Strategic Systems, which signed a joint venture with Rafael in February 2015, will also be involved in the Spike ATGM contract, supplying components and subassemblies from a newly erected facility in Hyderabad.
In 2009 the MoD approved the acquisition of 1,914 ATGM launchers and 37,860 missiles, including training rounds and 107 simulators, through direct imports and licensed manufacture to equip the Indian Army's 359-odd infantry battalions.
Rafael's Spike was the only ATGM to undergo user trials in 2010-11. Consequently over 50 of these guided missiles with a strike range of between 800 m and 4 km were tested and approved by the Indian Army.
The MoD has since continually deferred the Spike procurement on the grounds that it would be a single-vendor purchase, which since 2002 has largely been discouraged under successive editions of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP).
However, pressure from the army, which operates licence-built Soviet-era wire-guided 9M113 Konkurs as well as French MILAN and MILAN 2T ATGMs, fast-tracked their procurement.

janes