India is prepared to purchase a potent anti-aircraft missile system from Russia, its primary arms supplier, to strengthen its defence capabilities.
Russia has agreed to provide India with Igla-S handheld anti-aircraft missiles and also granted a licence for their manufacture, media reports say.
The director of the state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, Alexander Mikheyev, stated, "We have already signed the corresponding document and now, together with an Indian private company, we are organising the production of Igla-S MANPADS in India".
“Rosoboronexport is working with Indian private and public enterprises to organise joint production of aviation weapons and integrate them into the existing aviation fleet in India”, according to an earlier report from another media outlet, quoting Mikheyev.
How Formidable is Igla-S?
In addition, under circumstances of artificial and background thermal interference, small air targets, like cruise missiles, can be destroyed at any time of day while they are clearly visible on head-on and catch-up courses.
The hand-held defensive device is capable of taking down airplanes flying at a low altitude. Likewise, the Igla-S also consists of the 9M342 missile, 9P522 launching device, 9V866-2 mobile test station, and 9F719-2 test set.
The "fire and forget" strategy is applied by contemporary MANPADS (Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems), which offers great stealth and battlefield survival.
Characteristics of Igla-S MANPADS
The high versatility of the complex allows the operation of the missile defence systems using the:
trigger mechanism;
a set of equipment and launch modules “Strelets” (allowing the launch of missiles from various mobile carriers);
turret installation “Komar”;
combat vehicle of the Gibka-S MANPADS squad.
The Igla-S has been significantly enhanced with a bigger warhead, longer range, more sensitive seeker, and better resistance to the most recent countermeasures. A hit probability of 0.8-0.9 is reported by the manufacturer.
Between 2010 and 2018, Russia supplied MANPADS to Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Qatar, etc.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2018 and 2022, Russia supplied 45% of India's armaments imports, followed by France with 29%, and the US with 11%.