India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) on Wednesday 13 March night conducted one more successful trial of the newly designed and developed Man Portable Anti Tank Guided Missile (MP-ATGM) at Rajasthan desert. It was first tested on 15 and 16 September 2018 at the Ahmednagar range in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

The Indian MP-ATGM, which comprises a launching unit and a containerised missile, is thought to weigh approximately 13.5 kg and have a maximum strike range of approximately 2.5 km (Picture source: DRDO)

The MP-ATGM is being developed for infantry troops of the Indian Army. The DRDO carried out the trial of the missile with 2-3 km strike range last night.

MP-ATGM is the third generation anti-tank guided missile developed by DRDO in partnership with Indian company VEM Technologies Ltd. It is considered best in class and likely to replace Milan 2, a second-generation, French-made anti-tank missile, and 9M113 Konkurs, Soviet-era, wire-guided missile, which are currently in service with the Indian Army. Last year, the MoD had called off the planned purchase of Israeli Spike-MR which was valued at $ 500 mn and had directed the DRDO to indigenously work on man-portable fire and forget guided missile.

The DRDO Anti-tank missile (ATM) is a first generation wire-guided missile developed in India by Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). It has a subsonic speed up to 300 ft/s (91 m/s). The weapon system, which comprises a launching unit and a containerised missile, is thought to weigh approximately 13.5 kg and have a maximum strike range of approximately 2.5 km. It carries a 106 mm HEAT warhead.