New Delhi: India's ministry of defence has expressed its interest in procuring the Javelin anti-tank guided missile system (ATGM) from the United States, India's lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, was informed on Monday. It is understood that both countries entered into talks for the sale of the system after it was showcased to Indian troops during a bilateral exercise involving mechanised forces of the two armies in Babina Cantonment near Jhansi in October last year.

"The defence ministry proposes to issue a Letter of Request (LoR) to the US government under their Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route for procurement of third generation anti-tank guided missile along with transfer of technology," defence minister AK Antony said in a written reply to a query.

The acquisition of this third generation anti-tank guided missile system will be undertaken under the US government's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme and will also involve transfer of technology.

Under defence deals through the FMS route, India doesn't have to issue a global tender and the deal is solemnised between the two governments.

The Javelin deal will become the third such procurement under the FMS programme this year.

In January this year, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency notified the Congress of possible sale of 145 M777 155mm light-weight towed howitzers at an estimated cost of $467 million.

In April, the same agency notified the Congress of potential sale of ten heavy-lift Boeing C-17 Globemaster-III transporters to India at an estimated value of $5.8 billion. The Indian Air Force apparently conducted trials for the C-17 at three different locations to test its efficacy under differing operational conditions.

The FMS route is preferred to short-circuit the tedious procurement route undertaken through a global tendering process, which invariably runs into problems for any number of reasons. The Indian ministry of defence maintains it opts for such a process only to meet operational requirements of the armed forces.

Indian infantry units are currently equipped with variants of the European second-generation 2-km-range Milan and the Russian 4-km-range Konkurs ATGMs, produced by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics Ltd under licence from French and Russian companies.

The Indian Army has also placed an initial order for 443 missiles of the indigenously developed third-generation Nag ATGM, with a 4-km strike range.

The Javelin ATGM

The Javelin is a fire-and-forget missile with lock-on before launch and automatic self-guidance. The missile adopts a top-attack flight profile against armoured vehicles, as the top armour is generally thinner, but can also assume a direct-attack mode for use against buildings or fortifications.

The missile also has the ability to engage helicopters in the direct attack mode.

The missile is equipped with an imaging infra-red seeker.

The tandem warhead is fitted with two shaped charges: a precursor warhead to detonate any explosive reactive armour and a primary warhead to penetrate base armour.

The missile system is carried most often by a two man team consisting of a gunner and an ammo bearer.

The Javelin ATGM system is a joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.