Under the instruction of a US soldier assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, “Strykehorse,” 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, an Indian Army soldier assigned to the 31st Armored Division fires a Javelin missile on October 24 as part of Exercise Yudh Abhyas 09. This is the first time an Indian army soldier has fired the Javelin weapon system. India is currently also evaluating the missile system for a potential buy.
Am leaving for Babina tomorrow morning to report on the exercise. Stay tuned for ground reports and exclusive photographs tomorrow evening.
Photo ©Sgt. 1st Class Rodney Jackson
the best ATGM in the world is the KORNET-E of russia.why can't india get the KORNET-E which costs 1/3rd of a javelin & is twice more potent?????????
somebody needs some plaintalking here.
shiv if u answer my question i will be grateful
Actualy Javelin is unable to shoot any moving targets, easy? to distract because of weak sensor and needs over 40 seconds of cooling before launch. It is useless expensive weapon.And Javelins were failure in Georgia? war a year ago, they were eliminated by Russian "hard-kill" tanks defence called Arena.
SpikeER is of israel much cheaper & can fire against moving targets.
why four ppl are needed to launch the mijjile ? are the other two ppl there to collect the mijjile & bring it back once it falls to ground ?
"Am leaving for Babina tomorrow morning to report on the exercise."
But when are you leaving for the 43rd Armoured regiment to report on the Arjun Tank
I read in Wikipedia that the Kornet is already in service in the Indian Army & yes,it seems a very capable system.
The spiker apparently failed evaluations in hot,desert conditions in India (again from Wiki)
The guidance systems of the Kornet & Javelin are different. Kornet relies on laser beam riding & Javelin, on IR homing.
what will happrn to our own NAG missile, if we buy javelin????????. it seems as if u.s is pressuring india to scrap the NAG project
Failed Javelin missile launch video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJOjKwn_7Y
ha..ha..ha…
To Anon 10:42PM: IA is evaluating Javelin because the Israeli Spike failed evaluations in hot, desert conditions.
BTW looking at the above pic……its surprising that Indian camouflage is better than us ACU 🙂
@ Mehdi Baba
You see more hands on Javelin because US soldiers are assisting India soldiers on how to operate it. usually it takes only two to operate a Javelin.
No javelins were used in the georgian war. They were used in the iraq war with devastating effects on T-72s.
The only downside is the weight.
4 people are not needed. Javelin is used by 2 man teams. The US soldier is probably an instructor.
KORNET-E is rubbish, just like all else that is russian. India has so far regretted everything russian it has ever bought. Lack of quality, reliability and short life and maintainance issues. Not to mentuion innefficiency and massive life cycle costs.
Western stuff works. The only reason why india has a massive inventory of russian junk is because the KGB totally infiltrated the indian government in the 70s and early 80s. The indians did not respond because they were rigging elections for indira gandhi and planting pro socialist propaganda in indian newspapers. You can read the recently declassified KGB archives if you don't believe me. Full report on BBC as well.
This is when all the russian orders were increased 4 fold and western orders shrunk to a quarter. Do you think the IAF would have otherwise ordered just 60 mirage 2000s? You either buy 100s or none at all, that is how professional air forces work and IAF has been a professional air force ever since it was raised in 1932.
Javelin and Kornet are totally different systems. Kornet is SACLOS guidance based – like the latest Milan III missiles in which operator has to constantly illuminate the target with laser beam.
Unlike conventional wire guided, fibre-optic cable guided, or laser beam riding missiles, Javelin is autonomously guided to the target after launch, leaving the gunner free to reposition or reload immediately after launch. Basically a true fire and forget system.
Also, Javelin has soft launch option – a useful feature for firing it from enclosed positions like bunkers. Moreover, it also, has a top attack mode to attack tanks from their most vulnerable position.
Therefore, although very expensive, Javelin is unlike any other antitank missile.
Spike ER failed hot weather test in Indian deserts, while Javelin has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan for many years without hot weather failures.
Nag is not comparable to Javelin since the former is not a man portable system. US can care less about our indigenous efforts- we need them as much as they need us- especially since DRDO projects have no deadlines.
I disagree that every Russian product is junk. We wouldn't have won 1971 war if that was the case. Also, not every western product is gold. M16 rifle, BAE Hawk trainers, SA80 rifle are prime examples.
We need to maintain a balance among indigenous production, Western and Russian imports to keep China and Pakistan at bay.
Since Indian army wants more indigenous weaponry, it should turn to the Nag ATGM.
An American special forces team with 12 members destroyed an entire Iraqi armor battalion (tanks, BTRs etc) with just Javelins fired from pop-up positions. Once you aim and key the launcher successfully, the missile is fully automated, able to attack on its own without any further input required, a true fire and forget missile on land, unlike trash such as Kornet. It is also able to attack with a flight profile that includes a terminal top-down attack, ensuring that it can kill any main battle tank out there by blowing through the thin turret roof, and probably take out any naval craft smaller than a frigate. Whoever said Javelins cannot target moving targets is dumber than a dumbbell. In Afghanistan, the Javelin was also accurate enough to kill snipers hidden in foxholes. Even the French with their Eryx are buying this wonderful system. Every American M2 Bradley will have a couple of these missiles and 1 crew trained to use it.
Proven, man-carried, fast and deadly – everything that Indian army equipment is not.
– Vincent the Great
To Parth
The Kornet had been tested against a modern MBT like Merkava in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War & its performance was very decent. This can be inferred from reports given by the Israeli Defense Forces & is not based on Hezbollah propaganda or Russian PR stuff. I suggest you check the above before disputing it.
The Javelin has only been tested against the T 72 which is a legacy platform. So the Javelin cannot be compared with the Kornet until it has been pitted against a modern MBT with active protection system.
Just because it is Russian does not mean it is junk
& Because a stuff is made in the West does not mean it can be shoved down my Army's throat without being put through the rigors of testing & validation.
Javelin & Nag anti-Tank missile is totally different.
Javelin is a man pad ( range 2.5 km), it can be operated by two solders .
Nag is mounted in Namica carrier based for same anti tank purpose (range 4-6 km), Helina is another version of NAG could be fixed in helicopter is on development/ testing stage .The order for nag is not effected , indian army has already placed some medium sized order for nag missiles..
Even though javelin is costly , it is the best in world in manpad version.
It will give real edge to China/Pak .
@Parth,
CNN-IBN, NDTV, HT etc have all been infiltrated by the west now and hence the orders for their stuff. And even these joint exercises are for that mainly. How have we gotten any better now? Russian junk to western junk. Being forced to buy older and obsolete western stuff from initial stages of technology development isn't any better either. It's western junk afterall.
And it is interesting how many names Vincent takes up.
Why do we need Javelin ATGM??I think we bought 2000 Milan II ATGM from France recently.Why a different ATGM now???And how Javelin different from MILAN II??
India already places orders for Milan 2 nearly 4,100 nos , now india plans to move further for advanced than Milan,
US is tactically marketing in the way of exercise (Globe master 3 / Javelin) may be striker also.
We wish india also need to consider long range bombers like TU-22m3 backfire for Landbased /Naval version from Russia.
That's what i was asking.I meant why to go for a different altogether??why not stick with MILAN II??why go for Javelin???
I am still at a loss to understand the euphoria over the Javelin.
The Kornet had been used successfully by a bunch of militiamen to stop Merkavas with active protection system in the 2006 Israel Lebanon war.
The US had used the Javelin against the T 72 which is a Soviet era tank,& against a bunch of teenagers hiding in foxholes ,& some people on this blog proclaim the Javelin to be the 8th wonder of the world.
To anon 5:11/ Vincent
Please could you tell me where you read that the French have dumped their ERYX in favor of Javelin
These war games are ok once in a while, the US soldiers posing for the camera with affected mannerisms & bravado ,& some apologists on this blog singing their paeans.
Would love to see the faces of these soldiers when they are on patrol in Iraq
A quick question to everybody here. Is there an actual report that the IA is considering buying the Javelin missile? If not, please don't demean each other and wait for a comment by the IA. Then we can get back into this debate about western and Russian "junk". No professional army uses 'junk' to fight a war. So chill!!!
PROBLEM is India can go in Tank Warefare only in DESERT. All above mentioned missles are not that effective in 50 degree C. So india is finding more appropriate one fot Army
There is no mention in wikipedia about the spike atgm failing in desert heat. Anyway it was developed for desert environment. On the other hand, Merkavas that were hit by kornets during the 2006 war doesn't have the trophy APS yet. They got multiple hits not just one shot one kill. They were only deployed during the gaza war in December 2008 and January 2009.