India Considers Purchase of 3000 French Anti-tank Guided Missiles

The Indian Army is planning to buy more than 3000 French second-generation anti-tank guided missiles ‘Milan 2T’ in a deal likely to be worth over INR 1,000 crore (US$ 140.5m), according to a report by ANI.

"An Army proposal in this regard would come up for discussion at a high-level meeting of the Defence Ministry for buying more than 3,000 of the second-generation Milan 2T ATGMs, which are license-produced by Bharat Dynamics Limited in partnership with a French firm," a person with direct knowledge of the matter in the Defence Ministry told ANI.

According to the report, even though Indian army is searching for third-generation ATGMs with a range greater than its existing Milan 2T and Konkur ATGMs, it has a requirement of as many as 70,000 ATGMs of different types and nearly 850 various launchers.

The report says the procurement of Milan 2T ATGMs is likely to be the stopgap arrangement before the Army gets its home-grown third-generation ATGM, which is undergoing trials.

Milan-2 ATGM is produced in India by Bharat Dynamics Limited with a range of over 2 km. In December 2008, India had ordered 4,100 MILAN 2T missiles from BDL.