India, France to Float Joint Venture to Make SAMs

India and France may soon join hands to make the latest variants of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with a lethal hundred percent kill probability, on the lines of the highly successful Indo-Russian Brahmos supersonic cruise missile.

The proposed joint venture, for which intense groundwork has been done by the missile industry officials from both countries, could take shape in a year's time.

The name of the new series of lethal co-produced missile has been proposed as 'Maitri' and it aims to fulfil the demand of the Army, Navy and Air Force in India for procuring thousands of such missiles to cover up the "yawning" gap in country's air defence.

India is currently in the process of replacing its entire range of surface-to-air missile defence system to weed out the ageing SAM series of missile procured from the erstwhile Soviet Union in the late 60's and 70's.

The procurement of the new range of such missiles is to give more foolproof and vibrant defending capabilities to the nation's vital assets, VVIP complexes as well as provide mobile air cover to troops in operations.

"Our missile industry officials are in intense negotiations with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and India's sole missile producer, Hyderabad-based Bharat Dynamics Limited for setting up of such a joint venture," Antoine Bouvier, CEO of the European missile consortium MBDA, told Indian newsmen in Paris.

French proposal comes as the Indian Army recently floated a 2 billion Euro contract for purchasing 1,000 short-range quick reaction missiles.

"It will be an effort to re-use existing technology capabilities in the two countries" Bouvier said, emphasising that the 'Maitri' range of missiles, under the proposed joint venture, would be made entirely in India.

"There is total French political support for such ventures with India," the MBDA Chief Executive Officer said during the just concluded Eurosatory-2008, the European Defence Exhibition for land combat systems.

MBDA, with an annual three billion Euro turnover, is the largest and sole European missile consortium with a 25 per cent of the world-wide missile market.

It has proposed that such a joint venture could work to build upon its latest Mistral and vertically-launched VL-MICA surface-to-air mobile missile systems.

The MBDA CEO said the proposed joint missile venture would produce state-of-the-art surface-to-air missiles of short and medium range at very "reduced costs". "We have also proposed modification of propulsion and production line at the Bharat Dynamics line for the venture".

As a number of other European companies like Thales and Russians and Israelis were also bidding for the Indian army project, the MBDA top executive said "we propose to bid for the army contract in a consortium with DRDO and BDL".

"We can make a start with making of short range up to 9 kms range surface-to-air missile and later graduate to producing medium range, up to 30 kms, and long range, up to 50 kms SAMs," Bouvier said.

Though both Mistral and VL-Mica missiles were [guided] in flight by highly sophisticated Arabel Radars, these weapon systems could be operated with equal lethality by India's own 3D and 2D radars developed by DRDO, the MBDA Chief Executive said.

The French proposal could come in handy for the Indian Defence Ministry officials as its project for proposed co-production of SPYDER quick reaction short range surface-to-air Israeli missiles is in a freeze.

Though the Israeli Aircraft Industries bagged the IAF contract for similar quick reaction missiles, the project is in freeze as the Tel Aviv company is under shadow over the CBI investigations into its Barak missiles sales to India.

Bouvier also made it clear that the Indo-French proposed co-production would not be violative of the Missile Control Technology Regime (MTCR) as surface-to-air missiles were of totally defensive capability.

He also proposed that joint venture in manufacture of short surface-to-air missile could lead to greater cooperation between French Industry and DRDO on development of anti-missile shield.

Under the Indian army contract, details of which became public in Paris, the army proposes to purchase 1,000 quick reaction surface-to-air missiles. Two hundred of these are proposed to be bought off the shelf and the rest made in India under technology transfer.

But the French offer is that like Scorpene Submarines all the missiles be made in India under full technology transfer.