Indo-Asian News Service,
New Delhi: The US government has cleared the Block-II version of the Harpoon anti-shipping and anti-surface missile to India.
According to Christopher M. Chadwick, Boeing's Vice President and General Manager for Global Strike Solutions, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had recently floated a tender for an unspecified number of anti-ship missiles and that it is responding to that with the offer to sell Harpoons to India.
The missile has an all-weather, day and night capability, and a range of about 60 nautical miles. It can hit ships and land targets like ports, as also submarines on the surface. It can be fired from a variety of aircraft – combat jets like Jaguars, Su-30 MKI, F-18 or F-16, or transport aircraft like Boeing-737 if configured for such a role.
The sea-skimming missile, which carries a 500-pound blast warhead, can also be fired from ships and submarines, and accordingly offers commonality to both the air force and navy.
According to available information, the French MBDA Exocet, which the Indian forces already possess, is the only other match to the Harpoon. It has also been upgraded since it was first developed in the 1970s.
Notably, MBDA is supplying missiles to the Indian Navy for the Scorpene submarines it is to soon acquire.
The Harpoon was used extensively in the two wars against Iraq. Nearly 7,500 units of this advanced missile have been sold worldwide since it was first launched in 1977 by McDonald Douglas, a company that merged into Boeing.
Chadwick said that Boeing was also hopeful of selling its Multi Mission Maritime Reconnaissance (MMR) aircraft – based in the Boeing-737 platform – to India, and that the Harpoon would naturally be fitted on that.
The Indian Navy floated a tender for MMR aircraft sometime back. Among the contenders are Boeing's P-8 MMA, Lockheed Martin's P-3C Orion, Russia's TU-142 and the Il-38.
The Harpoon missile is the common element in both the P-8 MMA and the P-3C Orion.
Pakistan was the first country in South Asia to get hi-tech weaponry when the US agreed in 1982 to sell it F-16 jets, Harpoon missiles, P-3 C Orions and C3I (Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence) systems.
The Harpoon then had a range of 40 to 45 nautical miles.
Although Pakistan has a coastline 10 times smaller than of India, and even smaller than that of California, the US has decided to sell another eight Orions to Islamabad, which claims it needs them in its war against terror.
The new Orions will have the new Block II version of the Harpoons.
Chadwick, who has been to India a dozen times to sell F-18 Super Hornets, P-8 MMA, T-45 Goshawk naval Advanced Jet Trainers (AJTs), and space and missile systems, said his company could sell weapons only after government-to-government agreements.
He pointed out that 'there was never a better environment than today between the world's most powerful democracy and the world's largest democracy' for military sales.
According to a Boeing statement, the Harpoon Block II provides accurate long-range guidance for land and ship targets by incorporating the low-cost inertial measuring unit from the Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), and the software, mission computer, integrated Global Positioning System/ Inertial Navigation System and the GPS antenna and receiver from the Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER).
All this would ensure precision hits.
