India Begins $2.2-billion QR-SAM Procurement Effort

The Indian government has cleared the way for a massive $2.2-billion procurement effort for quick-reaction surface-to-air missiles (QR-SAMs) to arm eight air defence regiments of the Indian Army. The missiles are intended to replace obsolete Soviet air defence systems, most of which are unserviceable anyway.

As I reported a year ago, MBDA will be pitching the in-development Indo-French joint short-range surface to air missile (SR-SAM) or Maitri for the competition, in the hope that “enhanced synergies” will see a concept weapon get its big break even before its fully operational. It is not clear if MBDA will field any other product. I hear that MBDA has competition from the Rafael-IAI SpyDer, an upgraded version of Raytheon’s MIM-23 Hawk or modified SLAMRAAM  and the Russian TOR M1 9M330.

The Army, as I reported a year ago, is looking for a QR-SAM system with a reaction time of six seconds or less, with an engagement range of 9-15 km at altitudes of not less than 6 km. It’s looking for a weapon that delivers a single shot kill probability (SSKP) of at least 70% for a single missile fired, and 85% for a salvo shot involving two missiles. The missile also needs to be able to threats moving at speeds ranging from 0 km/h (a hovering helicopter) to 500 m/s on fast jets. The Army is hoping for systems that deploy missiles that have ECCM capabilities and compatibility with vehicles currently in use. The full parameters are here.

25 thoughts on “India Begins $2.2-billion QR-SAM Procurement Effort”

  1. India needs to develop it's own Microprocessors and Wafer Fab infrastructure first. The sensors, the mission computer hard ware, Radars and controllers have to be indigenous not Aluminum the wrapper around it. Also, how will this be propelled? What Engine Technology do we need? what kind of Sat Nav command and control is in place for this system to be operational and be called "state of the art"???

  2. Thanks shiv…one information please..How many missile unts comprise one regiment for indian army?Going by the RFI details. It looks the Israeli SPYDER as the hot contender.And Shiv still waiting eagerly for the SIGINT aircraft contenders?Kindly post it..

  3. All the contenders in the competition are no doubt good but the question is when it will be implemented. Nowadays the main priority of defence acquisitions should be the induction time frame.

  4. As other people have stated, this is getting ridiculous!

    Every nut and bolt is imported from outside the country and yet billions are spent on running a domestic weapons development complex like the DRDO!

    If the DRDO is useless at least shut it down and save some money.

    Plus this idiotic policy of limiting FDI in defense is now absurd when India continues to purchase everything from outside the country yet is afraid of letting those same companies manufacture those same systems in India!

  5. Shiv, the specs seem like akash!! Did the recent tests of akash expose glaring deficiencies that the mod is now quietly acquiring an alternative? Are we killing an indigenous effort one more time?

  6. @anon 8:43 am: if india with $280 bn foreign exchange reserves is a bhikari country whats your country?? a dalal + bhikari country? intermediary to all terrorists of the world + beggar country relies as it does on sustaining itself thru chinese, arab and american aid- is it as anonymous as you..so ashamed are you yourself that you dont consider any pride in your name and your country that u stay anonymous..look at what a dustbin your country is before commenting on other countries..dont u have any self respect..? enuff said .. now get lost and slither back in ur cave!

  7. @Suresh. Don't be angry. Everyone has right to give their opinion. Yes, we have $248 billion exchange but small island of Taiwan has over $300 billion. There is no need for us to be cocky about our fortunes. There's a lot of work still need to be done to make India better.
    Even today, 30% people in India make $1 or less a day. Corruption is rampant and infrastructure is very inadequate. Per capita income of our country is less than that of Bhutan. In nutshell, we aren't done with development yet. In fact we have barely scratch the surface and there's long road ahead.

  8. Response to RFI be communicated as under:-
    (a) Weapon & Equipments (WE-9)
    Room No 208G,
    Integrated HQ of MoD (Army)
    South Block, DHQ PO
    New Delhi – 110 011
    (b) Fax No. 0091-23793274
    (c) E mail ID. [email protected]

    Lolzzz…… yahoo ID !!!

  9. This procurement may be a replacement for the void that was created by shelving of the Trishul missiles project.

  10. What all are saying is fine. But my question is if we can build ASTRA , which is almost ready then why they are spending money on this. seriously all option we are looking for are derived from BVR-SAMs. When we already developing our own BVR SAM then why not a modified version of ASTRA for QR-SAM. STRANGE, and i am amazed to see that nobody raised this point. What happened to all THINK TANKS and Defense GURUs

  11. Maitri would be good. Atleast has sum desi technology. BTW why dont we buy some Patriot systems as well to boost our AD capabilities? Are Akashs really potent enough to supplement PATRIOT in Indian inventory? I doubt.

  12. Maitri would be the right choice. Atleast has sum desi technology. BTW why dont we buy some Patriot systems as well to boost our AD capabilities? Are Akashs really potent enough to supplement PATRIOT in Indian inventory? I doubt.

  13. Why don't we buy more missiles worth few billion more and buy some other arms worth few billions till we become poor? Wait, we are poor. Hmmm..

  14. Is this joke or what ..?
    QRSAM/SRSAM is supposed to protect high value targets as a last line of defence.

    And we are taking on AGE OLD /VINTAGE SYSTEMS following is on offer ????

    -USA's MIM-23 Hawk is not in use by it's own Army /Marines itself and was phased out around way back around 2002.(It is of 1960's design )Surprised some media in India spreading..that it is on offer.

    -SpyDer is has a limitation of it's design..that is each SAM launcher has 2 Spyder(for Short Range) and 2 Derby(for Mid range) missile loaded and IF IN SITUATION WHERE ALREADY 2 DERBY'S ALREADY HAS BEEN FIRED AND THEN THE THIRD ATTACK HAPPENS..NOW THAT SAM LAUNCHER WILL HAVE TO WAIT/ALLOW THE TAGET TO GET CLOSER SO THAT IT CAN USE/ENGAGE REMAINING 2 SHORT RANGE SPYDERs i.e. SpyDer system's over all range PERFORMANCE IS REDEUCED/HALVED due to it's missile combination.

    We need latest gen QRSAM/SRSAMs systems like MICA VL SHORAD or IRIST SL based SHORAD or EVEN latest ASTER 15/30 based AD systems.

    Why should we buy age old systems that to when we are spending 2.5 Billion USD…?

  15. How about Pantsir S1. Is it point defence system. Well, I don't think this RFI would wait till Maitri becomes fruitful. It's am emergency procurement to plug the glaring holes in airdefence. Akash is a MRSAM not SRSAM hence cannot be a replacement

  16. I dont know how many of you went over the RFI document that Shiv has provided the hyperlink for at the end of the post. I did, and found that for responses, there is a yahoo email id provided!!

    Think this is sad reflection of how e-aware the IA is. yahoo email – seriously!!!??

    Dosent the IT department have the ability to provide a professional email id?

    Just how secure is a yahoo email server? And incase you did not know that means that the data is stored outsude India. Wow.

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