It has been exported, but to whom?
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has finalised development, and is in production of, the Barak ER (Extended Range) variant surface-to-air interceptor, ahead of planned
initial deliveries to an undisclosed customer in the third quarter of this year.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has finalised development, and is in production of, the
www.janes.com
@Nilgiri
India has to announce defense procurement right? So not India I assume or could I be wrong?
It is somewhat complicated matter w.r.t India being a partner/customer...and I will spare you the long boring details of it past what I give here.
Basically India did/does the ToT (from israeli IAI/Elta/Rafael source end) through the DRDO-IAI joint venture partnership for Barak 8 and all variants going forward.
Things like the seeker, datalink, dual-pulse motor. TVC (on the actual missile), but also the radar, Fire control system + CnC and related supporting infra that was a big qualitative jump for India's bureaucracy to absorb, optimise (to certain Indian specific needs) and deploy quickly as they originally planned.
This is all then disseminated by DRDO to various private defence engg. capable companies (LT, Tata, Godrej, Kalyani etc)....and there was even a clash over who would be the (state owned) final integrator (BEL or BDL). BDL finally won out in the end I believe....and they are final integrator for MRSAM too.
That is all why technically the missile is called LRSAM (navy) and MRSAM (AF and Army) in Indian service. They are each also a bit different w.r.t barak-8 (in the Israeli sense/role).
The MRSAM program is handled a bit differently as Kalyani made its private partnership in supplier "kit" role directly with Rafael and operationalised it earlier this year:
http://forceindia.net/kras-rolls-1000-mrsam-missile-kits-army-iaf/ Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems Pvt Ltd. (KRAS), a joint venture between India’s Kalyani Group and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems rolled out the first batch of Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) for the Indian...
defencehub.live
So I believe IAI simply would word their statements w.r.t customers as someone likely totally new (i.e outside this joint venture thing they did with India way back in 2006 with Indian bureaucracy acting like thick molasses later as usual).
Essentially India is already "assumed"/"implied" as one, in a more "partner" kind of role....the 8-ER will simply subsume itself into Indian service through the LRSAM conduit initially by way of the joint venture setup.
It is unclear for now exactly when India will implement and test fire the first LRSAM "ER" from (I would assume) 1st vizag class destroyer....as this ship will be commissioned sometime this year I believe and will be equipped with the existing LRSAM arsenal initially till India does its own IOC for the new ER version.
How Barak 8 ER evolves its way over time into IAF and IA (i.e MRSAM currently but likely needing a new name at that point) is longer story and remains to be seen (given the various platform intersections/availability/costs) as I posted earlier in thread.
I may have made some errors in places (and would be happy to be corrected), this is off the top of my head.
@Kartal1 @500 @Test7 @anmdt @Cabatli_53 @T-123456 @MisterLike @Joe Shearer @Gautam @Raptor @Zapper et al.
aviationspaceindia.com
www.timesofisrael.com
defense-update.com
