India signed a major deal worth $468 million with UK, aimed to equip its tactical military units with British Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMMs).
LMM, also known as Martlet, is a lightweight air-to-surface, air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface missile. The British Thales Air Defence develops the missiles.
Martlet specs and range
The missile has a laser beam guidance system. It can be fired through a shoulder launcher and tripod. It can also be integrated with armored vehicles, helicopters and naval ships.
Weighing around 13 kg and with a velocity of around 1.5 Mach, the missile can be used to target light armored, wheeled and tracked vehicles to aerial platforms within a distance of 6 km.
The missile is around 1.3 meters in length and has a diameter of 76 millimeters.
In 2014, Thales revealed a modified version of LMM named FreeFall glide bomb.
The missile was put into operation in October 2021. Since the Russia-Ukraine war in 2023, the Marlet missile has been extensively used by Ukraine against Russia.
The Ukrainian military has claimed to have hit a Russian Ka-52 "Alligator" attack helicopter with the Marlet missile.
Currently, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine are using the British LMMs, with India joining as the fourth country.
