India to buy UK-made Thales multirole missiles in £350 million deal

PARIS — India agreed to buy multi-role missiles manufactured by Thales in the United Kingdom in a deal worth £350 million ($468 million), the U.K. government said on Thursday.

The deal to deliver the Lightweight Multirole Missile to the Indian Army was signed during U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s two-day visit to Mumbai, paving the way for a broader partnership in complex weapons that the countries are negotiating, the British government said in a statement .

The missile deal “paves the way for a deeper relationship between U.K. and Indian defense industries,” U.K. Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said in a post on social media . “This is how we are making the U.K. defense industry an engine for growth.”

The U.K. has been eyeing a larger share of the Indian armament market, with a 2021 policy road map on U.K.-India relations including defense and security as one of its pillars. While India is the world’s second-largest importer of arms, the U.K. accounted for only just over 3% of India’s defense acquisitions over the past decade, according to a Chatham House report in July.

India and the U.K. also agreed to move forward on an industrial collaboration to develop electric propulsion for naval ships, in a deal worth an initial £250 million, the U.K. said. That follows the signing of a statement of intent between the defense ministries of both countries in November to develop electric propulsion systems for the Indian Navy.

While India is shifting away from Russia to Western suppliers, that has notably benefited France, the United States and Israel, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute noted in a March report on arms transfers . New Delhi has preferred government-to-government deals over the U.K.’s more commercially-driven approach, Chatham House said.

India’s purchase of the Thales Lightweight Multirole Missile follows a contract in February between Thales and Bharat Dynamics to deliver a laser-guided, man-portable air-defense system to the Indian Ministry of Defence, with an initial supply of launchers and Starstreak high-velocity missiles to be delivered this year.

The LMM, also known as the Martlet, is a lightweight missile that shares some technology with Starstreak, and can be either air- or surface-launched against airborne or surface targets. Both missiles are manufactured by Thales at its site in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

A Starstreak missile is pictured at Thales weapons manufacturer in Belfast on May 16, 2022. (Liam McBurney/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Thales says the LMM weighs 13 kilograms with an operational range of more than 6 kilometers, traveling at more than 1.5 times the speed of sound. That compares to a speed of more than Mach 3 for Starstreak, which delivers a payload of three high-velocity darts.

The contract to deliver the LMM to the Indian Army will secure more than 700 jobs in Northern Ireland, according to the government.

The missiles and launchers are the same as those destined for Ukraine, according to the U.K., which placed an order worth as much as £1.6 billion with Thales in March to supply more than 5,000 LMMs to the embattled country.

Meanwhile, the U.K. said MBDA’s Sea Venom anti-ship missile achieved initial operating capability on the Royal Navy’s Wildcat helicopters during a deployment of a carrier strike group led by the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier in the Indo-Pacific region.

The helicopter-launched missile complements the existing Martlet missile system, with the Sea Venom missile having enough destructive power to take out large warships including corvettes and patrol vessels, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defence.

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——英国政府周四表示，印度同意购买由英国泰雷兹公司生产的多用途导弹，交易金额为 3.5 亿英镑（4.68 亿美元）。

英国政府在一份声明中表示，在英国首相基尔·斯塔默对孟买进行为期两天的访问期间，英国与印度签署了向印度陆军交付轻型多用途导弹的协议，为两国正在谈判的更广泛复杂武器合作铺平了道路。

英国国防大臣约翰·希利在社交媒体上发文称，这项导弹交易“为英国和印度国防工业之间建立更深层次的关系铺平了道路”。他还表示，“我们正在通过这种方式，使英国国防工业成为经济增长的引擎。”

英国一直觊觎印度军火市场更大的份额，其2021年英印关系政策路线图将国防和安全列为支柱之一。尽管印度是世界第二大武器进口国，但根据查塔姆研究所7月份发布的一份报告，过去十年间，英国仅占印度国防采购总额的3%多一点。

英国方面表示，印度和英国还同意推进一项工业合作，共同开发海军舰艇的电力推进系统，初步协议价值2.5亿英镑。此前，两国国防部于去年11月签署了一份意向声明，旨在为印度海军开发电力推进系统。

斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所3月份发布的一份关于武器转让的报告指出，尽管印度正逐步减少对俄罗斯的依赖，转而从西方供应商采购武器，但这却显著地使法国、美国和以色列受益。查塔姆研究所表示，新德里更倾向于政府间交易，而非英国那种以商业为导向的做法。

印度购买泰雷兹轻型多用途导弹之前，泰雷兹公司和巴拉特动力公司于 2 月份签订了一份合同，向印度国防部交付一套激光制导的便携式防空系统，首批发射器和“星光”高速导弹将于今年交付。

LMM导弹，又称“马特莱特”（Martlet），是一种轻型导弹，与“星光”（Starstreak）导弹共享部分技术，可空射或地射，攻击空中或地面目标。这两种导弹均由泰雷兹公司在其位于北爱尔兰贝尔法斯特的工厂生产。

2022年5月16日，一枚“星光”（Starstreak）导弹在贝尔法斯特的泰雷兹武器制造厂展出。（Liam McBurney/POOL/AFP via Getty Images）

泰雷兹公司表示，LMM重13公斤，有效射程超过6公里，飞行速度超过音速的1.5倍。相比之下，Starstreak导弹的飞行速度超过3马赫，可携带三枚高速飞镖。

据政府称，向印度陆军交付LMM的合同将为北爱尔兰创造700多个就业岗位。

据英国方面称，这些导弹和发射器与运往乌克兰的导弹和发射器相同。英国在3月份向泰雷兹公司下了价值高达16亿英镑的订单，向这个饱受战火蹂躏的国家供应5000多枚大型导弹。

与此同时，英国表示，MBDA 公司的“​​海毒液”反舰导弹在威尔士亲王号航空母舰率领的航母打击群部署到印度-太平洋地区期间，已在皇家海军的“野猫”直升机上实现了初始作战能力。

据英国国防部称，直升机发射的导弹是对现有“马特莱特”导弹系统的补充，“海毒液”导弹具有足够的破坏力，可以摧毁包括轻型护卫舰和巡逻舰在内的大型军舰。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。