NEW DELHI: Days after India signed a government-to-government deal for its first batch of American Javelin anti-tank guided missiles for the Indian Army, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) on Monday inked a memorandum of understanding with the Javelin Joint Venture (JJV) of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to explore co-production of the missile in the country.
The MoU covers the Javelin All Up Round, the factory-assembled missile sealed in its tactical launch container. The two sides will "explore the establishment of a final assembly and integration facility for the Javelin AUR and component production capabilities in India", the joint statement read.
TASL was picked as prime partner after the JJV evaluated multiple companies on capability and expertise, it added.
But the architecture announced on Monday is, at least at the outset, an assembly and integration line rather than a missile factory. Lockheed Martin will keep building the sub-assembly kits at Troy, Alabama, and Raytheon will keep making the guidance electronics units, the heart of the fire-and-forget seeker, at Tucson, Arizona. Both will be shipped to India to be mated and integrated by TASL.
Component manufacture in India is only something the two sides will "explore". No indigenous content target, timeline, order size or investment figure has been disclosed.
The statement is explicit that the American plants keep multiyear work. The arrangement will sustain "American jobs in the domestic supply chain", it said, while creating high-tech jobs in India.
That places the deal closer to the licensed-assembly model India has long lived with than to the technology transfer the Army sought when it first chased the Javelin.
The choice of a private prime is the other notable shift. Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL), is the sole manufacturer and supplier of ATGMs to the armed forces. It builds the Milan-2T at Hyderabad and the Konkurs-M and Invar at Bhanur, all under licence from foreign OEMs and progressively indigenised, and has commissioned a production line for DRDO's man-portable ATGM.
BDL was also the JJV's original Indian partner. The two signed a co-production MoU at DefExpo in Lucknow in February 2020 to examine building the Javelin in India, a tie-up the JJV was still citing publicly around Aero India in February last year.
The Javelin file has been open since 2009, when the Army moved a Letter of Request under the US foreign military sales route. Those talks collapsed by 2012 over transfer of critical technology and Washington's reluctance to take part in field trials.
The revival gained momentum with the joint statement issued after Trump and Modi met last year, which identified the Javelin and Stryker programmes for procurement and co-production, followed by the 10-year defence framework which was renewed by Rajnath Singh and Pete Hegseth in last October.
The Defence Security Cooperation Agency in November notified Congress of a possible $45.7 million package of 100 FGM-148 rounds, one fly-to-buy missile and 25 lightweight command launch units. The Letter of Offer and Acceptance was signed last week under emergency procurement.
The Army still faces a large deficiency in third-generation ATGMs, fielding wire-guided Milan-2T and Konkurs-M missiles while DRDO's MPATGM moves towards serial production.