Indian Missiles and Guided Munitions

Watandar said:
Because Indian plan in next conflict with Pakistan is to saturate the country with drones and BrahMos.
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Drones are just part of it, since Pakistan air defence system is already very vulnerable - it will add another headache to handles it
 
CallSignMaverick said:
Big brains have stuff at home that can be repurposed yet won't use.
SWiFT-K can be our own S-71 Monokhrom which Russians recently used.

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Yeah, recently hundreds of drones and many soft to hard anti drone systems is being inducted.

And even so, many order have been placed.
 
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India Flexes Nuke-Capable Agni-3: Missile's 3,000 KM Strike Range Keeps Rivals Pak, China In Sights​

 

Faster than the Brahmos: What is Golden Horizon ballistic missile Israel is offering India?​

FP Explainers • February 23, 2026, 18:21:48 IST
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As PM Narendra Modi is set to visit Israel, reports have emerged that Israel has offered its Golden Horizon missile to India. The air-launched ballistic missile, fired from an aircraft, has an estimated range between 1,500 km and 2,000 km​

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Faster than the Brahmos: What is Golden Horizon ballistic missile Israel is offering India?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) stands next to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu as they deliver joint statements during their meeting in Jerusalem July 4, 2017. File Photo/Reuters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Israel from February 25 to 26 for his second visit to the country since 2017. During the trip, he is expected to address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

With Modi set to embark on the high-profile visit, reports have surfaced that Israel has offered to supply its Golden Horizon ballistic missile to India. The proposal is not yet confirmed by either side.

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Let’s take a closer look.


What are Golden Horizon missiles?​

The Golden Horizon is an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM). Not much is officially known about the missile.

Just before Israel attacked Iran in October 2024, leaked United States intelligence documents suggested that Israel was working with two systems – hitherto unknown Golden Horizon and Rocks, a Rafael-developed missile believed to be derived from the previous Anchor model.

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Other known Israeli ALBMs are Rampage and Air LORA. Israel reportedly already sells these two missiles to India.

The Golden Horizon missile has an estimated range between 1,500 km and 2,000 km. On the other hand, Rocks, Rampage and Air LORA have ranges of about 175 miles (282 km).

“Golden Horizon likely has the range for Israeli aircraft to hit Tehran without having to enter Iranian airspace, removing a lot of risk from the equation,” Sebastien Roblin, a widely published military-aviation journalist, told Business Insider.



Some defence experts estimate Golden Horizon’s operational range from a fighter jet to be around 800 kilometres.

Israel’s Blue Sparrow has an estimated 1,250-mile (2011.68 km) range. The Sparrow missiles were originally designed to simulate Iraqi Scud and Iranian Shahab ground-launched missiles for testing Israel’s Arrow interceptor missiles.

israel arrow missile
An ‘Arrow 3’ ballistic missile interceptor is seen during its test launch near Ashdod, December 10, 2015. File Photo/Reuters
According to reports, Golden Horizon may be derived from the Sparrow series. The original Silver Sparrow is 8.3 meters long and has a pre-launch weight of 3,100 kilogrammes.

How Golden Horizon may boost India’s defence​

Israel’s reported offer of Golden Horizon air-launched ballistic missiles could strengthen India’s military capabilities. While information about the missile remains limited, open-source defence reports claim Golden Horizon is being customised for seamless integration with India’s Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jets.

Ballistic missiles are usually launched on fixed trajectories and are harder to intercept by dense air defence networks. Air-launched ballistic missiles are carried by fighter jets or bombers, avoiding the vulnerability of known ground launch sites. Being fired from the air gives these ballistic missiles the advantage of striking with extreme speed, as per Ynet News.

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“They can come from any direction and make defence much harder,” Uzi Rubin, a twice-recipient of Israel’s Defense Prize, previously said.

ALBMs have an edge over ground-based ballistic missiles, which are deployed by militaries around the world.

“Israeli ALBMs offer more operational flexibility compared to Iran’s SRBMs [short-range ballistic missiles] simply because they can be deployed from the air, allowing for an overall longer reach as the launching aircraft can obviously get closer to the target compared to a ground launcher,” Federico Borsari, a defence expert at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, told Forbes.

While cruise missiles are also common, ballistic missiles launched from aircraft are still rare. Such missiles are possessed by only a handful of countries, such as Russia, China and Israel.

“The main advantage of an [air-launched ballistic missiles] over an [air-launched cruise missiles] is speed to penetrate defences. The downside — accuracy — looks to have been largely solved,” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, told Reuters in November 2024.

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Golden Horizon is reportedly developed to destroy deeply buried and heavily reinforced structures, such as subterranean command bunkers or shielded nuclear facilities. These cannot be reached by standard air-to-surface missiles, as per Defence News India.

After being launched from an aircraft, the missile follows a high-arcing ballistic trajectory, flying to near-space altitudes before striking its target. During this terminal phase, the missile reaches hypersonic speeds, reported to be over Mach 5.

To put it into context, India’s BrahMos missile has a speed of Mach 2.8, nearly three times the speed of sound.

If India reaches a deal to procure Golden Horizon from Israel, it would boost the Indian Air Force’s arsenal, enhancing its deep-strike operations.

With inputs from agencies
 
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FuturePAF said:
The lesson from this transition in warfare has to be hardening, dispersal, keeping costs low vis a vis platforms, amongst other things.

Hopefully Pakistan will be comparing notes with its partner Türkiye, and their partners in Ukraine, as to how best to counter as well as employ these tactics.
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Warfare is changing
Drones are cheap and saturates expensive air defense.
Unless you do what India did brilliant convert old anti aircraft guns into cheap anti drone killing machine guns by using lasers guidance kits additions and artficial intelligence...support for layered air defence

India took out 800 drones in three days 90% kill probability ..

The other big lesson demonstrated by India again was
Stop risking expensive planes near high density Sam's or fighter caps
Launch long range cruise missiles and drones well with in your secure airspace and use navicc satalites for pint point accuracy

Looks like the acquisition of multiple long range weapons home grown like Brahmos and pralaay will supported by top tier hypersonic cruise missiles like golden horizon and scalp from Israel and France for Sindoor two if needed

The say Iran has 3000 missles for attack purposes

India will probably have even more soon of multiple types and even better lethality
 
We should try to develop cluster missiles like Iran.... right now these missiles loaded with multiple small warheads are causing havoc in Isreal....
 
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