India signs for more Konkurs-M anti-tank missiles
By Dmitry Fediushko
22 February 2019 – The Indian Army (IA) has acquired a large batch of Russian-originated 9M113M Konkurs-M ‘AT-5b Spandrel-B’ anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), a source from the Asian country’s defence industry told European Defence Review.
“The IA has ordered a large batch of the Konkurs-M, which will be assembled from stripped-down kits at the facilities of the defence contractor Bharat Dynamics Limited. The acquisition of these weapons is intended to address the shortage of modern man-portable anti-tank weapons in service with the IA,” said the source. According to him, the contract worth INR7.6 billion (approximately USD110 million) was signed in mid-January.
The Konkurs-M is a substantially upgraded variant of the venerable Konkurs ‘AT-5 Spandrel’ ATGM system. The modenised weapon can engage heavy armoured vehicles protected by explosive reactive armour (ERA), hardened engineering installations, surface targets, and low-speed low-flying combat helicopters. The 9M113M 135 mm ATGM is armed with a tandem high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead that has an armour-piercing capability of 750 mm of rolled homogeneous armour (RHA) behind ERA. The weapon system can engage a ground target at a distance between 75 m and 4,000 m.
The IA operates some 15,000 Konkurs-M ATGMs.
