Helina and Dhruvastra Missiles

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has designed and developed anti-tank guided missiles,
1. Army version Helina, and
2. Airforce variant Dhruvastra.

These are third generation, Lock-on-Before-Launch (LOBL) fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missiles that can engage targets both in direct hit mode as well as top attack mode.
The system has all-weather day and night capability.
They can defeat battle tanks with conventional armour as well as with explosive reactive armour.
The missiles could be fired in hover and max forward flight against realistic static and moving targets.
The helicopter-launched Nag Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), Helina, being developed indigenously, has completed all trials and the process for issuing of acceptance of necessity (AoN) by the Army has started, said Sachin Sood, project director of Helina and Dhruvastra at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad, a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
While the cost estimate was yet to be done, each missile was expected to cost under ?1 crore, and around 500 missiles and 40 launchers would be required initially, he added.
Once the AoN is issued, the request for proposal (RFP) would be issued. Some firing trials would be done from the first production lot by the Army at a later stage.
Helina is a third-generation fire-and-forget class ATGM mounted on an indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), and has a minimum range of 500 metres and a maximum range of 7 kilometres. All issues with the minimum range had been sorted out and the integration with other weapons on the platform was over.

Source: TH

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