February 6, 2021: In late 2020 India conducted successful acceptance tests of MRSAM (Medium Range Surface-To-Air Missile) land-based air defense system. This weapon is based on the Israeli Barak 8 SAM (surface-to-air missile) system. MRSAM uses a mobile multimode radar similar to the one used for the Israeli Iron Dome. Each MRSAM battery contains one truck mounted command and control system, one truck mounted multimode radar and three 8x8 launcher vehicles each carrying eight missiles. The MRSAM missile has a range of 70 kilometers and the radar has a max range of 470 kilometers. MRSAM is being used by both the Indian Air Force for defense of bases and cities while the army is procuring MRSAM to operate with mobile units. The truck mounted launcher erects the missiles so they can be fired straight up, as does the Barak. The back blast of the launched missiles means components of the launcher exposed to this heat have to be replaced after about 60 launches. Launchers contain a communications mast which enables the launcher to be up to 20 kilometers from the radar vehicle. The launcher and command/control unit will be built in India while Israel will supply 2,000 missiles initially to equip army and air force batteries. Most of the missiles will go to the air force, which has to defend numerous urban areas and military bases from hostile jets, UAVs and cruise missiles. An advanced version of MRSAM is under development that will provide ballistic missile defense and the longer range (150 kilometers) missiles Israel has already developed for new Barak ER.

The 2020 acceptance tests came two years after the LRSAM (Long Range Surface to Air Missile) ship-based version of Barak 8 was accepted and put into production. This involved a $777 million contract to supply system equipment and missiles to install LRSAM on seven Indian warships. Each ship will receive the AESA radar, launchers and fire control equipment as well as an initial supply of missiles. Since 2016 India had placed two orders totaling over $1.6 billion for Barak 8 systems and missiles. More orders are expected because the Indian version of Barak 8 has proved effective and reliable, as did the Barak 1 India installed in 14 Indian warships since it was first ordered in 2000.

Barak 8 was developed from the Barak 1 missile which entered Israeli service in the mid-1990s as a short-range defense against anti-ship missiles and aircraft. The Barak 1 missile weighed 98 kg (216 pounds) each, with a 21.8 kg (48 pound) warhead. The missiles are mounted in an eight-cell container. The radar system provides 360-degree coverage and the missiles can take down an incoming missile as close as 500 meters away from the ship. The missile has a range of ten kilometers and is also effective against aircraft.

The basic Barak 8 is a larger 275 kg (605 pound) missile with a 60 kg (132 pound) warhead and a range of 70 kilometers. The warhead has its own seeker that can find the target despite most countermeasures. The missiles are mounted in a three-ton, eight cell, low maintenance container and also launched straight up. The compact fire control module weighs under two tons and was designed for easy installation on a ship.

Back in 2013 Israel first installed Barak 8 on three 1,075-ton Saar 5 class corvettes and had it operational by 2014. Thus Barak 8 was ready for action over a year before its scheduled 2015 service date. Israel is believed to have rushed this installation because Russia had sent high-speed Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria and Barak 8 was designed to deal with this kind of threat. Barak 8 is also Israel’s first air defense system equal to the American Patriot, and similar systems like the U.S. Navy SM-2, Russian S-300, and European Aster 15. An improved Barak 8 would be able to shoot down short-range ballistic missiles. And the Israeli manufacturer went ahead with that as well as the three different versions of Barak 8 as well as the Barak MX fire control system.

In 2014 India was still ordering Barak 1 for its ships and continuing work on its customized and much delayed versions of Barak 8. India had run into problems implementing changes for its naval version (LRSAM) and land version (MRSAM). Not surprisingly the LRSAM/MRSAM was behind schedule. This is the norm for Indian state-run defense firms. And there’s not much India could do about it because Indian politicians and defense officials insist on Indians (mainly state-owned defense firms) doing modifications that Israel could have completed sooner and cheaper. It was all about India doing a minor bit of work on its version of Barak 8 that would enable Indian politicians to claim LRSAM and MRSAM are Indian developed and made. The Israelis go along with this because India is a big customer. A growing number of Indians, especially those in the military who are put at risk by all this, know what is going on and would prefer just getting it done as soon as possible. This is all about the persistent Indian problems with managing the development of military technology. The Barak 8 fiasco began in 2006 when India and Israel agreed to jointly develop and manufacture a customized (for India) Barak 8 variant; LRSAM and MRSAM. Both of these systems will replace older Russian weapons as well as Russian offers of new Russian made replacements.

While most (70 percent) of the Barak 8 development work was done in Israel, India is the major customer because it is buying $1.1 billion worth of LRSAM for their warships and even larger orders to replace older Russian SA-6 and SA-8 land-based systems. Since India has larger armed forces (and weapons needs), they will be the major user. The two countries evenly split the $350 million development cost for the Indian variant. The Indian delay was because of problems developing features that India wanted as well as setting up manufacturing facilities for the few Indian made LRSAM components .

While the Barak 8 was installed in Israeli ships in late 2013, Israel could not just install Barak 8 in Indian warships until the two countries resolved some differences over the transfer of some Israeli technology to India. This has also been a problem with other Western nations and the Indian government has not been willing to change Indian laws and patent protections to avoid these problems.

By 2010 Indian defense officials realized they had a major, and embarrassing, problem with LRSAM/MRSAM; they did not have enough engineers in the government procurement bureaucracy to quickly and accurately transfer the Israeli technical data to the Indian manufacturers. In addition, some of the Indian firms that were to manufacture Barak 8 components either misrepresented their capabilities or did not know until it was too late that they did not have the personnel or equipment to handle the job. In 2016 another self-inflicted problem arose when two state-owned defense manufacturing firms got into a dispute with each other and the government over which of them would be in charge of managing the Indian work on LRSAM/MRSAM. This dispute also involved efforts by state-owned defense firms to get more political support for increasing pressure on Israel to give ground on exporting defense tech to India. What no one wanted to say openly was that the corruption in India, especially in defense matters, was epic and most Western states do not trust the Indians unless there are strong (and embarrassing to Indian officials) legal guarantees about the security of exported tech.

Fortunately, Israel had a large (about 100,000 people) Indian Jewish minority, including many who continued doing business with India and were available to explain the intricacies of how things are done in India. While India had a Jewish community for over 3,000 years, most of them moved to Israel after World War II and prospered because they were no longer a tolerated religious minority, but part of the majority. The Indian Jews brought a lot of Indian culture with them as well as intimate knowledge of how things worked in India compared to Israel. This helped Israel survive the difficulties encountered working with India on the Barak 8 modifications.

Earlier in 2018 Israel announced that the Israeli version of the Barak 8 SAM system has been reorganized and expanded. There are now three Barak missiles, all variants of the Barak 8 that entered service in 2013 and was seen as a missile which could be easily reconfigured. The first customer for this was India, which wanted Barak 8 customized to operate from ships as well as land-based launchers. This collaboration was beset by many problems with Indian developers and manufacturers. Meanwhile, the Israeli manufacturer went ahead on their own and developed three versions of the Barak 8 missile. The Barak 8 was renamed Barak LRAD. A Barak 8 with a smaller rocket motor (and a range of 35 kilometers) was called Barak MRAD. Adding a booster rocket to the Barak 8 resulted in the Barak ER (with a range of 150 kilometers). All three versions retained the terminal radar guidance in the warhead.

But the major selling point is the new Barak configuration was the MX fire control system. This is a separate product customized to work with all three Barak missile types. Barak MX was designed to easily accept sensor (usually radar) data from numerous sources and then use threat assessment software to determine which Barak missile systems should be used against each target. This approach has long been used with the Iron Dome system, which ignores rockets or shells that are calculated to land in uninhabited areas and instead only fires missiles at incoming projectiles that threaten lives or valuable military or civilian structures.