Indian Air Force tests new indigenous long-range glide bomb

The Indian Air Force (IAF) tested a new, locally developed ‘Long-Range Bomb (LRB)' from one of its Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole fighters on 29 October, according to a statement issued the same day by the Indian government's Press Information Bureau (PIB).

The PIB said that the new weapon, which has been designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation's Research Centre Imarat in Hyderabad, was dropped from “a long range” and struck a land-based target “with accuracy within [the] specified limits”.

The flight and the performance of the weapon were monitored by a number of range sensors, including an electro-optical tracking system, a telemetry, and a radar deployed at the Integrated Test Range, at Chandipur in Odisha.

The PIB, which noted that all “mission objectives were successfully met”, quoted Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh as saying that the LRB “will prove to be a force multiplier for the Indian Armed Forces”.

The agency provided no further details about the test of the weapon; however, Janes understands that the development of India's ‘long-range glide bomb' was approved in 2017 as part of the IAF's ‘Indigenisation Roadmap 2016–2025'.

According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in New Delhi, the weapon is intended to have a maximum range of approximately 100 km when released from an altitude of 42,000 ft (12,802 m), and can be armed with a blast fragmentation or penetration warhead. The MoD has determined that the IAF has a requirement for 5,000 of these glide bombs.