Spike is an Israeli fourth generation man-portable fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile and anti-personnel missile with a tandem-charge HEAT warhead, developed and designed by the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
As well as engaging and destroying targets within the line-of-sight of the launcher (“fire-and-forget”), some variants of the missile are capable of making a top-attack profile through a “fire, observe and update” guidance method; the operator tracking the target, or switching to another target, optically through the trailing fiber-optic wire (or RF link in the case of the vehicle-mounted, long-range NLOS variant) while the missile is climbing to altitude after launch. This is similar to the lofted trajectory flight profile of the US FGM-148 Javelin.
The Indian government is looking to purchase Spike from Rafael Advanced Defence Systems. India is Israel’s biggest arms market.
The purchase of Spike missiles was approved by the Defense Acquisition Council (DAC), which is responsible for purchases for the Indian Army, back in 2014, but negotiations have been stuck over disagreements on cost and technology transfer.
