Archangel is a combat proven attack platform that fuses aircraft, crew, sensors, and weapons with long duration on-station times. Archangel seamlessly flows between the Find, Fix, and Finish tasks on station, capable of employing GBU-12/58 Laser Guided Bombs, AGM-114 Hellfire, and CIRIT 2.75” Laser Guided Rockets. In addition to Special Operations direct support missions, Archangel is perfectly suited to Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance (SCAR), Forward Air Controller (Airborne) (FAC(A)), Base Defense, and Convoy Escort missions.
IAI’s land based, short to long range, point & area defense system enables all-weather operation, missile vertical launch and high maneuverability support, and 360 degree coverage. Barak 8 (the Hebrew word for Lightning) also known as LR-SAM or as MR-SAM is an Indian-Israeli surface-to-air missile (SAM), designed to defend against any type of airborne threat including aircraft, helicopters, anti-ship missiles, and UAVs as well as ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and combat jets. Both maritime and land-based versions of the system exist.
Barak 8 was jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), India’s Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), Israel’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure, Elta Systems, Rafael and other companies. Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) produce the missiles.
The Barak 8 has a length of about 4.5 meters, a diameter of 0.225 meters at missile body, and 0.54 meters at the booster stage, a wingspan of 0.94 meters and weighs 275 kg including a 60 kg warhead which detonates at proximity. The missile has maximum speed of Mach 2 with a maximum operational range of 70 km, which was later increased to 100 km. Barak 8 features a dual pulse rocket motor as well as Thrust vector control, and possesses high degrees of maneuverability at target interception range. A second motor is fired during the terminal phase, at which stage the active radar seeker is activated to home in on to the enemy track. Barak 8 has been designed to counter a wide variety of air-borne threats, such as; anti-ship missiles, aircraft, UAVs drones and supersonic missiles When coupled with a modern air-defence system and multi-function surveillance track and guidance radars, (such as the EL/M-2248 MF-STAR AESA on board the Kolkata-class destroyers) Barak 8 enables the capability to simultaneously engage multiple targets during saturation attacks.
