US approves sale of Integrated Air Defence Weapon System to India

News:The US has approved the sale of an Integrated Air Defence Weapon System(IADWS) to India.

Facts:

About Integrated Air Defence Weapon System(IADWS):

• The Integrated Air Defence Weapon System(IADWS) is also called the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System(NASAMS-II).
• It is an upgraded version of the NASAMS developed by the US firm Raytheon in partnership with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace of Norway.
• It is armed with a combination of weapons such as Stinger surface-to-air missiles, AMRAAMS (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles) backed by three-dimensional Sentinel radars, fire-distribution centres and command-and-control units.
• It is part of the air defence network guarding US capital city Washington DC and has also been deployed in several NATO countries.
• In India,it will be deployed as a part of a multi-tiered air defence shield to fully secure the airspace of Delhi from Aerial threat.

Additional information:

About Multi-Layered Air Defence Shield for NCT of Delhi:

• Indian Government has planned to create an ambitious multi-layered missile shield over Delhi to safeguard the capital against aerial threats, ranging from drones to ballistic missiles.
• The innermost layer of protection will be through the NASAM-II.The indigenous Akash defence missile systems will form the layer over the NASAMS-II.
• The second layer will be through the highly automated and mobile S-400 systems.
• Then will come the Barak-8 medium-range surface-to-air missile systems jointly developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries and DRDO which have a 70-100 km interception range.
• The outermost layer of shield will be provided by the indigenous two-tier Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) System being developed by DRDO.