New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS): India has successfully tested a laser-guided anti-tank missile, primarily designed to destroy heavily-armoured military vehicles, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

"Laser-Guided Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) was successfully test-fired from MBT Arjun at KK Ranges, Armoured Corps Centre and School (ACC&S) Ahmednagar on 22nd Sep 2020," the DRDO said.

In these tests, the missile successfully destroyed a target located at a distance of 3 km.

Laser-guided ATGMs lock and track the targets with the help of laser to ensure precision hit accuracy.

Employing a tandem HEAT warhead to defeat Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) protected armoured vehicles, the missile has been developed with multiple-platform launch capability and is currently undergoing technical evaluation trials from the gun of the Arjun main battle tank (MBT).

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh appreciated the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for successfully-test firing the missile.

India is proud of Team DRDO which is assiduously working towards reducing import dependency in the near future, he said.

The missile was developed by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), Pune, in association with the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) Pune, and the Instruments Research and Development Establishment (IRDE), Dehradun.