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The battlefield, as we know it, has changed substantially in the past two decades. There has been extensive focus on high-precision weapons that can cause damage to the adversary without endangering one’s own personnel.
At Aero India 2025, we saw a battle-proven drone system, the Warmate Tube-Launched Loitering Munition, designed by Poland’s WB Group. Making its global exhibition debut outside of Poland for the first time, this new iteration of Warmate garnered a lot of attention. This has been in part due to the Indian Army already using this system with a pneumatic launch, and reportedly sharing favourable feedback.
The Warmate TL is designed to be deployed from ground, naval, or air platforms. The system features folding wings that deploy in-flight after launch, allowing it to loiter over a target area before striking with interchangeable warheads.
While there is no dearth of competitors making drones, WB India remains confident in the offering, pointing out that finding a system of this class that can also tout being battle-tested in extremely difficult terrain, intensive ECM environment, and weather conditions is going to be extremely rare.
Warmate is capable of neutralising high-value targets with minimal collateral damage, making it an ideal weapon for asymmetric warfare and contested battle zones.
The Indian Army has already procured the Warmate Loitering Munition under Emergency Procurement and WB has received “very good feedback” from its operators. Unlike traditional guided munitions, loitering munitions like this one offers real-time reconnaissance, target acquisition, and strike capabilities in a single platform.
The Canister-based pneumatic launch system allows for the Warmate TL to be deployed quickly. It has an operational range of 30-kilometer with precision strike capability.
The Warmate TL’s unveiling in India is expected to drive discussions on potential co-production opportunities as India seeks to strengthen its indigenous defence manufacturing under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
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