India’s 1st long-range 1 ton guided bomb test-fired, hits target 100 km away

Designed and developed by DRDO’s Research Centre Imarat (RCI), the LR Bomb can carry a warhead of 1000 kilograms.

Published on: Oct 29, 2021, 21:08:16 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

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An Indian Air Force (IAF) team and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Friday successfully flight-tested the country’s first indigenously developed Long-Range Bomb (LRB) from a Sukhoi-30 fighter jet over Balasore, Odisha.

The LR Bomb was flight tested from a Sukhoi-30 fighter jet. (AP / Representational)

The LR Bomb, with a range of 100 kilometres, was fired from the IAF fighter aircraft flying at an altitude of 10 kilometres. Designed and developed by DRDO’s Research Centre Imarat (RCI), the LR Bomb can carry a warhead of 1000 kilograms.

Using laser guidance, the bomb hit a target range inside the sea around 11.00am, meeting all mission objectives successfully.

From the Kargil war to Operation Bandar in Balakot in 2019, India in the past has been using Israeli laser-guided bombs. The successful test of the LR Bomb makes India capable of staying well within its territory and hitting enemy targets at 100 kilometres with high accuracy.

The successful flight test of the LR Bomb comes a day after India tested DRDO Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon (SAAW) from the Pokhran range. It is capable of hitting ground targets up to a range of 100 kilometres. Designed to disable airfield runways, SAAW can carry a warhead of 125 kg. DRDO had last tested the anti-airfield weapon in January.

The successful tests can prove to be a force multiplier and major boost to the Indian Armed Forces, especially at a time China has been posturing aggressively in the region.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO, IAF and other teams associated with successful flight tests.

Last Friday, the DRDO successfully flight-tested Abhyas High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT) from the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur, Odisha. The defence ministry said that the indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle will meet the requirements of HEAT for the armed forces.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More