India’s Zorawar Light Tank Successfully Fires Nag Mk II Anti-Tank Guided Missile
India’s defense forces marked a major milestone in October 2025. The indigenous Zorawar light tank successfully test-fired the Nag Mk II anti-tank guided missile at the Pokhran Field Firing Range in Rajasthan on 17 October. The Zorawar was built by the DRDO with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) under the Make in India programme and Indian Army and MoD officials oversaw the exercise. The missile was launched in top-attack mode and hit its target with complete accuracy. The exercise compresses the “sensor-to-shooter” timeline for forward mountain units by pairing a mobile, sub-25-tonne chassis with a long-range, fire-and-forget weapon.
Zorawar is a compact, high-altitude tank. It weighs about 25 tonnes and carries a John Cockerill 105 mm high-pressure gun in a fully stabilized turret. This gives the crew immediate direct-fire capability against armor or bunkers. Zorawar’s drivetrain uses a 760hp Cummins diesel engine with a RENK HMPT-800 gearbox and yielding roughly 30 hp/tonne. The tank was named after General Zorawar Singh.
The Nag Mk II missile is a third-generation, all-weather anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) with a top-attack flight profile. It carries an 8 kg tandem-charge HEAT warhead to penetrate modern armor (including ERA). The missile uses an imaging infrared seeker for fire-and-forget (lock-on-after-launch) operation and allows the tank to fire from cover. Its speed is about 220–230 m/s, and trials have shown it can strike targets up to around 4–5 km in a few seconds. More broadly, the Nag Mk II’s maximum range is roughly 7–10 km, far beyond the Zorawar’s gun range. This gives mountain units genuine stand-off precision-strike capability against enemy armor.
Strategically, this successful trial greatly boosts India’s defense preparedness in the high mountains. Pairing a fast, sub‑25‑tonne tank with a top-attack missile, which “can alter the deterrence balance along the northern frontier”. The Zorawar–Nag combination is a direct counter to China’s Type‑15 light tanks on the LAC, giving India an indigenous, agile and lethal response platform. With user trials next and induction planned by around 2027, this achievement means the Indian Army will soon field a home‑grown precision weapon system built for rugged Himalayan warfare.