On February 26, 2019 in a pre-dawn secret operation, India carried out a highly successful preemptive airstrike on JeM terror targets deep inside Pakistan in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It was reported that several hundred terrorists were eliminated during the operations. which typically. the Pakistan army vehemently denied for the purpose to cover up the abject embarrassment they suffered at the hands of India. IAF had used high-tech precision munitions purchased from Israeli for this very purpose. IAF used 12 Mirage-2000 fighter jets carrying SPICE 2000 & Popeye precision-guided munitions and that they were supported by 4 Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Netra and Phalcon airborne early warning and control platform, a Heron UAV and two Ilyushin Il-78 aerial refuelling aircraft.

The Pakistan Air Force had failed to detect the presence of the Indian fighter jets on Tuesday. It was already too late for them as their surveillance system had been jammed by the Indian Air Force during its raid at Balakot terrorist camps. The Indian package, usually referred to a maximum of 10-12 fighter jets, mounted with electronic warfare (EW) system that helped jam the Pakistani radars.

The "SPICE" (Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective) is an Israeli-developed, EO\GPS-guided guidance kit for converting air-droppable unguided bombs into precision guided bombs.

Smart, Precise Impact and Cost-Effective Guidance Kit

SPICE is a family of stand-off, autonomous, air-to-ground weapon systems, capable of hitting and destroying targets with pinpoint accuracy and at high attack volumes. SPICE is combat-proven and in service with the Israeli Air Force and several international customers. SPICE uses state-of-the art navigation, guidance and homing techniques to achieve the accurate and effective destruction of targets with a CEP of more than 3 meters.

Never-Miss Operational Scenario

Mission plan, in the air or on the ground, uses target data (target coordinates, impact angle and azimuth, imagery and topographical data) to create a mission for each target. The pilot allocates a mission to each weapon before release. SPICE is released outside the threatened area, and performs mid-course navigation autonomously using its INS/GPS. SPICE homes in accurately and autonomously to the exact target location in the predefined impact angle and azimuth.

While approaching the target, SPICE's unique scene matching algorithm compares the Electro-optical image received in real-time via the weapon seeker with mission reference intelligence data stored in the weapon computer memory.

In the homing phase, the system locates the target using scene-matching technology, and uses the tracker to hit it. As a result of this capability, SPICE can overcome Target Location Error and GPS jamming, and can dramatically reduce collateral damage. As it approaches the target, the SPICE mission profile can be set to a specific attack azimuth and impact angle to suit the selected target profile, such as a steep dive angle for deep penetration.

SPICE has day, night and adverse weather capabilities, based on its advanced seeker and scene-matching algorithms. SPICE achieves high serviceability with a low life-cycle cost. SPICE simple operation and dedicated Mission Planning System requires only basic aircrew training. SPICE is fully operational and has recently demonstrated outstanding combat performance in all parameters to become one of the Israeli Air Force's leading air-to-surface weapon systems.

Guidance And Target Acquisition

Spice has day, night and adverse weather capabilities, based on its Advanced Electro-Optic seeker. The Automatic Target Acquisition capability is implemented by a unique scene-matching technology

that is robust to scenery changes, countermeasures, navigation errors and Target Location Errors. Spice navigates autonomously by means of INS/GPS and its seeker provides positive target identification.

Kit Concept


Spice-2000 consists of an add-on kit for warheads such as the MK-84, BLU-109, APW and RAP-2000. The Spice-1000 weapon has unique deployable wings that substantially increase its range and facilitate the integration to light fighter aircraft.

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