Pinaka at Yudh Abhyas took centre stage at the Mahajan Field Firing Ranges on Thursday, with the Indian Army's home-grown multi-barrel rocket launcher firing a salvo during the ongoing India-US joint exercise in Rajasthan's Bikaner district.

The firing came on the day US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor visited the range to watch troops of the two armies train side by side. Gor called Yudh Abhyas 2026 India's largest bilateral defence exercise with any nation, and said he had come to see the US Army and the Indian Army at work together.

"This exercise reflects the strength of our defence partnership," Gor said after the visit, adding that he was proud of what the two armies were achieving together.

Pinaka at Yudh Abhyas joins the artillery drills

Thursday's shoot was not the rocket system's first outing of the exercise. On Tuesday, Indian and US gunners carried out joint artillery drills at the same range with the M777 Ultra-Light Howitzer, the Dhanush gun and Pinaka, while L70 air defence guns and M-LIDS counter-drone systems were also deployed.

Observation Post parties from both armies trained together in target identification, transmission of fire orders and correction of fire, according to the Army. That is the full chain of fire support, from spotting a target to hitting it.

Yudh Abhyas 2026 is the 22nd edition of the annual exercise. It formally opened on September 15 and is running at the Auli Foreign Training Node in Uttarakhand and at Mahajan at the same time, with the US contingent drawn from the 11th Airborne Division. The focus is on Integrated Battle Groups in mountainous and semi-mountainous terrain.

What is Pinaka

Pinaka is a multi-barrel rocket launcher designed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation's Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune, with the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory as a partner lab. It takes its name from the bow of Lord Shiva.

The system rides on a heavy truck. Each launcher carries 12 rockets and can fire all of them in about 44 seconds, and a battery of six launchers can put 72 rockets on a target area in well under a minute. Crews, computers and the launcher work as one unit, with a command post passing target data to every vehicle in the battery.

Why rockets and not just guns

A gun such as the M777 or the Dhanush fires one shell at a time. It is built for steady, accurate fire on a chosen point.

A rocket launcher does a different job. It drops a large weight of explosives on a wide area in one go, which works against troop concentrations, vehicle columns, enemy gun positions and supply dumps. Once the salvo is gone, the launcher drives off before the enemy can fire back, a drill the Army calls shoot and scoot.

A growing family of rockets

The original Pinaka rocket reached out to around 40 km. Enhanced and guided versions have since pushed that reach further, and the same launcher can fire rockets of different ranges.

In February 2025, the Ministry of Defence signed contracts worth Rs 10,147 crore with Economic Explosives Limited and Munitions India Limited for Area Denial Munition Type-1 and High Explosive Pre Fragmented Mk-1 (Enhanced) rockets. According to the ministry, the first type scatters sub-munitions over a wide area to stop mechanised forces, while the second is an extended range version of the in-service high explosive rocket.

The biggest jump came on December 29, 2025, when DRDO flew the Pinaka Long Range Guided Rocket (LRGR 120) to its maximum range of 120 km at the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, launching it from an in-service Pinaka launcher. The Defence Acquisition Council accorded Acceptance of Necessity for long range guided rockets for the Army on the same day. A further flight test at Chandipur on July 8 this year proved the rocket at a user-defined minimum range of 60 km.

Why Pinaka matters to India

Pinaka's first combat use came during the Kargil conflict in 1999, when early launchers were pressed into service against enemy positions on the heights. It has since become the mainstay of the rocket regiments of the Regiment of Artillery.

Today it stands among the clearest examples of Aatmanirbhar Bharat in the Army's inventory. The design is Indian, and the launchers, rockets and fire control systems are built by Indian firms, public and private alike. Tata Advanced Systems and Larsen and Toubro have produced launchers, while Economic Explosives Limited, a Solar Industries company, and Munitions India make the rockets.

The system has also found a foreign buyer. Armenia ordered Pinaka in 2022, according to reports at the time, becoming the first export customer for the Indian rocket launcher.