The Spike Missile Family: Israel's Most-Exported Weapon
The Spike missile family is the most successful Israeli weapons export in modern history. Built by Rafael, produced by Eurospike for European customers, sold to 30+ countries. The Israeli weapon Europe runs on.
The Spike missile family is the most successful Israeli weapons export in modern history. Manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, produced for European customers through the Eurospike joint venture with Diehl Defence and Rheinmetall, and sold across more than 30 countries, Spike has become the de facto anti-tank guided missile of the European NATO landscape and a major export across Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific. The Ukraine war and the post-October 7 European procurement shift have accelerated orders that already ran at industry-leading pace.
The product family
Spike is not a single missile. It is a family of variants engineered for different launch platforms and engagement ranges:
- Spike-SR (Short Range) — disposable, shoulder-fired, 50 to 2,000 meter engagement, single-soldier weapon.
- Spike-MR (Medium Range) — reusable launcher, 2,500 meter engagement, infantry squad weapon.
- Spike-LR and LR2 (Long Range) — 4,000-5,500 meter engagement, vehicle-mounted or tripod-deployed.
- Spike-ER and ER2 (Extended Range) — 8,000-10,000 meter engagement, helicopter and naval platforms.
- Spike-NLOS (Non-Line-of-Sight) — 25 to 50 kilometer engagement, the standoff variant that operates as a precision strike weapon rather than a traditional anti-tank missile.
The Spike-NLOS variant is the most strategically distinctive. It is a stand-off precision weapon launched from helicopter, vehicle, or naval platform, capable of striking targets the launcher cannot directly see. It has been described in operational coverage as closer in role to a small cruise missile than a traditional anti-tank weapon. The IDF Apache helicopter integration is one of the more visible deployments.
The Eurospike joint venture
Eurospike GmbH is the Munich-based joint venture established to produce Spike variants for the European market. Rafael holds 40%, Diehl Defence holds 40%, and Rheinmetall holds 20%. Production lines in Germany manufacture Spike for European customers under license, which reduces both delivery times and political friction around Israeli-origin defense imports.
The Eurospike structure has been the principal vehicle behind Spike's European market penetration. Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Norway, Finland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all procured Spike through either Eurospike or direct Rafael contracts.
The customer list and the order book
Public reporting puts the Spike customer list above 30 countries. Major procurements include: India (the largest international customer, ongoing acquisitions across multiple variants), Singapore (long-standing customer), Australia (Spike-LR2 selected for the Boxer combat vehicle program), South Korea, Chile, Colombia, Peru, the Philippines, Japan (under evaluation as of recent reporting), and the major European customer list above.
Post-Ukraine, European procurement has accelerated sharply. Multiple NATO countries have ordered or expanded Spike orders since 2022 as part of the broader infantry-anti-tank rebuild that followed the war's first year. The Eurospike production base in Germany has expanded to meet the order flow.
Why Spike wins
Spike's technical advantages are well documented: fire-and-forget capability, fiber-optic guidance enabling man-in-the-loop or autonomous engagement, multi-platform compatibility, and a documented combat record that runs across multiple IDF operations and customer-country deployments. The commercial advantages are equally important: the Eurospike production model reduces European political friction, the multi-variant family lets Rafael offer the same brand across the entire infantry-and-platform requirement, and the customer-support architecture is built for sustained 20-to-30-year program lifecycles.
The competitive set — Javelin, MILAN, TOW, NLAW — does not match the variant range. Javelin is closer in capability to the Spike-LR. MILAN is older and being replaced across most NATO inventories. NLAW is a different category of weapon. The Spike family covers the entire engagement spectrum from shoulder-fired to standoff precision.
The takeaway
Spike is the most successful Israeli weapons export ever. More than 30 customer countries. Multi-decade order pipelines. A production architecture inside Germany that neutralizes the political-friction problem most Israeli defense exports face in European procurement. The Ukraine war accelerated existing demand. The post-October 7 European defense rebuild extended it. The single weapon family that explains the structural strength of the Israeli defense export economy is the Spike.
This profile is part of Olam's Defense pillar. See also: Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems.
