Iron Sting

Israel's 120 mm precision-guided mortar munition — a drop-in, dual-mode (GPS/laser) round that turns standard smoothbore tubes into room-level urban strike assets, combat-proven since October 2023 in Gaza and Lebanon.

Overview

The Iron Sting (Hebrew: עוקץ פלדה, Oketz Plada) is a 120 mm precision-guided mortar munition (PGMM) developed by Elbit Systems. It is designed as a plug-and-play replacement for any standard 120 mm smoothbore mortar, giving infantry and special-operations teams the ability to deliver a single round with a circular error probable (CEP) below 10 metres inside dense urban terrain — without modifying the tube, fire-control system, or crew procedures. Guided by a dual-mode GPS/semi-active laser seeker, and equipped with a multi-option fragmentation/blast warhead, the Iron Sting has been in large-scale Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) service since mid-2024, following a series of small-batch fielding trials and a combat debut in the Gaza war.

Development

Elbit began work on a 120 mm guided munition in the early 2010s after absorbing the land-ammunition line of former state-owned IMI Systems.Wikipedia A protracted qualification campaign culminated in March 2021 with a successful series of test firings that formally closed the development phase. The Israeli Ministry of Defense procured initial batches for reconnaissance platoons in 2021–2022, inserting the weapon into the IDF’s mortar battalions as an operational trial. The munition’s decisive moment came on 22 October 2023, when the IDF announced its first combat use in both Gaza and southern Lebanon, just two weeks after the 7 October Hamas attack. That battlefield validation triggered a large-scale contract in July 2024: the Director-General of the Israel MoD signed an order for Iron Sting worth approximately $190 million (Elbit announcement) or >$220 million including VAT (MoD announcement), representing the first mass-production procurement for the system.Elbit press release Breaking Defense

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