Kalyani Group artillery to be featured

KS

Bye bye DFI
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
8,005
Likes
5,758
Kalyani Group artillery to be featured


Army chief General V K Singh's leaked letter to defence minister A K Antony, which flagged the country's lack of defence preparedness, casts a shadow over Defexpo India 2012, which kicks off in New Delhi tomorrow. However, the silver linings in the four-day event would be the impressive presence of several Indian private companies and newcomers in developing complex weaponry, with capabilities the defence ministry (MoD) can no longer ignore.

Among the most visible would be the Pune-headquartered Kalyani Group, which would emphatically project its ambition to develop artillery systems for the Indian Army. With foreign artillery procurement stalled for two decades, Baba Kalyani — who has shaped his flagship company, Bharat Forge, into the world's largest forgings manufacturer — has committed the finance, the manpower and the strategic mind space he believes would make the Kalyani Group a full-spectrum developer of artillery systems.

Kalyani intends to start by building a 155 mm, 52-calibre towed howitzer, which the army desperately wants. Several years of user trials of foreign guns have only resulted in vendors being rejected, blacklisted, or withdrawn from the contest. Kalyani is now boldly offering an Indian alternative.
"I will offer to the Indian Army a fully developed artillery gun system, integrating all the command and control elements, before 2015," he asserts.

To this end, the Kalyani Group has imported from Austrian gun manufacturer Maschinenfabrik Liezen (MFL) a service version of its famous 155 mm, 45-calibre, autonomous gun system, which had impressed Indian gunners when they evaluated it in the mid-1980s (though they bought the Bofors gun instead).

The Kalyani Group has also bought, knocked down and transported to India an entire operational artillery gun factory from Swiss company RUAG. Instead of learning the ropes of manufacturing artillery from scratch, Kalyani's designers in Pune intend to absorb foreign technology, thereby leapfrogging an extended development process. Unlike many Indian private companies, Baba Kalyani is investing his own money into building capabilities. Given Bharat Forge's hardcore engineering pedigree, he is confident he has the solution.

Says Kalyani: "There are the DRDO ((Defence Research & Development Organisation), the OFB (Ordnance Factory Board) and other excellent organisations that have design talent and capability. What India lacks is the ability to convert designs into manufactured products. This is where the Kalyani Group comes in. Building an artillery gun system is largely about materials, forgings and manufacturing. We have in our group the capability to be a top-class manufacturer of precision products."

Kalyani Steel would provide the steel and metallurgy. The drives, engine, transmission, etc would be built by Automotive Axles Ltd, the Rs 2,000-crore Kalyani Group company and the largest manufacturer of axles in the region.

Alongside the engineering bravado, there is realism, too, about the Kalyani Group's inexperience in creating the sophisticated software that underpins the gun control, fire correction and command and control systems, about 50 per cent of the overall gun system.

"Our strategy is to collaborate with entities that already have capabilities in electronics and guidance. (For this) we are in constant dialogue with the DRDO and the MoD. But we are confident about the precision engineering needed for the mechanical parts of the gun," says Kalyani.

The only "missing link", as Kalyani puts it, is the reliance on the MoD for testing facilities. Guns under development must be periodically tested through live firing. In India, this can only be conducted in cooperation with the Army. The MoD, rattled by the repeated failures of artillery gun procurement programmes, has already initiated two projects in the public sector to develop an artillery gun. The OFB has been asked to construct two 155 mm, 39-calibre guns from the engineering drawings that came with the Bofors gun in the mid-1980s. The OFB would then try to upgrade these into longer-range 155 mm, 45-calibre guns.

Simultaneously, the MoD has sanctioned Rs 150 crore for the DRDO to develop a 155 mm, 52-calibre gun. The DRDO's Armament R&D Establishment (ARDE), Pune, would soon float a tender for an Indian industrial partner, in which the Kalyani Group intends to bid.

Such is the aggressiveness within the Group that it intends to develop its own gun on a parallel track, even if it becomes an industrial partner to the DRDO for the ARDE's gun. Rajinder Bhatia, who would head this project, says, "We are willing to compete against ourselves. On one track, we will work with the DRDO, funded by the government. On our own track, we will fund ourselves. Baba Kalyani is willing to commit Rs 100 crore for this."
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
Good luck this this Baba.

Hope he does better than Baba Ramdev!

Bharat Forge, of course, is a pacesetting company.
 

Kunal Biswas

Member of the Year 2011
Ambassador
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
31,122
Likes
41,042
I didn't know back in days IA was offered a 45cal against a 39cal..
 

bengalraider

DFI Technocrat
Ambassador
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
3,779
Likes
2,666
Country flag
530381_10150784154430775_506990774_12062608_320636885_n.jpg

Bharat Forge also had the Hawkeye Compact 105mm Truck mounted gun!Very useful in a mountain situations as the system is a very light and easily air transportable by helicopters like the MI-26/Chinook.

[video=youtube_share;qxhfbLt4Eno]http://youtu.be/qxhfbLt4Eno[/video]
 
Last edited:

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
3200 DF traverse means what?
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
Such is the aggressiveness within the Group that it intends to develop its own gun on a parallel track, even if it becomes an industrial partner to the DRDO for the ARDE's gun. Rajinder Bhatia, who would head this project, says, "We are willing to compete against ourselves. On one track, we will work with the DRDO, funded by the government. On our own track, we will fund ourselves. Baba Kalyani is willing to commit Rs 100 crore for this."

that should be thinking................ if you want to get the gun.
 

Neil

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
2,818
Likes
3,546
Country flag
View attachment 4771

Bharat Forge also had the Hawkeye Compact 105mm Truck mounted gun!Very useful in a mountain situations as the system is a very light and easily air transportable by helicopters like the MI-26/Chinook.
is the system comparable to the new ultra light howitzer we are planning to buy for our mountain corps on the NE front...??
 

bengalraider

DFI Technocrat
Ambassador
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
3,779
Likes
2,666
Country flag
is the system comparable to the new ultra light howitzer we are planning to buy for our mountain corps on the NE front...??
No the HAWKEYE is a 105mm gun, we are looking for a 155MM/39Cal for our ULGH , we have selected the M777 for the same which is a much larger gun with a range of upto 40km using Excalibur shells, also the M777 is a simple towed howitzer with a weight of 4218kg this is a light truck mounted SPG with a unit weight of only 1000kgs apart from the truck, the HAWKEYE has a maximum range of 11500mtrs.
The M777 are different beasts for different purposes, while the M777 is designed to give our forces maximum firepower at long range in the mountains the HAWKEYE provides a rapid shoot and scoot ability in the same space.
 

john70

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2011
Messages
708
Likes
1,019
Country flag
Bharat Forge is developing 155/52 caliber gun

Bharat Forge is developing 155/52 caliber gun

New Delhi: Bharat Forge, India's top forging and metallurgy firm has set itself a challenge to achieve. If they did, they will be India's first artillery gun manufacturers. Participating in the Defexpo India-2012, the company's Executive Director, Amit Kalyani told media persons that the indigenous gun will be ready for trials in the next 24 months.



Kalyani said, "We are aiming to make 155mm 52 caliber towed gun in Pune. The technology has been developed within the company with the help of outside experts of east European countries. Technology is with people not with the brand. If you bring right people, you can develop any technology. We are committed to the defence needs."

He said, "We are going through transformation path and we are engineering conglomerate with five verticals and defence is one of them."

Kalyani sought level playing field for the private Indian gun manufactures and said, "The gun is expected to be ready for trials in two years time. The company has requested the concerned army for facilities at its firing range. So far, the response has been very supportive from the Army and DRDO. We hope the gun, which we are developing, will fulfill all the requirements of the Army.

Speaking on the opportunity that Indian defence requirements are throwing to the industry, he said, "We are convinced that industry has role in this." The Bharat Forge has competence in forging and metallurgy which is back bone for many of the defence land systems. The core competence has been brought to the table by the company along with engineering skills to come up with totally in house solutions for defence needs.

Amit Kalyani told that, the company is involved in the defence business for around 30 years but the revenue generation from army supplies is around 200 crore which is peanuts for the $2 billion group. The company has invested Rs. 100 crores for the development to the 155/52 gun. The group's focus on the defence sector is on the artillery, ammunition, special vehicle and futuristic products.

Bharat Forge has been supplying ammunition shells to the army. Apart from that, the company manufactures barrels for 155mm 39 caliber guns. The company has also supplied around 30,000 wheels for T-72/90 tanks to the Indian Army. Also special alloy and titanium products for the armed forces are developed and supplied by the company.

The company is also looking for partners to develop and manufacture armoured vehicles. He admitted that the company will market the gun once developed to other countries. He said, "We would like to market the gun across the world but our heart is in India. There was a time when the western companies were not even willing to give us an appointment to meet but now the times have changed. Today representatives of many such countries are making beeline to partner with us.
 

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top