Indian Army Artillery

finally. autonomous research institutes should formed or should be converted into. the research should be done to make something new. their manufacturing is dependent upon the requirement of army and other forces and not to forget the babus desire.

Great news! date of introduction: 2025...

as they are having the blue prints of bofors guns they coud have produce a gun in lines of it...not a xerox copy but an improved one

like the air chief said...."beg borrow or steal" lets get moving....

glad to hear the news about the developments for the arty!

Good they are making guns, but I hope this does not come in the way of urgently acquiring these guns. India has bought so many weapons systems since 1987 and expensive ones too but the damn curse of Bofors does not allow us to buy arty.

Good news for DRDO, I expect the guns to be succesfull.

Chinese weapon is cheap but quality is ok, but these stuff are special, cheap and good, why don't come to Chinese. save a lot of money and time.

here comes the Chinese sales man ......

satish007 said:

Chinese weapon is cheap but quality is ok, but these stuff are special, cheap and good, why don't come to Chinese. save a lot of money and time.

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Actually this artillery has a good chance of being placed along Indo-Tibetan border and also the artillery fire will most probably be directed towards the Chinese.
That's why I guess Indians wouldn't go for Chinese artillery for one amongst the many other reasons.

Question to learned folks.

If we see the arty saga, it is becoming an unending story. If we keep aside our faults for time being (like political leadership's inept handling, corruption and all). Does these guns actually meet our requirements? I mean apart for light guns (which we are trying to purchase from US), all others will be deployed in varying climates and terrains. So IA requirements must be quite stringent, which I think no vendor is able to meet fully, hence this continuous trials and corruption saga re appearing. Otherwise, if some body is meeting the criteria fully, then there is no reason for them to bribe.

The studies shows that in today warfare 155mm shell of 52cal gun can be devastating to any type of targets, Further its the only Heavy cannon can be portable on existing vehicles wheeled and tracked, Other Big caliber longer Barrel guns like 203mm types are not very mobile also the shells are too heavy causing low firing rate, 155mm blast radius is more also due to longer 52cal barrel its muzzle velocity is more hence the range and power..

In kargil 155mm shell out-preform other caliber shells in direct and in direct fire..






Also due to longer ranges these arty pieces can be deployed far back from FBs, Yet they can provide fire support when needed..
And can be very helpful as counter battery against enemy arty, For example if enemy had 122mm light guns which have ranges of 18-21kms, fall directly in ranges of 155mm/45/52cal guns, But 122mm cannot engage them..

Didn't DRDO came with an idea of 185 mm shells in 1990's (correct me if I am wrong here).

nitesh said:

Didn't DRDO came with an idea of 185 mm shells in 1990's (correct me if I am wrong here).

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Yes, as per record, But these guns are massive, also the shells are heavy to reload causing low rate of fire, despite bigger cal its range is no more than 30kms..

Examples:

M107 175 mm self-propelled gun

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M110 203mm gun

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2S7 Pion Self-propelled gun howitzer 203mm

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IA needed a caliber porable via wheel also tracked and towed yet powerful and have longer ranges, 155mm is the solution..

Kunal there is the problem, first IA didn't given any requirement, then DRDO built something, which might not be gold plated. They rejected it, and never suggested any way to improve. If they could have shown some thinking, the situation might have been much better.

This whole saga seems to be going towards IA not getting anything at all. Pinaka, Smerch are the ones which are adding massive firepower. But alas nothing seems to be moving towards getting guns

The IA need to speeden things up. Both IN and IAF are modernizing at fast speeds, but IA is still to make its share of purchases. The artillery contract should be made ASAP

nitesh said:

Kunal there is the problem, first IA didn't given any requirement, then DRDO built something, which might not be gold plated. They rejected it, and never suggested any way to improve. If they could have shown some thinking, the situation might have been much better.

This whole saga seems to be going towards IA not getting anything at all. Pinaka, Smerch are the ones which are adding massive firepower. But alas nothing seems to be moving towards getting guns

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Their is a problem indeed..
Their is lack of coordination between customer and shopkeeper, Their are parts wrong with both sides..


IA know what it needs, But their is a part in Army question abt the use of arty on the first place, the stupid argument is why need arty if Air-Power is there ?, People like these waste other energy more like official trolls..

Though, Now Army gave the specification and work in progress..

here it goes, one more challenge

Metallurgy of the Bofors gun a mystery:OFB ,hits Indian re-make | idrw.org

the metallurgy of the gun, especially its breech though which the ammunition is fired, is a mystery.

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Its not so serious as Media says they get the same breech from Its 155mm/45cal kit..

If cannot copy the Bae deign breech better to do from some one else..

Kunal Biswas said:

Its not so serious as Media says they get the same breech from Its 155mm/45cal kit..

If cannot copy the Bae deign breech better to do from some one else..

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Kunal, this is my gut feeling that finally this gun saga is going to come to an end, and IA will have an home grown product no foreign one will make the cut in medium term. May be we will see some short term purchase like ULH, but with our own Titanium plant coming online that is also a one time order it seems