Indian Army's Russian Smerch rocket launchers facing hitches

Galaxy

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Indian Army's Russian Smerch rocket launchers facing hitches


New Delhi, Nov 2, (PTI) :

Army has detected problems in its Russian-origin Smerch multi-barrel rocket launchers (MBRL)and complained to Moscow about it.

There are problems in the barrels of some of these rocket launchers and we have told the Russians about the issues related to firing of the system, senior Army sources told PTI here.

The Smerch rocket launchers are the latest inductions of the Indian Army after a deal was signed for their procurement in December 2005 for more than Rs 2,600 crore.

The sources said the Russians will be visiting India to look into the issue and try to rectify the problems in the system.

The issue is understood to have come up for discussion during the Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation meeting between the Defence Ministers of the two countries earlier this month.

The system has had several defects in its launch vehicles, outlaying fire controls and data transmission, which led to delays in its operationalisation in the service, the sources said.

The Smerch long range rocket systems have a range of over 60 kms, almost three times the distance of the present Indian artillery rocket systems.

India had signed two deals in December 2005, and March 2007, with Russian firm Rosoboronexport for importing 42 of the MBRL systems along with launcher, transloader and command and control systems.

Smerch MBRL along with the Russian-origin Grad 122 mm rocket systems and indigenous Pinaka form the important part of the Indian Army's firepower.

Indian Army's Russian Smerch rocket launchers facing hitches
 

weg

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Smerch means Death in Polish, probably the same in Russian.
 

Damian

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Nope, Smerch in Russian means Tornado.
 

Damian

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Смерч = Smerch = Smiercz (in Polish) and means Tornado.
 

SHASH2K2

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The way Russian equipments are failing I seriously doubt war preparedness of Indian Army. unfortunately Russians still contribute to more than 50 % of our inventory .
 

Armand2REP

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What is the Russian contribution now? It was over 70% but it must be going down losing so many tenders.
 
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Everything from Russia has some problem, are the Russians rushing these things thru without checking everything??
 

SHASH2K2

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weak economy and weak industrial base has started to hurt Russians. I seriously doubt even T50 now.. It wont be what was promised. Luckily we were wise enough to get too many baskets to put our eggs into them.
 
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The Russians are in danger of losing their whole military industrial base they already lost a lot of the naval side,now buy ships from France. If Russians continue like this China will pull the rug out from under.
 

Armand2REP

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China has a ways to go to compete with Russia. They sell about the same as Ukraine and nearly 50% of their exports go to one nation, Pakistan.
 

nitesh

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It seems import lobby is rushing for earlier imports without even testing the equipments properly. Whereas local made products are made to run hops endlessly for testing. Until mindset of forces changes. There is no way situation can become better
 

jat

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China has a ways to go to compete with Russia. They sell about the same as Ukraine and nearly 50% of their exports go to one nation, Pakistan.
Actually the Chinese have only started entering into the same market as Russia and the Western/Nato countries. For a long time, China's market had been different, ie the poor nations that could not afford to buy expensive American, or Russian platforms or even train their soldiers properly. Either that or that certain nation does not have the option of buying Russian or American.
In certian area's China is hand in hand with Russia in R&D like India but the Russians keep that on a leesh even when it comes to India. The Chinese are certianly making great progress in R&D department, but its costing them a lot of money compared to other defense R&D establishments.
India OTOH will have to make due by offering value for a dollar in its products. But why bother. The vast majority of India's defence manufacturing capabilities are tailored towards the Indian military and foreign sales can only fatten pockets are not neccessary since prority of India's defence establishments is to serve the 3 arms of India's military.
 

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