Army ready to induct Howitzer guns to strengthen artillery arm
11 March 2013 1:21 AM GMT
After two decades of severe drought for the artillery arm of the Indian Army, when it issued three request for proposals (RFP), with each time the key foreign respondents getting charged for paying bribes and thus getting blacklisted, suddenly the guns are raining from indigenous sources.
The Army is backing the Ordnance Factory Board’s (OFB) Howitzer gun of 155 mm, 45 calibre – a spin-off of the 1980s Bofors gun. It has already had its ‘barrel proving’ tests at the Balasore test range in December, last year and ‘developmental firing’ in the first week of February, this year.
Two prototypes have been developed by the OFB. The Army is waiting for user trials to be held in the summer and winter months of this year. Its sources say that the gun has met their ‘preliminary staff qualitative requirements’ (PSQRs) with a range of 38 kilometres. The gun will also have a high degree of indigenisation with the spares being totally home-grown and ‘in-house maintenance.’
Then there is the talk of a Tata gun of 155 mm, 52 calibre that was unveiled at a.n exposition a few months ago in New Delhi. However, this has triggered a ‘whisper campaign’ against the gun having its barrel design belonging to the black-listed South African manufacturer, Denel.
Sources say if that was the case, the gun will automatically get barred from the user trials held in response to an ‘open tender.’ Â
Of course, as Millennium Post reported a few days ago that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is developing a versatile gun that would match the specifications last RFP of the army in three years, while a more advanced gun would take five to seven years.
Having said that, the army takes a strong objection to the fact that in the late-1990s when for the first time the DRDO had mooted the proposal for an indigenous Howitzer, it had not showed any interest. Army sources now claim that there was no occasion when they came in the way of development for an indigenous gun.
It held that the earlier the gun was to be mounted on cannibalised Bofors chassis, in 2006, the Defence Acquisition Committee (DAC) had suggested that it be mounted on an Arjun tank chassis. The principle the DAC had laid down was ‘buy and integrate.’
And in 2008, the DAC had directed that the army could buy the gun globally. Thus the saga of the Indian Army’s Howitzer procurement goes on.
The Army is backing the Ordnance Factory Board’s (OFB) Howitzer gun of 155 mm, 45 calibre – a spin-off of the 1980s Bofors gun. It has already had its ‘barrel proving’ tests at the Balasore test range in December, last year and ‘developmental firing’ in the first week of February, this year.
Two prototypes have been developed by the OFB. The Army is waiting for user trials to be held in the summer and winter months of this year. Its sources say that the gun has met their ‘preliminary staff qualitative requirements’ (PSQRs) with a range of 38 kilometres. The gun will also have a high degree of indigenisation with the spares being totally home-grown and ‘in-house maintenance.’
Then there is the talk of a Tata gun of 155 mm, 52 calibre that was unveiled at a.n exposition a few months ago in New Delhi. However, this has triggered a ‘whisper campaign’ against the gun having its barrel design belonging to the black-listed South African manufacturer, Denel.
Sources say if that was the case, the gun will automatically get barred from the user trials held in response to an ‘open tender.’ Â
Of course, as Millennium Post reported a few days ago that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is developing a versatile gun that would match the specifications last RFP of the army in three years, while a more advanced gun would take five to seven years.
Having said that, the army takes a strong objection to the fact that in the late-1990s when for the first time the DRDO had mooted the proposal for an indigenous Howitzer, it had not showed any interest. Army sources now claim that there was no occasion when they came in the way of development for an indigenous gun.
It held that the earlier the gun was to be mounted on cannibalised Bofors chassis, in 2006, the Defence Acquisition Committee (DAC) had suggested that it be mounted on an Arjun tank chassis. The principle the DAC had laid down was ‘buy and integrate.’
And in 2008, the DAC had directed that the army could buy the gun globally. Thus the saga of the Indian Army’s Howitzer procurement goes on.
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