Artillery Corps: News & Discussion

[Barath]

Yes, you & Ramana mentioned it. The additional info is nice, thanks.. That was not the question.

The question was whether in your opinion and Ramana's, whether there would be additional imports for ammo for precision guidance or for longer range. or for smart projectiles or other such capabilities.

If you think that the indian army will be happy with existing stock and increment of the shells and Indian r&d and no import will be considered, even for this scope

And I'm assuming the navy's desires are out of scope of this discussion.

Ie. I'm trying to figure the scope of the opinion/discussion. Excalibur was just an example.

--'
For separate discussion yes, your point about gun capability is noted (and you were likely simplifying on my account). Nevertheless, ammo also has a part to play, with longer range, achieved via drag reduction ,(longer, slimmer), base drag reduction (eg base bleed), or rocket or ramjet assistance , in addition to playing with charge, etc. And guidance and control with fins, laser guidance, shaped trajectory, degree of discrimination probably on someone's wish list, same round or not, same gun or not

[brar_w]

The Excalibur was acquired via a DCS so we do not know what the planned inventory is for the IA and whether all of that supply has been met or whether it is still ongoing. Beyond that, I don't think the IA wants to import any other systems. There is an indigenous PGK program that will likely provide additional capability in the future. Affordable accuracy is almost a precursor to long range artillery especially when you are looking at 50, 60 or 70 km shots. As far as long range artillery with things like Ramjet, those could be long term solutions but at the moment it is a university project not something that they have gone all in on. South Korea has a national program to develop a ramjet artillery round but it is more modest range targets (80 km which is about what non optimized hypervelocity rounds can get today so I don't understand why such a solution would be benificial at those ranges). NAMMO/Boeing have a round they are trying to pitch to the US Army against a 120'ish Km requirement. Again, not totally convinced that it is the best way forward given alternatives.

I haven't seen the modeling on how the guidance cost is impacted as you extend ranges beyond the 70-80 km range but that could be one bottlneck to extreme range artillery. You don't want to pay 2-3x the cost for accuracy at those ranges compared to what you pay on near precision (PGK) or precision rounds (like excalibur). Also the cost-benefit for an expeditionary force like the US is always different (often the logistical cost is more than the actual cost of the round so they can afford to pay more for fewer more accurate rounds that cut down on shots per target) so what the IA works out in terms of where it thinks is the sweet spot between range, accuracy and cost is going to be different.

[niran]

Not exactly correct, as the the 23 liter chamber is still utilised in various 52 cal SPH such as the K-9, or the PZH2000. NATO JBMOU complaint.

SPG cannot utilise 25 liter chamber, to overcome the recoil will need proper arty carriage or Vehicle so heavy it will need 2 engines to travel.

[Pratyush]

Not exactly correct, as the the 23 liter chamber is still utilised in various 52 cal SPH such as the K-9, or the PZH2000. NATO JBMOU complaint.

SPG cannot utilise 25 liter chamber, to overcome the recoil will need proper arty carriage or Vehicle so heavy it will need 2 engines to travel.

https://defense-update.com/20191127_long_range_artillery.html

The G6 listed in the report is an SPH with a gun having 25 liter chamber.

So it is possible to upgrade to 25 lt chamber with little effort.

[Karan M]

https://www.financialexpress.com/defenc ... y/1891392/

DRDO is undertaking a number of projects for the Indian Army – these include Development trials of Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS) which are completed
Development trials of Pinaka guided rocket including salvo firing and demonstration of range with pin-point accuracy has been conducted.

[ashishvikas]

Huge boost for Indian defence industry coming. A negative list of items banned from imports; includes artillery guns, certain types of ammunition; corpoporatisation of 15 OFB units; FDI in defence raised from 49 to 74 per cent; relaistic GSQRs; IPMTs and time-bound procurements

https://twitter.com/nitingokhale/status ... 19362?s=19

[Vivek K]

That would be excellent! But nothing happens without orders and advances. GOI needs to get off its butt and place orders!

[ramana]

Pratyush, The term little effort will kill the SPG. Because Army won't be happy till it's 25 liters and DRDO will take forget and DGQA trials will be even. onger
So be happy and get armed with 23 liters available

[ramana]

Bharat, Yes they want more Excalibur. It's very effective. Reduces logistics, gun wear, and destroys target. No near miss folly.

[ramana]

In the M777 what parts are titanium and what parts are steel?

Steel: Barrel, recoil, firing chamber and breech?

[Manish_P]

^ Please check the below mentioned pdf document which is available for download on google

Search term - 'ITA – Titanium 2005 M777A1 Howitzer Cost Reduction Efforts'

(Not an engineer, so i don't know how accurate or complete or valid (it is from 2005) it would be..)

[Rakesh]

https://twitter.com/Akash10j/status/126 ... 80803?s=20 ---> Talked to a L&T guy recently, according to him there's only one critical component that's being imported from South Korea. It makes sense because L&T being the vendor, would have to support the guns in the future with spares. This is also kind of confirmed here.

https://twitter.com/KSingh_1469/status/ ... 65666?s=20 ---> This is generally how these deals are structured. By the end of the X year delivery period close to 100% should be made from Indian raw materials in India. But what does this mean? L&T can build, while Samsung provides blueprints. What R&D capabilities have they accrued?

https://twitter.com/KSingh_1469/status/ ... 63686?s=20 ---> For the non-critical items I would not be surprised. And it depends how they define it - 80% is that by cost or volume? If it’s by volume then much of that will come just by sourcing high grade steel from Indian entities. It’s nothing really to be overly impressed by, now what?

[darshan]

Acquiring production engineering expertise and getting people ready is only helpful if the actual plan involved giving contracts to local designs. That's when the people that have worked on the production of K9 can be of any value.

[nam]

https://twitter.com/KSingh_1469/status/ ... 65666?s=20 ---> This is generally how these deals are structured. By the end of the X year delivery period close to 100% should be made from Indian raw materials in India. But what does this mean? L&T can build, while Samsung provides blueprints. What R&D capabilities have they accrued?

The design driver will be DRDO. The whole point is with K9 been built by L&T, DRDO doesn't need to create a SPH from scratch. DRDO will give the ATAGS gun spec and dimension, recoil pressure etc to L&T and ask them to modify a K9 for a test. If something cracks, L&T will forge a stronger part.

With no K9, DRDO has to give the spec and find partners to build the entire SPH. And guess who will be that partner? HVF Avadi..

BF & Tata have not sold ONE piece of towed artillery to IA or to anyone. How did they manage to build ATAGS?

It is not like an aircraft where you need to know all the design drivers. Land systems are the easier ones to localize.. if there is really a will to do it.