Artillery: News & Discussion

[P Chitkara]

6 years for 414 guns

[srai]

6 years for 414 guns

It is not just about production rates. Overall firm quantities ordered (114 + potential 300) and number of units that can be raised in a given year by the IA dictate the pace of production. Initially, the IA would need to build its support infrastructure and ammunition stockpile along with training for the new Dhunush guns. First year is set at 18 guns - enough for one IA artillery regiment (3 batteries each with 6 guns). Then two regiments plus reserves second year. Followed by 5 regiments per year for the next 4 years.

You will likely see similar production and induction rates for other 155mm/52 calibre guns in the near future. The whole 2700-3600 guns of 155mm/52 calibre replacement program will take close to two decade (if not longer) once winners are selected and production begins.

[Pratyush]

Or is the numbers to be built a function of the available budget for the specific item. So if the budget sypport x numbers then only those numbers will be built.

[P Chitkara]

My shock/surprise is as much around the production rate as the numbers (114 + 300 potential).

What I don't understand is, does the IA intend creating an inventory of n types complicating the logistics chain? When we need the artillery pieces well in excess of 414, what is the IA waiting for?

[mody]

OFB will most likely not get an order greater then 414 guns for Dhanush. Dhanush is an interim solution, till the latest 155/52 guns with all the bells and whistles, either from DRDO or Kalyani in partnership with DRDO comes about.
OFB will likely take atleast 7 years to complete the order for the 414 guns and after that might get follow on work to upgrade the existing Bofors guns to Dhanush standard and perhaps upgrade of the around 400 off M46 guns to 155mm/45 caliber standard.

JMT.

[Yagnasri]

Interim solution taking six years? I think it is the small quantity of the orders that is killing the local production. I think the need projected by IA is quite huge. But now place a big order if the system is to your liking and if it is not do not place any order. It is exactly what they are doing for Arjun and LCA. Small size orders and doing all kinds of complaints on delay and small levels of production. If they want something with all bells and whistles then test what private sector is offering and find out if they measure up or not. Then a large order can be place. Further even if OFB gun does not have all the things IA wants it is still needed as IA needs all the firepower it can get in the north side.

[Singha]

considering the fh77b towing trucks had to delicately move the piece around some corners of NH1 Srinagar to Kargil and such tricks not even attempted on the dreaded rohtang pass route(?), how ejatly is the longer 52cal barrel , heavier chassis going to affect the ops?

hope the development and user trials involve good amt of road trials as well.

[Pratyush]

For the Bharat Forge gun. In traveling position the gun is quite compact. (The gun barrel is stowed over the spade arms.)This issue of length comes up for guns that don't have a traveling position.

Such a Fh 77. Or the M 198.

The GHN 45 or its PRC derivatives or the G 5-45. Or the Singapore Fh 2000. Or the TIG 200. All have a traveling position.

However, no amount of traveling position will help when the road is MLC 10. Or the bridge is MLC 10.

I guess this is where the M 777 mated to a stallion truck comes into play. But the cost did it in.

[Victor]

It is because of the infra handicap that the army urgently needs an air-portable ULH with 25+ km range. If the roads in the Kargil sector are bad, those in the NE are practically unusable, largely by design. Hopefully Modi will be able to cut through the M777 mess while he is in the US but regardless, the Kalyani ULH should be top priority as it uses a technology that is not dependent on expensive metallurgy alone. We should be jumping all over the Garuda-105 to replace or supplement our 105mm mountain guns because they can be transported on and fired from a light truck and also be towed if needed. The current guns are towed only and then manually wrestled into prepared firing positions.

[Singha]

roads are needed. looking at ammo consumption, air supply is not feasible for large numbers of guns.

[koti]

Ammo should be much simpler to transport if the ULH's are in place.

[abhik]

Ammo should be much simpler to transport if the ULH's are in place.

How so?

[Pratyush]

The Kalyani light 155 MM should be the priority & not the M 777. Having said so. The infrastructure for the Border areas needs to be improved, without any delay.

Recently I made a trip to Nathula. My second in 3 years. The roads were in an atrocious state, beyond Gangtok.

[Eric Leiderman]

The logistics of using rotary winged aircraft for sustained artillary fire is not sustainable.
It has to be by road mechanised or mule.

[Singha]

and thats where the chinook lifting the M777 to isolated firebases to dominate large swathes of territory vision/tale falls well short of reality. a dog is only as good as its bite and frequency of biting.

in a fluid war situation there will be no scope to even fall back on using prepared positions and shells tucked inside caves and stockpiled over the summers.

[koti]

Maybe it is so.

But wont a 3 tonne piece be more easily towable then a 12 tonne piece? And to more remote locations then?

I am only trying to limit my view to 105mm. Wherever 105mm is being used now, the ULH can be used there too.
Is anyone suggesting this is not possible either?

The cost benefit is something I am not qualified to analyze.

[Kakkaji]

The reports of 'final' Dhanush trials are dated June 20, when the trials started. After that date, no reports of whether the trials were successful or not. So all this talk of induction and production rate is pure speculation a this time IMHO.

[Victor]

Wherever 105mm is being used now, the ULH can be used there too.

That's the point. The enemy is also expected to locate 105mm guns in inaccessible mountain areas by helicopter but not 155mm guns. Having the latter will give us a huge range and firepower advantage.

The mountain strike corps firing positions will be very fluid most of the time since they are by definition highly mobile. Their ULHs will not be required to maintain sustained fire for long from any given position, though they are capable of doing so. The idea is to shoot and scoot, ie. attack, not dig in.

[Pratyush]

We should be concerned with the accuracy of our fire. As opposed to the size of stone to be thrown at t enemy

[prabhug]

Can we not improve the accuracy and range of 105mm by upgrading the electronics and ammunition ?

[Pratyush]

The same argument will apply to the guided 155 as well. At the same time we will need to improve on our observation capability and the data integration ?? between the observer and the shooter.

So all things being equal, I would say that a guided 155 MM is better then a guided 105. However, you are quickly reaching the situation where a single guided shot will be more expensive when compared to 20 or 30 conventional round.

The user will have to decide, what is preferable in a given situation. Based on the available logistical bandwidth.

[Thakur_B]

6 years for 414 guns

It will take time to ramp up the production rate, to train the manpower, to set up raw material lines, all the while doing it on a sustainable basis both for the OFB and it's vendors.

First year (8 months & next 4 months): 6 guns and 12 guns @ 18 guns/year.
Second year: 36 guns @36 guns/year.
Third year: 60 guns @ 60 guns/year.

This is a pretty damn good production rate, which can be further scaled up. If everything goes right, the line might be converted into ATAGS manufacturing line by the 5th or 6th year.

The production line being set up by OFB is top notch, and good to go even for 52 caliber guns. The radial forging unit in the manufacturing line set up by OFB allows forging of one 45 calibre hollow barrel every hour.

The reports of 'final' Dhanush trials are dated June 20, when the trials started. After that date, no reports of whether the trials were successful or not. So all this talk of induction and production rate is pure speculation a this time IMHO.

As per Saurav Jha, Summer trials have been a success. The formal orders are expected in the month of October.

[P Chitkara]

This is a pretty damn good production rate, which can be further scaled up..

Since you seem to have access to some data points, please enlighten me in understanding, if say, IA placed an order of 1000 guns, will the OFB able to scale up and finish off the run in say, 10 years? (@100 guns/year)

[Thakur_B]

This is a pretty damn good production rate, which can be further scaled up..

Since you seem to have access to some data points, please enlighten me in understanding, if say, IA placed an order of 1000 guns, will the OFB able to scale up and finish off the run in say, 10 years? (@100 guns/year)

Making any predictions with regards to OFB is an exercise in futility , although OFB seems to be gearing up to meet large production rates for artillery guns, but whatever the production rate, IA will be facing a net artillery deficit for the next decade and half to meet it's requirement of 3000 artillery guns to arm 200 regiments. Today the Army will take anything over the current status of 200 working Bofors guns. It's a good thing that ARDE has brought L&T, Tata, Bharat Forge etc on board for the ATAGS project. Hopefully we will see 2-3 production lines from 2-3 organisations for ATAGS ( ie apart from M-46 upgrades, wheeled, tracked and ultra light howitzer).

[dinesh_kimar]

If there was bad news on Dhanush, we would have heard by now. Assuming all is well.

Rant start........APU import is bottleneck, time to ditch and make a simple FAT hauled avatar. IA generals should be looking at bettering the M-46, which does most of the heavy lifting ......rant end.

My view of what a frontline commander really wants ("Necessary" v/s "Nice to have") is the following:
> 155 mm piece with life of 250-300 rounds before barrel change
> Fire all NATO shells
> min. range of 25 km

Gurus can pls educate all of us if my assumptions are wrong.

[member_26622]

^ Importing APU is a bummer -> The engine capacity and HP are well within what is made in India by M&M, TATA, and a host of other mnfr. In fact, BOFORS APU is seriously outdated engine, like paying top $$$ for a PAL Fiat!

About production ramp-up >> the initial delay 'might' be caused by lack of high speed forging/machining facilities. These white elephant machines (which make the ground shake-impressive) take time to import, set-up and tune. That said 3 years is a long time indeed > In today's times a year is sufficient unless we are starting from proposal request stage for capital equipment acquisition.

This is where Bharat forge and likes will be able to do a better job as they have 'experience' from serving private sector while OFB will be learning to crawl-walk (the last major capital acquisition was likely pre-dates Bofors times). The issue is mainly about concentrating technical prowess rather than splintering it across so many facilities. Concentration of skills in to one organization will lead to focus and sustained development over longer time...

[Pratyush]

Perhaps the OFB was not confident of using the available power plants available at home for some reason. So they decided to import.

PS: I am assuming that the APU needs to be connected to a gear box in order to move the gun with the gun operating autonomously. Also the APU needs to power the on board shell handling crane and the electronics all at the same time.

[sivab]

Saurav Jha @SJha1618 · 8m 8 minutes ago
#MOD2014 update: OFB Gun ‘Dhanush’ was positioned
in January, 2014 for trials by the User. The trials have been successfully completed.

Saurav Jha @SJha1618 · 11m 11 minutes ago
#MOD2014 update: the indent for electronically upgraded 155 mm Guns has been placed on the Ordnance Factory Board.

[Shrinivasan]

Saurav Jha @SJha1618 · 8m 8 minutes ago
#MOD2014 update: OFB Gun ‘Dhanush’ was positioned
in January, 2014 for trials by the User. The trials have been successfully completed.

Saurav Jha @SJha1618 · 11m 11 minutes ago
#MOD2014 update: the indent for electronically upgraded 155 mm Guns has been placed on the Ordnance Factory Board.

How many Guns? This is the desi 45 Cal Howitzer based on the Bofors drawings of Yore, correct?

[Singha]

what we need to fix the TSP is loads and loads of cheaply made BM21 rocket launchers. police should round up all the illegal gun makers in UP-Bihar belt and give them a simple option - jailtime or start making rockets and launchers to specs provided by OFB with final QA done by regd pvt vendors like tata/mm/lt.
that way our desi katta/kamanchi cottage industry can be given legal work, jobs created, technology improved and put to work in constructive mode.

[kmkraoind]

Singhaji 1+. Its time to use metallurgical skills of Ganga doab. They may not have fancy degrees, but their skills are very good. Its time to harp those skills for betterment of India. Its remarkable that these follows have maintained metallurgical juggad in their blood. Imagine, if proper training and/or motivation is given, they can create breakthrough weapons like V2 rockets or AK-47s for Bharath. I wish GoI starts giving small arms manufacturing completely to private sector, so that these talents can be harnessed.

[srin]

With all focus on howitzers, we rarely hear about the mortars. And mortars are extremely effective in the mountains. Are we procuring 120mm mortars and mortar carriers ? Due to low barrel pressure, guided munitions are far more feasible to develop locally.

[Singha]

Coimbatore-Salem-Trichy is another cluster with a ancient metal working and machine tools tradition as we still see auto parts, machine tools, looms being there today. I am sure with proper inputs we can find SME companies good enough to manufacture defence items there.
in the past, police have found some of these workshops making crude but deadly rockets for naxals!
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/a ... ump/25879/

we should be producing mountains of high-use and cheap kit like BM21 using our huge population and distributed production bases like the southern cluster above, kolkata, aligarh-agra-moradabad-meerut.....all the way to begusarai and jehanabad type areas in bihar.

[Yagnasri]

With all focus on howitzers, we rarely hear about the mortars. And mortars are extremely effective in the mountains. Are we procuring 120mm mortars and mortar carriers ? Due to low barrel pressure, guided munitions are far more feasible to develop locally.

Pakis are using 120mm Mortars in the borders even today to shell our villages. I have not read anything about mortars being purchased etc. May be OFB is doing this job and as there is not much malai no Prestitute has shown any interest in that news.

[Pratyush]

Then one must make sure that the highest bidder is the State?

By making him produce for it.

[Singha]

as I said, give them an option (a) extended jailtime (b) join the mainstream.
RFID collar them and out them on a web dashboard somewhere

[deejay]

^^^ The cow belt desi katta qc isn't great. Plus, these gun runners aren't going to become part of our system ever. They have left the civilized fold for good.

[Yagnasri]

^^^ The cow belt desi katta qc isn't great. Plus, these gun runners aren't going to become part of our system ever. They have left the civilized fold for good.

Then we need to bring them back to the fold sir. If not for this work then for something else. May be things like Auto parts. GOI and GOUP failed till now means that they have to try at least now.

[Singha]

bangalore alone has dozens of high quality plastics, textile, pharma, chemical, machine parts/tools kind of cos.

other than govt run outfits, I am not very aware of the pvt sector producing these kinds of things in gangetic belt. when we look at tag of most manufactured items its usually Guj, MH, or south india or NCR.

so thats around 200 mil people at a very low level of industrialization compared to even indian level.

there does not seem to be even a single car or truck factory in UP or Bihar? this head end acts as the sink for 100s of small parts makers.

west bengal ofcourse has the redoubtable hindustan motors to keep alive the flame .. a state that was the political, educational, intellectual and industrial capital of india during the Raj.

[member_28108]

bangalore alone has dozens of high quality plastics, textile, pharma, chemical, machine parts/tools kind of cos.

other than govt run outfits, I am not very aware of the pvt sector producing these kinds of things in gangetic belt. when we look at tag of most manufactured items its usually Guj, MH, or south india or NCR.

so thats around 200 mil people at a very low level of industrialization compared to even indian level.

there does not seem to be even a single car or truck factory in UP or Bihar? this head end acts as the sink for 100s of small parts makers.

west bengal ofcourse has the redoubtable hindustan motors to keep alive the flame .. a state that was the political, educational, intellectual and industrial capital of india during the Raj.

You do know what happened to Tata Motors salesroom during Misa Yadav's marriage.Tata motors had to close shop