Artillery: News & Discussion

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chetak
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by chetak »

Prasad wrote:Manu pubby posted on twitter saying the first two guns are already here :)

First two M777 howitzers arrive in India
la.khan
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by la.khan »

jamwal wrote:There is not enough manufacturing capability, even if IA can absorb all these numbers. Setting up manufacturing plants and increasing capacity takes time.. But going by how things work here, we'll be lucky to have a total of 500 guns in 8 years,
Very true, agreed. I think OFB will handle manufacture of Dhanush & ATAGS, we will have difficulty in putting together the numbers. If assured of orders, private sector (Bharat Forge, Tatas, L&T, Mahindras, Reliance etc) can make these numbers happen but again can IA induct a 100 guns/year?

The last 30 years were so pathetic for Indian artillery modernization, 500 guns in 8 years is sure looking wonderful! Something is better than nothing :((
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Philip »

4/5 each month is not fast enough.We need at least 100-120 guns each year.The Mountain Strike Corps' requirements should also be increased by another 50+.Desi Bofors production must also be enhanced.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by JTull »

I'm a bit peeved at this celebratory mood on twitter by all defense bloggers about the first two M777s arriving and also some patronising headlines by news websites. Didn't see such jubilation for Dhanush or ATAGS. What can I say, I'm still just a desi khadi lover.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Rishi_Tri »

JTull wrote:I'm a bit peeved at this celebratory mood on twitter by all defense bloggers about the first two M777s arriving and also some patronising headlines by news websites. Didn't see such jubilation for Dhanush or ATAGS. What can I say, I'm still just a desi khadi lover.
Right On.

Another illustrious chapter was added to India's Glorious History of Imports. Worse some guys already calling the 125 to be assembled as Make in India.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Marten »

+1
Baba Kalyani or OFB are not glam enough. Titanium is harder than desi steel onlee.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by rohitvats »

....and I thought such nonsense was restricted to only LCA thread!

Completely off-topic - may be, M777 is actually being inducted and Dhanush is undergoing user trials from first batch of 3+3 guns? Though technically, it has been inducted because IA took them on its TOE.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Philip »

The firang cannon are being acquired becos they're lightweight,urgently req. in the mountains to paste the Chinese with,acquisition process took almost a decade. Surely some celebrations are in order! This modest arrival however represents the IA's arty acquisitions delayed by decades,finally started moving in the right direction. After all even the Bofors guns with which we pasted the Pigs at Kargil were friang ones . Desi Bofors an even greater festival to come.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by srai »

Philip wrote:4/5 each month is not fast enough.We need at least 100-120 guns each year.The Mountain Strike Corps' requirements should also be increased by another 50+.Desi Bofors production must also be enhanced.
I think fund crunch is coming. With reports of 90,000 new troops being added by the IA, I don't really see how they will have the money for capital acquisition at the rate you are proposing. Around 80% of their budget goes towards revenue expenditure (i.e. payroll etc), and this will increase with the addition of large numbers of new troops. Artillery gun (and all other new equipment) acquisition rate will be hampered.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by jamwal »

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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Singha »

other than titanium for weight it has nothing going for it vs bigger cats like the dhanush. everything is manual(large crew), no loading crane, no real salvo fire....another 3 legged cheetah.

dhanush/ATAGS put some real meat on the table and I hope we produce 1000s of each.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Marten »

Philip wrote:The firang cannon are being acquired becos they're lightweight,urgently req. in the mountains to paste the Chinese with,acquisition process took almost a decade. Surely some celebrations are in order! This modest arrival however represents the IA's arty acquisitions delayed by decades,finally started moving in the right direction. After all even the Bofors guns with which we pasted the Pigs at Kargil were friang ones . Desi Bofors an even greater festival to come.
The acquisition is not in question at all. Celebrations are obviously required regardless of whether or not one poses as the only true unofficial spokesman and defender of IA Arty.

Folks were talking of DDM and Twitter response being celebratory mostly for the imports and not ATAGS and other efforts etc. As far as acquisitions go, more the merrier, Imvho.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Gagan »

Can't wait for the 155mm 52 cal desi Guns to be inducted in large numbers. That will be the ultimate thing !
The M-777 is super expensive to boot !
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by jamwal »

Most "better" desi journalists like Jha were pretty happy for local guns. It's only the usual sold out dorks like Pandit who are making more noise now.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Marten »

Precisely what was being said, JJ...
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by ArjunPandit »

jamwal wrote:Most "better" desi journalists like Jha were pretty happy for local guns. It's only the usual sold out dorks like Pandit who are making more noise now.
Sjha IS working for country, and RP and MP(manu pabb) cabal works for $$$$$$$$$$$$
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by KrishnaK »

Two things re the m777 that I read in some article but can't find can't find again
1. Can be dismantled and transported by Mi17V - source Indian Army.
2. Has a Candian FCS
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Cybaru »

Once ATAGS orders are firmed up, it will push IA into a new world order altogether. I think excellent developments for the artillery branch! Didn't Rakesh promise Mithai here as well? :)
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Cybaru »

la.khan wrote: Sir, while I welcome induction of new hardware into IA, my pet peeve is these are inducted in piecemeal fashion, a 100 here and another 100 there.
Any number over zero is welcome, which has been the state for this branch of army for last twenty years :lol:
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by nam »

I think it is a misconception that no artillery was added. There were massive artillery duels in 2000-2003 timeframe. So how did the 300+ bofors survive even to this day?

We must have been importing Bofors parts and some of them must be produced by OFB. Moreover we must be inducting IFG and some Russian howitzer.

Ofcourse it helps when we go around telling everyone we haven't inducted any artillery.

We own one of the largest towed artillery inventory in the world, if not the largest.
We are now moving from "light" to "medium" i.e. 2000 Atags + Dhanush. 155MM !

We will be able to make "Stalingard" of Lahore & karachi sitting on our side of the border.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Gagan »

I am pretty sure that the Indian Army has also provided refuge to literally every artillery manufacturer in the world.
The Arty regiment is probabaly a virtual museum of several different types
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Khalsa »

^^^
@nam
Speaking from the perspective of the Regiment of the Artillery.

We did not add a new kind of Artillery system.

So what did happen
We added more IFGs as required.
We got rid of the 105 MM SPG (decommed)
We got rid of the Vijaynta Catapault (decommed)
We added Arjun Catapault
We upgraded Russian guns with 155 calibre barrels.
We got Prithvi (various iterations)
We got Pinaka
We got Prahaaar

What did not happen.
the number of Bofors available (%age) to fire slowly kept on dropping.
the number of Russian 130mm available (%age) to fire slowly kept on dropping because these were earmarked for Upgrade or replacement.
Even though it seems we did a lot, the 130 and 155 are the bread and butter and these needed to be brought upto numbers.

Indian Artillery (the tube artillery) is still in the 80s or 90s but about to make a quantum leap by 30 years or so.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Thakur_B »

^^ Arjun catapult was never added.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by ashishvikas »

You might also soon see prototypes of a 155mm/52 caliber mounted gun system developed by the Ordnance Factory Board.

https://twitter.com/SJha1618/status/867260783570206720
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by JayS »

Kalyani is developing Ultra light Hawitzer. GOI should throw weight behind this one so that we can have our own M777 replacement and that can be built in numbers for N-NE sector. Let this 145 nos M777 be an interim solution.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by rohiths »

Lesson from the artillery saga is that home made weapons transform us from third world to best in class in a very short period of time.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by ragupta »

If India encourages local Manufacturing, within few years we would be self sufficient in artillery and tank systems, In fact everything that IA needs can be procured domestically.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by chetak »

The story of how India did/could not obtain new artillery is far too simple to swallow as a mere unfortunate concatenation of circumstances. It looks like a deeply orchestrated and well-hatched conspiracy that played out over three decades to prevent us from purchasing these weapons. It just would not have been possible without the active connivance of a lot of people, a la the tatra truck scam.

Also, the Bofors ammo is very expensive and that by itself had to be imported because we do not make it here in India may be a part of the sinister tale.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Cosmo_R »

JayS wrote:Kalyani is developing Ultra light Hawitzer. GOI should throw weight behind this one so that we can have our own M777 replacement and that can be built in numbers for N-NE sector. Let this 145 nos M777 be an interim solution.
Can you keep us posted on this? Have always admired Kalyani. If they can pull off a M-777 , that would be remarkable.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by JayS »

Cosmo_R wrote:
JayS wrote:Kalyani is developing Ultra light Hawitzer. GOI should throw weight behind this one so that we can have our own M777 replacement and that can be built in numbers for N-NE sector. Let this 145 nos M777 be an interim solution.
Can you keep us posted on this? Have always admired Kalyani. If they can pull off a M-777 , that would be remarkable.
If I read something, I will post it here anyway. Its reported many times, also Baba Kalyani mentioned it in 2-3 interviews.

Sad that Kalyani's Bharat52 was shot down in its infancy itself (and Tata Power SED's gun as well). GOI should have supported such companies like Bharat Forge or L&T extensively. Why the **** they want to give freebies to Ambanis or Adanis..??

I too admire Baba Kalyani a lot. He is exactly the kind of guy who can forge a good Technology Company. We have much better chances of having decent MIC with such companies rather than Ambanis.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Vivek K »

Guptaji, you made a big statement! That is the crux of the whole saga. We can be self sufficient and produce world beating weapons. So why does that not happen? Who benefits form India's bias for imports? And who loses?
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Thakur_B »

Cosmo_R wrote:
JayS wrote:Kalyani is developing Ultra light Hawitzer. GOI should throw weight behind this one so that we can have our own M777 replacement and that can be built in numbers for N-NE sector. Let this 145 nos M777 be an interim solution.
Can you keep us posted on this? Have always admired Kalyani. If they can pull off a M-777 , that would be remarkable.
If I remember correctly, Desi ulh prototype is expected by july.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Rahul M »

OT : chetak ji I have a ques. for you in civi aviation thread.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by abhik »

M777 took a cool 10 years to come, in less than half that time we have the first prototypes of the ATAGS ready. If we started the development of an ULH instead of just putting out tenders we might have had our own in service already.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by Singha »

Way to support is even if atags is chosen as the sole 155/52 the production must be scaled up and farmed out to tata power, bharat forge anyone who has competency not just kept as a sinecure monopoly for ofb to trickle out.

There is no reason to give all such work to ofb.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by rohitvats »

JayS wrote: Sad that Kalyani's Bharat52 was shot down in its infancy itself (and Tata Power SED's gun as well). GOI should have supported such companies like Bharat Forge or L&T extensively. Why the **** they want to give freebies to Ambanis or Adanis..??
<SNIP>
You seem to forget a minor episode of GCF Jabalpur employees union threatening to go on strike if private sector was allowed to manufacture artillery systems.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by rohitvats »

abhik wrote:M777 took a cool 10 years to come, in less than half that time we have the first prototypes of the ATAGS ready. If we started the development of an ULH instead of just putting out tenders we might have had our own in service already.
Half that time was possible because someone like BF went and bought a whole artillery manufacturing factory with technical know-how and because TATA Power forged deep links with Denel. And OFB worked on blue-prints from Bofors.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by JayS »

rohitvats wrote:
JayS wrote: Sad that Kalyani's Bharat52 was shot down in its infancy itself (and Tata Power SED's gun as well). GOI should have supported such companies like Bharat Forge or L&T extensively. Why the **** they want to give freebies to Ambanis or Adanis..??
<SNIP>
You seem to forget a minor episode of GCF Jabalpur employees union threatening to go on strike if private sector was allowed to manufacture artillery systems.
I didn't say IA shot it down, Rohit. I mentioned GOI not supporting. I know IA even allowed to test these guns in their firing range but MoD babus shot down that attempt too.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by rohitvats »

^^^I didn't mention army at all. Simply that we've a convoluted system which works for its own benefit. Not the country.
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Re: Artillery Discussion Thread

Post by JayS »

rohitvats wrote:^^^I didn't mention army at all. Simply that we've a convoluted system which works for its own benefit. Not the country.
True. And the onus is squarely on the GOI to break the vicious cycle.
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