Artillery: News & Discussion

[shaun]

shaun et al can we have a list of standard PPE used in NATO and FSU countries in artillery troops.

Pretty exhaustive eh.. .!!!...NATO have different armies with various equipment , apart from what Nirav ji have told , i will surely dig in to it.

Please id the below image and whether its still in use.

[JayS]

Re using conservative SOP for trials:

Folks lets not forget that Dhanush has been through all the pre and post design freeze trials. Dhanush is practically inducted now. Yes on paper status may not be so, but if the gun was not "proven", I highly doubt IA would have moved ahead with "user exploitation". These recent trials are part of "user exploitation" which by definition means the user will use it in a way the gun is supposed to be used in daily operation to see how it works and to develop SOPs. And in daily ops there are 4-5 men always very near to the gun i.e. in the danger zone. Clearly the particular flaw is seen only in a special situation (can't say which since we do not know the test particulars). If it was a systematic design issue, it would have shown up previously under the prototype trials.

Lets assume that the particular issue crops up only under high rate of firing and after certain rounds are fired in continuation (like a gun would fire in an intense war). Had IA opted for a conservative SOP where the gun crew would clear the danger zone every time and move away say 50mtrs after loading every round, would the gun ever achieve the kind of fire rate that would have triggered the failure..? of coarse not, because every loading and firing would take more time now. If not in these trials, it would have cropped up in normal operations or some exercise. The purpose of the 'user exploitation' trials is precisely to push he gun to its intended envelop limits under the regular working environment and see if its performing flawlessly in certified operational envelop. Thus the arguments that the IA crew should have opted for more precautionary approach of gun firing is valid for such trials. For prototype testing its a different matter.

Also regarding the use of good ammunition - I suppose while this is a valid point for prototype testing, again IMO, for user trials this is not a valid argument. Because clearly there is a flaw somewhere in the system - in logistics of the ammunition and how its stored/used up, or with the ammunition itself i.e. failure within certified shelf-life, or with the gun operating SOP. If it wasn't for this instance it would crop up somewhere else. Rather IA should focus on finding out the flaw and removing it. Because Dhanush would be firing older ammo in real life all the time. These trials are there to precisely test such real life scenarios. In user exploitation trials there is a better chance to catch such flaws than under normal operations.

I hope OFB can come up with design mod to remove this issue. In case its not possible for some reason, I think IA will come up with some SOP where the issue will be tried to deal with, may be prescribing operating limits such as max number or rounds fired with certain rate or max rate of fire for certain number of rounds, how much time to allow cooling of barrel so on and so forth. That's how it should be IMO.


Deejay/AK saar,

Apologies. Clearly we need to be more sensitized about the harsh working environments that our soldiers have to endure. But let me state it that this is not out of sheer ignorance or carelessness for soldiers' well beings. I was the one who posted about these instances here first. The way tweets came and the articles later, they implied that there were no major injuries or casualties. That's the reason why perhaps the aam abduls like me failed to think about the possibility of injuries. Its perplexing to me why no one in media reported the injuries. Or may be IA did not release the details..? I don't know. But I can assure this was definitely not out of sheer ignorance or carelessness. Yes, may be lack of knowledge. We need to improve on that. Hope we will, given inputs are coming from folks like you who have first-hand experience from the field.

Re supplying proper safety gears for IA gunner - I think we lack severely in this one. I remember to have read a report saying that majority of Gunners suffer acute hearing loss of various degrees and some of them go nearly deaf. This issue is very serious and IA/GOI should think/do more on how to reduce the damage caused due to extended exposure to loud bangs. I don't know of any DRDO study or product directed in this direction. May be they have one, I am not aware of. If they don't DRDO/CSIR should be directed do undertake one.

[Jaeger]

Please id the below image and whether its still in use.

I think it's a 25-pounder or possibly a Yugoslav 76mm Mountain Howitzer.

[Gyan]

There are two facts of every story:-

Barrel

For instance, INSAS LMG barrel had always been problematic and production was stopped around 2002 and after solving the problem, LMG production was restarted around 2012.

Fake problems

INSAS carbine was criticized/never inducted for not being able to fire INSAS INDIAN ROUND as there was lot of flash, sound and recoil. But the issue was with the design of propellant as it was "slower" burning; the requirement to fire special Indian rounds has been dropped for proposed import of Carbines (as the requirement to fire Indian round through short barrel was physically impossible). So why did INSAS carbine faced vilification for so long?

Conclusion

There is a huge lobby against Dhanush, lets see what happens.

[shaun]

I think it's a 25-pounder or possibly a Yugoslav 76mm Mountain Howitzer.

Must be 25 - Pounder but is it still in use.

[ks_sachin]

[

There is a huge lobby against Dhanush, lets see what happens.

What planet do you inhabit? Have you even read what has been penned in the preceding posts?

11 men have been seriously injured testing a gun being inducted and you make these asinine statements!

[suryag]

Gyan ji is flame baiting here

[Gyan]

Deleted

[abhik]

the atags will be perhaps the first army howitzer in world with a 25 liter chamber unless the pzh2000 and denel G6 has it.
naval cannons however have been 55cal for a while incl all the USN ships.

we got to be careful about considering every aspect of this on the atags.

IIRC ATAGS has 27 liter chamber.

[ramana]

shaun et al can we have a list of standard PPE used in NATO and FSU countries in artillery troops.

Pretty exhaustive eh.. .!!!...NATO have different armies with various equipment , apart from what Nirav ji have told , i will surely dig in to it.

Please id the below image and whether its still in use.

From Sanjay

On the artillery thread - could you educate posters that the gun most recently posted was a 75/24 pack howitzer that was used in the direct fire role during Kargil.

[Singha]

daish sp cannon in vicinity of DEZ..looking at the long string used to trigger it, the piece is in shaky state so taking no chances which direction it will fire - front or back. they smear mud and sand on vehicles to hide from air recon.



another type of daish piece - looks like a bmp cannon? on a more sturdy tipper truck whose flatbed is very strong.

[abhik]

^^^
57mm AA gun I think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZP_S-60

[ramana]

Can anyone share the shrapnel (airburst) radius? Unnamed sources claim 100m for 155. Is this correct?

Marten, Excellent question.

When the shell bursts most of the fragments will be from the cylindrical portion. The nose tip and the base would come off as one piece due to their stiffness.
There is a Canadian artillery presentation of the lethality of the shell fragments as function of distance will try to locate. Meantime you can Google too! Use key words: shell fragments super quick and 155 mm.

Airburst shells are different as they have small spherical pellets held together in wax or epoxy. US calls them beehive from the buzz of the pellets whizzing by. These have a proximity fuze and bursting charge along the middle.

In Angola, the South Africans found most Western ordnance developed for fighting in Europe is useless as the shell fragments are too large and hence lose velocity. So they came up with these pellet loaded shells and even 250 kg bombs.
SOP was one regular shell with delay fuze to burst a shelter followed by a pellet shell.


Google For
The Last Cold War Battle: Angola"

[ramana]

^ Side slap can cause a shell to go off if the fuze is armed and is designed to go off on impact (be it head on or grazing impact); of course all depends on how violent the side slap is i.w what is impulse which the shell experiences when decelerating within the barrel due to the side slap, however in this case side slap was not the only event that occurred as per reports shell did hit the muzzle break so if the impact was much closer to a head on impact shell would go off.

I am still studying accounts from WWII onwards and will report back.
Side-slap could result in loads up to 40,000 gs lateral.

In the barrel it is accelerating!!!

There is detonation initiation chain from the nose area which occurs only if the fuze is activated.
The side-slap acceleration could be enough to set off the explosives from the shock.
If so the broken nose would be found in debris and not initiated.

That's why all those questions.

[ramana]

Those truck mounted guns don't have stiffness and hence accuracy could be an issue.

[Lisa]

Can anyone share the shrapnel (airburst) radius? Unnamed sources claim 100m for 155. Is this correct?

Marten, Excellent question.

When the shell bursts most of the fragments will be from the cylindrical portion. The nose tip and the base would come off as one piece due to their stiffness.
There is a Canadian artillery presentation of the lethality of the shell fragments as function of distance will try to locate. Meantime you can Google too! Use key words: shell fragments super quick and 155 mm.

Airburst shells are different as they have small spherical pellets held together in wax or epoxy. US calls them beehive from the buzz of the pellets whizzing by. These have a proximity fuze and bursting charge along the middle.

In Angola, the South Africans found most Western ordnance developed for fighting in Europe is useless as the shell fragments are too large and hence lose velocity. So they came up with these pellet loaded shells and even 250 kg bombs.
SOP was one regular shell with delay fuze to burst a shelter followed by a pellet shell.

Google For
The Last Cold War Battle: Angola"

I may be wrong but I always thought Beehive referred to fléchette rounds, eg,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_a ... nnel_round

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette

[ramana]

Everyone uses their own jargon. Essentially it's a nail bomb.

[Singha]

Those truck mounted guns don't have stiffness and hence accuracy could be an issue.

another iran-iraq-syria shia militia thing - the so called elephant rocket. a low grade propellant & range but a heavy charge




mlrs propage gas launcher

[ramana]

These are like Mughal cannons.

Thankfully IA guns are much superior.

Anyone know who makes the OFB shells? Which factory?

Manish_P

Not only did the OFBs fail to produce critical ammunition for the Indian Army, but produced poor quality ammunition, the CAG has observed.
Of the ammunition found to be faulty, the majority were 81 mm and 155 mm ammunition, the CAG observes. The 81 mm ammunition that the CAG mentions are mortars which are used respond to ceasefire violations by Pakistan. The 155 mm ammunitions are artillery shells - those used by the Bofor's Field Guns. These two alone accounted for about 59 per cent of ammunition returned.

The CAG report says 81mm and 155mm shells (~50% of the returns) were returned for cause by the IA to the OFB. Do we know what was the defects that were found?

[chetak]

^ Side slap can cause a shell to go off if the fuze is armed and is designed to go off on impact (be it head on or grazing impact); of course all depends on how violent the side slap is i.w what is impulse which the shell experiences when decelerating within the barrel due to the side slap, however in this case side slap was not the only event that occurred as per reports shell did hit the muzzle break so if the impact was much closer to a head on impact shell would go off.

I am still studying accounts from WWII onwards and will report back.
Side-slap could result in loads up to 40,000 gs lateral.

In the barrel it is accelerating!!!

There is detonation initiation chain from the nose area which occurs only if the fuze is activated.
The side-slap acceleration could be enough to set off the explosives from the shock.
If so the broken nose would be found in debris and not initiated.

That's why all those questions.

detonation may not always be fuze initiated, especially when it happens within the barrel.

if the ammo being fired was around 12 odd years old and the barrel was very hot there is a possibility that a phenomenon called "cook off" which may have caused the explosion without the involvement of the fuze.

The behaviour of such older ammo can be unpredictable because of age and environment related changes in the propellant.

sometimes, when guns jam and they have to be cleared, on occasion the round blows up while it is being extricated/cleared. If the armourer isn't careful, while clearing the cooking round, serious injuries to fingers/hand may result.

A detailed examination of the damaged barrel by a good metallurgist will reveal grain structure details which will help him conclude the possible cause(s) of the incident. Thereafter, the guys who made the ammo as well as the guys who made the barrel can work backwards to the root cause(s).

[ramana]

From a blog I found Dhanush Muzzle velocity is 885 m/sec* which in feet/sec is 2903.53 ft/sec

I also found standard twist for 155mm howitzers is 1:20 cals (Assumption)
i.e. 20*155 = 3100mm or 122.0472 inches

Applying standard formula for rpm given muzzle velocity =(m.v.)*720/twist in inches

2903.54*720/122.0472 = 17130 rpm or 17000 rpm

This is within the greater than the 2000 rpm minimum required for the M572 Fuze made by OFB

* This is fantastic. The M109 A2/A3 attains 700m/s which is its max for that caliber. In contrast Dhanush 45 cal is almost 200 m/s faster.

[Singha]

885 m/sec tallies with what i read...the APDS rounds of tanks are faster around 1500 m/s but hesh and heat are fatter and slower and as is tube artillery. hesh shells are a good analogue to tube shells.

>>This is within the greater than the 2000 rpm minimum required for the M572 Fuze made by OFB

what are other armies doing - letting it go and arm within the tubes or using a different fuse? a lot of armies have long tube 52cal arty france, israel, soko, turkey, germany .... even north korea.

[ramana]

We need to understand better the dynamics inside the tube. Everyone is confident that they arm 200 feet away from the muzzle. So what other feature is needed?
I really wish we get answers to my questions.
All boil down to was the detonation trail from the nose fuze initiated? Or did the shell auto detonate as its a Class 1.1 explosive.

BTW 12 years for theses shells is about shell life but not unsafe. Still within use by date.

[Jaeger]

From Sanjay

On the artillery thread - could you educate posters that the gun most recently posted was a 75/24 pack howitzer that was used in the direct fire role during Kargil.

Very interesting. Was not aware of this piece of ordinance. Information online seems thin on the ground. Many thanks.

[JayS]

I found this interesting and very detailed write up on fuses and arming mechanisms for artillery shells.

http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/de ... Centrifuge

[Manish_P]

Ramana sir, Sorry couldn't locate the specific details for 2016...nor for 2005 (12 years ago)

Here is link of the CAG report for year 2014 - link

On page 6 you can see the topmost entry mention (for 155 mm)

Shortage in base bleed (propellant) grains from Ordnance Factory at Itarsi

Manufacturing defects in empty shells from Ordnance Factory at Ambajhari

Here is CAG report for 2004-2005. Link

The only mention of 155 mm ammunition i could find was on page 33 under the pending reports section

Will try to locate more but looks a bit difficult.

These are like Mughal cannons.

Thankfully IA guns are much superior.

Anyone know who makes the OFB shells? Which factory?

Manish_P

Not only did the OFBs fail to produce critical ammunition for the Indian Army, but produced poor quality ammunition, the CAG has observed.
Of the ammunition found to be faulty, the majority were 81 mm and 155 mm ammunition, the CAG observes. The 81 mm ammunition that the CAG mentions are mortars which are used respond to ceasefire violations by Pakistan. The 155 mm ammunitions are artillery shells - those used by the Bofor's Field Guns. These two alone accounted for about 59 per cent of ammunition returned.

The CAG report says 81mm and 155mm shells (~50% of the returns) were returned for cause by the IA to the OFB. Do we know what was the defects that were found?

[JayS]

We need to understand better the dynamics inside the tube. Everyone is confident that they arm 200 feet away from the muzzle. So what other feature is needed?

I was thinking the latency of the arming mechanism itself provides the delay to clear the gun barrel and some safety distance beyond that. Because even a split second latency is enough to give 200mtr distance. So I searched along the lines and sure enough I found a patent saying the exact same thing:

http://www.google.com/patents/US4026216

This bore safety of the detonator must exist not only prior to firing the projectile, but also for a brief time after it is fired, as the projectile must not explode as soon as it leaves the muzzle of the gun or even be able to explode immediately as it leaves the muzzle. To this end a relatively long spring is wound around the ball-type detent so that a certain period of time is necessary in order for the entire length of spring to unwind and allow the pin to move into the armed position. As a result of this multiturn construction there is considerable friction force so that it is almost impossible to calculate just when the projectile will be armed after it is fired. Furthermore the balls of the detent are themselves urged centrifugally outwardly with considerable force, and frequently press on and deform the inner turns of the spring. This deformation again increases the arming time so that it is not rare in such arrangements that a projectile strikes a given target before it is armed.

So the arming is triggered inside the barrel itself but the arming mechanism is designed in a way that it takes a certain time to fully arm the fuse. By this time the shell has cleared the gun and moved away safely. Issue with this mechanism could easily make premature arming or no arming at all.

[ramana]

I ignored the wound spring in the fuze as that adds the necessary delay element.

So even if the Fuze had the necessary rpm to enable the arming mechanism it has sufficient delay to get armed outside the barrel.

Then why did the shell burst in the development trials and right outside the muzzle in the May User Exploitation Trials (UET)?

The arming spring broke or malfunctioned?

[ramana]

KaranM, JayS,

Do you have any artillery officer contacts? I would like to know about the phenomena of fall-back in separate charge shells. E.g.. large bore 155mm and bagged or disc charges. Minimum qty charge and high angle fire.

[negi]

^ But we do not know if the delay mechanism was set right ? Isn't that set on conventional arty fuses by rotating or winding it ? What if it was not done ? In that case only safety is that it won't get armed until threshold RPM is reached .

Also the online literature on fuze which OFB makes for 155 mm as per the linked article states

" It is not watertight and is not drop safe. Prematures have occurred when the weapon is fired at high muzzle velocities from longer-barrelled weapons."

[abhik]

x post

https://www.facebook.com/ajaybaru.1976/ ... 329476261/

Looks like some live fire exercise. They are firing all types of mortar rounds, smoke, HE and illuminating. Machine gun and perhaps some heavy gun fire is audible too.

Good rate of fire, glad to see all that ammo expended in these times of doom and gloom.

[JayS]

KaranM, JayS,

Do you have any artillery officer contacts? I would like to know about the phenomena of fall-back in separate charge shells. E.g.. large bore 155mm and bagged or disc charges. Minimum qty charge and high angle fire.

Can't help there.

[JayS]

^ But we do not know if the delay mechanism was set right ? Isn't that set on conventional arty fuses by rotating or winding it ? What if it was not done ? In that case only safety is that it won't get armed until threshold RPM is reached .

Also the online literature on fuze which OFB makes for 155 mm as per the linked article states

" It is not watertight and is not drop safe. Prematures have occurred when the weapon is fired at high muzzle velocities from longer-barrelled weapons."

Even if the time fuse was not set correct it should not have triggered explosion before the shell cleared the safety distance, because the fuse itself was not supposed to have armed until then. Time fuse will come into picture after its armed. Here we are talking of failure of arming mechanism. If this is happening systematically under some conditions then its a design flaw.

[ramana]

All right here goes:

Facts we know about Dhanush trials:
1) During development a shell burst in the barrel. It was attributed to old ammunition being about 12 years old and possibly air bubbles in the shell that could have reacted to the shock. However shelf life of M107 shell is 15 years(OFB page on M 107 http://ofbindia.gov.in/products/data/am ... /lc/29.htm ) so should not be an issue. Air bubble could be but how did it pass the many QA steps? Not plausible.
2) During User Exploitation Trials (UET) in May 2017, a shell burst soon after exit from the muzzle.
3) During UET in July 2017, the shell struck the muzzle brake
4) Muzzle strike was encountered early on the SOLTAM upgrade of the 130mm barrel with 155 mm 45 caliber barrel. Dhanush barrel muzzle is larger in diameter than the SOLTAM upgrade barrel. Yet muzzle strike occurred.

Additional facts that could have bearing on the issue:
5) The shell is M107 type which is quite common. Made by OFB
6) The fuze is assumed to be M572 which is also quite common. Made by OFB
7) We do not know the charge that was used nor the range. Was it maximum or minimum range?
8 ) We do not know the debris field. Were the fuzes recovered? What was their condition? Expended or intact? And the barrel condition or borescope measurements?

Any common cause/phenomenon has to explain all these three instances or most of them.

Over the last two weeks I read many reports online and have three theories to postulate that can explain what happened. I will start with the most complex to the simplest.

I) Balloting of shell in gun tube

Initially the shell contacts the tube along the driving band and is held in place. The shell c.g. is forward of the driving band. About 40% as its a conical structure with a weighted nose. There is clearance between the shell and the tube or else it won’t be launched and get stuck. When the charge gets fired there is sudden force behind the driving band which makes the shell hit the sides of the tube. However there is another phenomenon. The shell is spinning along its axis which may be close to the tube axis but is not the same. The hitting the tube sides is due to yaw of the spinning projectile. However it becomes unstable if the shell center of gravity (c.g.) is off center due to manufacturing issues. Even a small offset could grow the instability in the roll axis. Becomes a major concern in heavy projectile with largest charge as that induces most forces. To put thing is simple terms, think of the spinning shell as a spinning top (lattoo). The top spins true at the right velocity. When speed is slow it tilts. And if the top nail is off center also it tilts. Now image the spinning top in a tube. The spinning top will hit the tube sides. That’s what is happening here. And the top is moving along the tube. The forces induced are such that the shell breaks up and could exceed the detonation shock limits of the explosive. This has happened many times in the Great Britain, US and we don’t know who else. When the energy is low it could hit the muzzle brake as it exits. So this phenomenon explains all three instances. So it has to be high charge with an off-set in c.g. of the shell to explode or low charge with offset in c.g. of the shell. Either case off-set shell will cause this problem of muzzle strike or shell burst. For those interested they can google for “yaw motion in projectiles in gun tubes”. Plenty of literature is available.

Side-slap is more prevalent in worn out guns when the clearances are more due to wear. All the above events 1), 2), and 3) have occurred in new barrels and hence side-slap is ruled out.


II Shell Fall Back

Shell fall back is the phenomenon where the shell driving band is not engaged in the tube inner diameter for whatever reason and after the charge is placed behind it falls into the chamber when the gun is elevated. The worst case is minimum charge with gun elevated for high angle fire to reach nearby targets. In case of fall back three things could happen: a) projectile leaves the bore but falls short b) projectile breaks up as it leaves the muzzle, and c) projectile detonates in the bore as it comes in violent contact with the area round the commencement of rifling. So here the phenomenon is for smallest charge and high angle fire. Again explains most of the events 1, 2, & 3. Shell fall –back is cautioned in many artillery manuals. So Indian Artillery and GCF would be aware and so this is less likely.

III Fuze design features

M572 is a long in production fuze and has been in service for a long time. It has two features that are pertinent. The M572 safing mechanism unsafes when the shell spin rate is minimum 2000 rpm and up to 25,000 rpm. The Dhanush muzzle velocity of 885m/sec ensures the M572 safing mechanism un-safes at muzzle exit. It has a wound spring that also has to unwind to arm it. So it is very remote that the M572 can arm the shell in the muzzle. However Janes Ammunition handbook reports that South Africa found M572 some case arms in long tubes like the GC-45 which is the precursor to the 45 caliber genre. If the charge is sufficient to give the shell enough rotation to spin and meet the safing requirement of >2000 rpm and the travel is the tube is long enough to unwind the spring, the shell would become live. This would explain only the 2) where the shell burst soon after muzzle exit. Again it is likely for 2 but will not cause muzzle strikes not shell burst in the barrel.

IV Conclusion
We looked at unusual phenomenon of balloting and shell fall back and the M572 fuze design. In all cases it is the shell and not the gun that could be at fault. And between the shell and the fuze, its more likely it is the shell and the charge being used in the gun. We don’t know what the QA at the shell factory is regarding center of gravity offset measurements but that is a place for improvement for safety of the operators. A further look at the operating procedures with respect to ramming could be useful. ARDE Pune has the capability to perform balloting analysis of the shell and tube systems as evidenced by many papers from them in Defence Science Journal. It would be useful to have them conduct an analysis to confirm the phenomenon. Also would recommend not use the M572 in long guns (>45 caliber) and confine usage to the 39 caliber guns till inventory is over.

[negi]

^ But we do not know if the delay mechanism was set right ? Isn't that set on conventional arty fuses by rotating or winding it ? What if it was not done ? In that case only safety is that it won't get armed until threshold RPM is reached .

Also the online literature on fuze which OFB makes for 155 mm as per the linked article states

" It is not watertight and is not drop safe. Prematures have occurred when the weapon is fired at high muzzle velocities from longer-barrelled weapons."

Even if the time fuse was not set correct it should not have triggered explosion before the shell cleared the safety distance, because the fuse itself was not supposed to have armed until then. Time fuse will come into picture after its armed. Here we are talking of failure of arming mechanism. If this is happening systematically under some conditions then its a design flaw.

Article clearly states

1. Not drop safe.
2. Prematures have occured when fired at high MV from large cailbre guns

even other wise safety distance is based on a default time offset issue is the distance in meters now is completely dependent on muzzle velocity in a longer calibre gun with high MV the fuse can get armed a lot earlier in flight so the distance from firing is not a constant it is actually a function of offset time and MV.

[deejay]

All right here goes:

...

IV Conclusion
We looked at unusual phenomenon of balloting and shell fall back and the M572 fuze design. In all cases it is the shell and not the gun that could be at fault. And between the shell and the fuze, its more likely it is the shell and the charge being used in the gun. We don’t know what the QA at the shell factory is regarding center of gravity offset measurements but that is a place for improvement for safety of the operators. A further look at the operating procedures with respect to ramming could be useful. ARDE Pune has the capability to perform balloting analysis of the shell and tube systems as evidenced by many papers from them in Defence Science Journal. It would be useful to have them conduct an analysis to confirm the phenomenon. Also would recommend not use the M572 in long guns (>45 caliber) and confine usage to the 39 caliber guns till inventory is over.

Wow! Very impressive analysis Ramana Sir. Makes every moment on BRF worthwhile reading this kind off analysis. Thank You!

Since I am not technically into Arty, I cannot offer much here except sharing the feeling that the gun is good and this view is strong in IA (concerned people). I for one will wait on the final decision but will not rule out issues due to operating environment / procedures etc though your analysis leaves noobs in this field absolutely convinced.

[JayS]

Even if the time fuse was not set correct it should not have triggered explosion before the shell cleared the safety distance, because the fuse itself was not supposed to have armed until then. Time fuse will come into picture after its armed. Here we are talking of failure of arming mechanism. If this is happening systematically under some conditions then its a design flaw.

Article clearly states

1. Not drop safe.
2. Prematures have occured when fired at high MV from large cailbre guns

even other wise safety distance is based on a default time offset issue is the distance in meters now is completely dependent on muzzle velocity in a longer calibre gun with high MV the fuse can get armed a lot earlier in flight so the distance from firing is not a constant it is actually a function of offset time and MV.

By "this" in the last sentence I meant by the two things you mentioned and that this would be design fault in the fuse if its happening in systematic manner. Initially the discussion was focused on failure in arming mechanism itself. But I guess if the fuse is setting off for some reason even without the arming mechanism coming into the picture then we have two things to look at. Whether its failure in the arming mechanism, or in the fuse, or both..?

But its surprizing that they use a fuse which is not drop safe. I wonder why.

[SaiK]

It is a pleasure reading you conclusion ramana ji. Great insight into the gun issues and most likely analysis scientifically done using op-ed resources.

It doesnt hurt for IA to follow your advice on shell usage. I hope they are reading you.

[ramana]

If they fix the problem with the Dhanush using these grains of sand, this squirrel will be happy.

[raghava]

If they fix the problem with the Dhanush using these grains of sand, this squirrel will be happy.

"Katrathu Kai Mann Alavu, Kallathathu Ulagalavu"