DRDO to Enter into Artillery Projects

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India Defence Online, New Delhi — The international acquisition of the 155mm towed gun for the Indian Army has taken a new turn since the state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has decided to make the gun indigenously.

According to sources, the DRDO is confident of developing the 155mm towed gun at its Armament Research & Development Establishment (ARDE) laboratory in Pune. The DRDO feels that partnering with local giants in India can successfully create the 155mm towed gun for the Indian Army.

The saga of the procurement of the 155mm towed gun has been going on for eight years with no concrete breakthrough. The Defence Minister has already been told to blacklist Singapore Technologies Kinetics (STK), Germany’s Rheinmetall, Israel Military Industries (IMI) and another Israeli company, Soltam.

All the aforementioned firms were involved in various stages of procurement of the 155mm towed gun. The South African Denel was already blacklisted earlier, leaving only the BAE Systems FH-77B-05 howitzer, which is another version of the controversial Bofors gun. India is not keen on procuring the 155mm towed gun on a single-vendor basis.

With the international procurement plagued with controversies, an indigenously developed 155mm towed gun can be a good option for India. In fact, the Indian Army was inquired a decade ago for this project but DRDO was not facilitated with the details of its requirement. Now, the Indian Army has made a turnaround and feels that an indigenous version can become a reality instead of an international one.

According to ARDE, a 155mm gun requires high-class manufacturing and the potential of Indian majors like Bharat Forge and Larsen & Toubro can be used. In addition, the expertise of ARDE in developing small arms, guns, howitzers, and rockets will come handy. With the required input from the private sector and DRDO laboratories, ARDE can deliver world-class 155mm towed gun in three to four years.

Apparently, the preliminary work on this project is already started. As per the plan, the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory in Hyderabad would develop special alloys and materials for the gun, ammunition would be tested at the Proof and Experimental Establishment in Orissa and warheads would be tested at the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory in Chandigarh.

The original contract for procuring 155 mm towed guns was worth an estimated $2 billion for which the international vendors were in the fray. The project aimed at buying 400 towed guns off the shelf and building 1,180 in India from transferred technology.

As for the DRDO’s famous laboratory ARDE, it has had a long history of supplying guns and artillery to the Indian Army and its capabilities include development of the Pinaka multi-barrelled rocket launcher, 120-mm gun for the “Arjun” Main Battle Tank and the upgradation of the Indian Army’s 130mm gun to 155-mm.

Indian defence news and strategic intelligence

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