Artillery

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The Jaivana Gun built around 1700 by the Rajputs. Look at the exquisite superior engineering.
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India has a fine history of producing artillery going back to 1500, when Emperor Babur hired Turkish Ottoman gunsmiths to manufacture mortars and cannons for his ultra modern muskets and canon army of 12,000 which spectacularly defeated the Afghan Lodhi army of 100,000 from Delhi.



Indian steel based weapons was especially sought after in the Greater Middle East and Asia generally. Wootz steel dating back 4000 years.



 When Western colonialism arrived de-industrialisation took place, economic contraction, and for the first time in Indian history, mass poverty.



By 1947, the Raj left a meager 16 ordinance factories in India, for a nation that was once the unofficial arsenal of ASIA.

Tata develops artillery gun. But the scamsters will never buy it

 Macaulay Brown Sahib do nothing Congress, loathsome and suspicious of the military, especially after events in neighboring Pakistan never bothered fully to focus on security and the Indian military, maintaining a paltry 30 + divisions, and a small military of about 1.2 million relative to India's size, and International pretensions ( Though I'm not a fan of pretensions) Under Congress the ordinance factories number increased to 20!!!! by 1980, and 39 by 2005.



What India of course needs is about 2000--3000 ordinance factories, and 20,000 defense related factories employing 5,000,000 people. Thats a proper legit defense manufacturing sector on a par with China, Russia and the USA. 

Maybe be then India will FINALLY get a permanent Security Council seat at the UN?


London, the fifth column and the arms industry middle men scamsters based around Delhi will push back against such a rationale policy, for their own reasons. India will continue to be a major arms importers even though its makes strategic sense to make your own arms, as is the case with the USA, Russia and China.



The humble old artillery is not sexy.....unlike Mars probes, Moon probes, stealth submarines, stealth destroyers, aircraft carriers and foreign manufactured jet fighters, BUT it is the most BASIC, and important component of defense for a THIRD WORLD developing LAND POWER.


India should have 5000 155mm artillery, 5000 105mm artillery, 20,000 81mm/120mm mortar................ 30,000 23mm,40mm, 100mm, 130mm AA......and 100--160,000 recoiless hand held guns.


Indian politicians aversion to the ARMY has to be overcome........buy everything else, make everything else BUT for the ARMY has to be overcome. Aversion to properly sized and funded MOUNTAIN units have to be overcome.....1,000,000 men.....in 50 divisions, without any Anglicized provocative corps names. Can't even fund a proper 90,000 force let alone 1 million. A force of 90,000 is a token force...a holding force in any case.

It is simply a joke that failed State Pakistan, with one tenth of the economic size of India...and with Chinese and Israeli assistance (Nuclear, missiles with the later country) has a better ordinance sector than India.


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Trials a hit, desi Bofors outguns Swedish original

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By Rajat Pandit of the Times of India

This is one 'Make in India' defence project that is now finally booming. The desi howitzer, christened Dhanush, can outgun the original Swedish Bofors 155mm artillery gun in range, accuracy, reliability, angle of fire and shoot-and-scoot capabilities.

The Army is now getting set to induct the first battery of six Dhanush guns, which will be the first 155mm howitzers to be acquired by the force since the infamous Bofors scandal torpedoed all its artillery modernisation plans in the mid-1980s.

Recurring scandals in artillery procurement projects kept it derailed thereafter, with the infamous Bofors ghost looming large over attempts to plug the Army's operational gaps in long-range, high volume firepower.

Ironically enough, it's the original Bofors gun that came to the rescue of the beleaguered force. The Army-DRDO-OFB team kicked off work on the long-forgotten original designs, obtained under transfer of technology provisions in the infamous Rs 1,437 crore Bofors contract of 1986, a few years ago. It has led to the electronically upgraded Dhanush howitzer now.




Defence minister Manohar Parrikar told the parliamentary consultative committee on defence on Monday that the 155mm/45-calibre Dhanush howitzers had "successfully met all technical parameters" during the winter and summer trials at Sikkim and Pokhran. Dhanush incorporates "many improved features" over the Army's existing artillery guns, he added.

While the first battery of guns would be ready "in a couple of months", the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) is stepping up its manufacturing line for "bulk production" at the Jabalpur Gun Carriage Factory from 2016 onwards.

"The first order for 114 guns worth Rs 1,260 crore, already indented by the Army, would be completed in a three-year timeframe. The production capacity will go up to 30-35 guns a year. The Army has said it eventually requires 414 such guns," said a source.

The desi howitzer has been upgraded to 45-calibre from the 39-calibre of the original Bofors gun to extend its strike range to 38 km with "extended range, full-bore" ammunition. Costing around Rs 14 crore apiece, the Dhanush is about 83% indigenous. "The ore to steel for the gun barrel is made by the OFB. The only imported parts are the auxiliary power units, electronic dial sights and some others," said the source.

There was a major hiccup in the project when a Dhanush prototype's barrel burst during firing trials at Pokhran in August 2013. But a detailed analysis showed the problem was due to the usage of 12-year-old ammunition rather than the howitzer itself. "The trials took around two years to reach this stage," he added.

The Dhanush, however, will plug just a small operational gap. The overall artillery modernisation plan for 155mm/52-calibre guns, worth around Rs 1 lakh crore, envisages the induction of 814 mounted, 1,580 towed, 180 wheeled and 100 tracked guns, among others.