Indians For Guns

The Tata group is to unveil India's first indigenously developed 155 mm howitzer in New Delhi on Monday.

The 155/52 mm howitzer is mounted on an eight-wheeled Tata truck for enhanced mobility. The gun was developed by its defence subsidiary Tata Power Strategic Electronics Division (SED) this year. The 'mounted gun system' can fire a six-round salvo on a target 40 km away in less than three minutes.

The truck-mounted howitzer will be displayed at an army seminar at the Maneckshaw centre tomorrow. The rollout comes even as the Indian Army and the Ministry of Defence have struggled to import howitzers over the past 25 years.

The Army acquired its last howitzers over 25 years ago, 410 FH-77B howitzers from AB Bofors of Sweden in 1987. Since then, the army's howitzer arsenal has been critically depleted.

Tata Power SED, the defence arm of the $ 100 billion Tata group, began work on its 'Mounted Gun Project' over two years ago. The prototype gun was rolled out of the Tata Power SED facility in Bangalore's electronic city this October. It will spearhead the group's bid for the Army's requirement for 814 mounted gun systems for Rs.8500 crore.

The Tata gun is India's first new howitzer since its purchase of Bofors guns. The subsequent bribery scandal torpedoed the acquisition of additional howitzers from Sweden.

The Bofors howitzers performed spectacularly in the Kargil conflict of 1999. The Indian Army wants to buy over 2200 such howitzers in five different categories but has been unable to do so because of other bribery scandals involving firms like Rheinmetall, Singapore Technologies Kinetics, Soltam and Denel.

(http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/tata ... 35748.html)

its a one great step for india to become self reliant in defense sector, i hope more indian private companies enter this field , thanks for posting ......

Regards
Lever Action

I think this may not be as Indigenous as reported.

This is an outcome of DENEL - TATA joint venture and possibly TATA is manufacturing it under technology transfer agreement. In all probability the howitzer unit itself is from Denel and the only Indigenization is the mounting vehicle which TATA might have happily supplied.

Here is link to the Denel system which they call T - 52.

http://www.denellandsystems.co.za/artillery/T5_52.html

Not such a big step after all!!!

Chitapure,

Thanks for posting the article.

When Bofors 155mm howitzers were bought in the 80's, the package included technology transfer and license to manufacture them in India. The ever incompetent OFB has been watching them gather dust without doing anything and the politics of the time rendered the name Bofors poison. At least the TATAs have gone ahead and managed to produce results.

I hope that private sector takes initiative to produce civilian small arms too and end the monopoly of IOF. I do not care if they are indigenously designed as long as they are world class .

Best-
Vikram

Good news! It can be sold to other countries too, making it a lucrative venture for Tata. Wonder why Tata does not use it's ownership of Land Rover to design something good to replace the Army's old Gypsies and Sumos?

Vikram, where is the demand for civilian weapons, with so few licenses being issued?

Then the sumo's will get more expensive.I have to say the Jags that are coming out are nice!

I hope the 155 shoots straight, indigenous or not.IS the thing rifled?

It may shoot some straight duds but I would not be much impressed by the South Africans until I see what the Ashok Leyland - Krauss-Maffei Wegmann JV comes out with.

A Panzerhaubitze 2000 modified to suit Indian needs will surely send chills down the spine of massed troops anywhere and do it much better that South African metal repainted as TATA.

Looks impressive.

it will be nice if tata gets in small weapons manufacture and break the monopoly iof

Vikram wrote: The ever incompetent OFB has been watching them gather dust without doing anything and the politics of the time rendered the name Bofors poison. At least the TATAs have gone ahead and managed to produce results.

Gathering dust Viks?
I thought the Bofors was in active service with the Army

hamiclar01 wrote:

Vikram wrote: The ever incompetent OFB has been watching them gather dust without doing anything and the politics of the time rendered the name Bofors poison. At least the TATAs have gone ahead and managed to produce results.

Gathering dust Viks?
I thought the Bofors was in active service with the Army

You are right re them being in service.I was referring to the license to manufacture and designs they got from Bofors.

Best-
Vikram

I thought Denel was blacklisted after the anti-material rifle procurement scam?

No Offense to any one

Bit of off the topic .... Skyman and Bowman names and posts are confusing.

Would these two gentlemen talk to each other and come up with a solution.

Back to the main topic, why the goberment needs to spend so much on such things when people don't have enough to eat.
Who they are scared off ? We usually stay out the politics of different country but Me call it waste.
Pictures looks good on walls but roofs leaking - Haji

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You try to form personal opinion with the name of imaginary person. Well, that's what I thought may be

Hammerhead - What is confusing about our names and/or posts? We are men after all.....

BowMan wrote:It may shoot some straight duds but I would not be much impressed by the South Africans until I see what the Ashok Leyland - Krauss-Maffei Wegmann JV comes out with.

A Panzerhaubitze 2000 modified to suit Indian needs will surely send chills down the spine of massed troops anywhere and do it much better that South African metal repainted as TATA.

Bowman, Yes, it would be interesting to see what else is offered by Tata's competition.

The PzH 2000 is an impressive weapon. Thanks for bringing it up.
I think that India is quite capable of fielding a gun like that with some technology assistance. In the mid 1970's, I was given a tour of the Tank factory at Avadi and they were making a self propelled howitzer on a Vij chassis. No idea if it actually went into production but I rode on it when I was given the tour. The gun was not in a turret like the PzH 2000 but on a covered platform on the chassis. It wouldn't take much to enclose it in a turret. While the PzH 2000's gun itself seems excellent, what would actually make it so effective would be the electronics and the software of its automated fire control systems and how it ties into the command and control net.

Another excellent choice to consider is the US M109A6 Paladin system. It is battle proven.





images from above link

However, both those systems would be quite a bit more expensive than the one proposed by Tata. Modern artillery, which can be subjected to very rapid counter-battery fire, needs some kind of "shoot and scoot" mobility so depending on the requirements of the Army, being on a truck chassis might be adequate. It would certainly be cheaper to field, maintain and run compared to a gun on a MBT or tracked chassis. However being in an armored turret would certainly enhance the survivability of the crew and the system (to counter battery fire).