India To Acquire Russian 130mm Guns | India Defence Online
In a sudden turnaround of events, the Indian Army has taken a decision to acquire additional 130mm field guns from the surplus stock of former Soviet republics. This change in policy has been deliberated due to the urgent need to deploy additional artillery along the Sino-Indian border.
Senior Indian Army officials have revealed that they will have to compromise with the 130mm guns as the procurement of light 155mm guns is likely to be delayed due to delays in the defence procurement. The purchase of 155mm guns has been pending for almost a decade. Officials added that the 130mm field guns can be sourced economically and are suited to be deployed along the high altitude border areas.
Currently, the procurement process of ultra light 155mm caliber guns has been stalled since Singapore Technologies, one of the forerunners of the program, was alleged in a scam and blacklisted.
Due to the growing requirements of the Indian Army, a $4 billion artillery modernization programme was cleared which aims to induct roughly 2,814 guns of different types.
The modernization program includes the $1.6 billion project to buy 400 155mm/52-calibre towed artillery guns, which is to be followed by indigenous manufacture of another 1,180 howitzers. The contenders for the acquisition of 400 155mm/52-calibre towed artillery guns are BAE Systems, ST Kinetics of Singapore and Israeli Soltam. India will also acquire 155mm/52-calibre self-propelled tracked guns which is to be followed by indigenous manufacture of another 1,180 howitzers.
There will be an off-the-shelf purchase of 200 155mm/52-calibre mounted gun systems from overseas and will be followed by indigenous manufacture of another 614 such howitzers under transfer of technology. Another project was to acquire 140 air-mobile ultra-light howitzers (ULHs) for $580 million. This is being eagerly awaited since the Indian Army needs ULHs howitzers to ensure artillery can be deployed in remote inaccessible areas.
The new guns are intended to replace the six different calibres the artillery currently deploys. The Indian Army currently has the towed 130 mm M-46 field guns which are used for close support, general support and counter battery fire.
In the mid-90s, India procured about 400 numbers of Russian M-46s and the Field Artillery now has 720 numbers of M-46s. The Indian Army also uses the 105mm Indian Field Guns deployed in the mountainous regions besides the 75mm Pack Gun-Howitzer which remains unsatisfactory in its performance. There is also the 130mm Catapult self-propelled gun which equips only one regiment. Besides, India has the 122mm D-30 towed howitzer used for close support by multiple regiments deployed on the plains.
As for the Bofors 155mm FH-77B howitzer deployed for general support and counter-bombardment, they are successfully deployed along the north-eastern border areas of India. Unfortunately, the Bofors 155mm FH-77B deal got bogged down earlier by a major scandal and India was able to acquire less than one-fourth of the number of howitzers it needed.
The recent move to buy the 130mm field guns has come as an embarrassment since it is a departure from the decision in 1999 to replace all field guns with 155mm caliber guns over the years. Added to that is the fact that no new artillery gun has been inducted ever since the Bofors scam in the 1980s.
