sudhir007
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CII Artillery Seminar: "Less than 1% of Indian ammunition is precision guided"
8ak - Indian Defence News
11 May 2010 8ak: During the Vietnam war (1955-1975), Americans flew over 800 sorties and lost 10 aircraft in trying to destory the Thanh Hoa bridge but could do only peripheral damage which was quickly repaired. This changed when in 1972, the Americans came back with 12 Phantoms of which 8 were carrying laser guided bombs and successfully destroyed the bridge. (See Eglin and Wikipedia). According to P.G. Gillespie, in America's Rolling Thunder campaign (Vietnam 1965-68), F-105s with conventional munitions achieved an average accuracy of about 450 feet with only 6% direct hits.
Pointing to this background on May 10 at CII's 3rd International Seminar on Artillery Technology, Brig (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies pointed out that the U.S. has since invested in precision guided munitions (PGMs) and so they today represent 80% of munitions used in war. Defense update states that in Operation Iraqi Freedom which started in 2003 "Around 66% of US munitions and up to 85% of RAF munitions used during OIF were precision guided, either by Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or by laser or both. This demonstrates a huge leap forward in capability since the 1991 conflict, when the proportion of precision guided munitions was around 30% of US and 18% of RAF weapons were guided." In an earlier presentation, General V.K. Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC said that "Gone are the days when during an artillery attack, the safest place to be was at the target."
Given the increasing importance of artillery Brig. Kanwal said that it is shocking to note that less than 1% of India's munition stockpile is precision guided. He said that despite India's decisive victory in Kargil 1999 being attributed, in part, to Indian artillery superiority with the Bofors guns, the Indian Army has failed to modernise its artillery regiments. While hinting at the DPP 2008 as being part of the blame, people 8ak spoke to said that it is also the fault of the Indian army. If it was purely a Ministry of Defence (MoD) and procurement process issue, why is it that the Navy is constantly rolling out new ships with the latest technologies when it has to operate under the same conditions?
Brig. Kanwal stated that picking up the slack in artillery modernisation is urgent because according to him there is an 80-90% probability that India's next war will be in the mountains and a 60-70% probability that it will remain restricted to the mountains. Explaining this he said that deep strikes in to India's neighbouring territories would risk flying over (secret) nuclear installations which would initiate a retaliation that would escalate the war to a level undesirable to either country.
Totalling US$8 billion, India has possibly the largest military modernisation program in the world. On Monday, 24 May 2010, 8ak will release a report on "Challenges in India's Artillery Modernisation Program" that will follow on from the conference and a report from Religare Advisory Services. For more information and to order a copy of the report, please click here.
2 presenters at the conference quoted Napoleon, "God fights on the side with the best artillery"
8ak - Indian Defence News
11 May 2010 8ak: During the Vietnam war (1955-1975), Americans flew over 800 sorties and lost 10 aircraft in trying to destory the Thanh Hoa bridge but could do only peripheral damage which was quickly repaired. This changed when in 1972, the Americans came back with 12 Phantoms of which 8 were carrying laser guided bombs and successfully destroyed the bridge. (See Eglin and Wikipedia). According to P.G. Gillespie, in America's Rolling Thunder campaign (Vietnam 1965-68), F-105s with conventional munitions achieved an average accuracy of about 450 feet with only 6% direct hits.
Pointing to this background on May 10 at CII's 3rd International Seminar on Artillery Technology, Brig (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies pointed out that the U.S. has since invested in precision guided munitions (PGMs) and so they today represent 80% of munitions used in war. Defense update states that in Operation Iraqi Freedom which started in 2003 "Around 66% of US munitions and up to 85% of RAF munitions used during OIF were precision guided, either by Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or by laser or both. This demonstrates a huge leap forward in capability since the 1991 conflict, when the proportion of precision guided munitions was around 30% of US and 18% of RAF weapons were guided." In an earlier presentation, General V.K. Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC said that "Gone are the days when during an artillery attack, the safest place to be was at the target."
Given the increasing importance of artillery Brig. Kanwal said that it is shocking to note that less than 1% of India's munition stockpile is precision guided. He said that despite India's decisive victory in Kargil 1999 being attributed, in part, to Indian artillery superiority with the Bofors guns, the Indian Army has failed to modernise its artillery regiments. While hinting at the DPP 2008 as being part of the blame, people 8ak spoke to said that it is also the fault of the Indian army. If it was purely a Ministry of Defence (MoD) and procurement process issue, why is it that the Navy is constantly rolling out new ships with the latest technologies when it has to operate under the same conditions?
Brig. Kanwal stated that picking up the slack in artillery modernisation is urgent because according to him there is an 80-90% probability that India's next war will be in the mountains and a 60-70% probability that it will remain restricted to the mountains. Explaining this he said that deep strikes in to India's neighbouring territories would risk flying over (secret) nuclear installations which would initiate a retaliation that would escalate the war to a level undesirable to either country.
Totalling US$8 billion, India has possibly the largest military modernisation program in the world. On Monday, 24 May 2010, 8ak will release a report on "Challenges in India's Artillery Modernisation Program" that will follow on from the conference and a report from Religare Advisory Services. For more information and to order a copy of the report, please click here.
2 presenters at the conference quoted Napoleon, "God fights on the side with the best artillery"
yes one minute
