Samsung, L & T Bag Indian Army’s $750 Million Howitzer Deal

[Zarvan]

Korea's Samsung Techwin and its Indian partner Larsen & Toubro (L&T), has won a Rs $750 million order to supply the Indian Army with 100 self-propelled (SP), tracked howitzers.

Indian publication Business Standard reported that the defence ministry has written to L&T and Samsung informing them that their gun - called the K-9 Vajra - has cleared army trials conducted in 2013 and 2014.

The ministry has written to the other vendor in contention, Russia's arms export agency, Rosoboronexport (RoE), rejecting the gun it offered, the 2S19 MSTA howitzer.

The K-9 Vajra consist of a 155-mm, 52-calibre howitzer, mounted on a tracked vehicle. It is highly mobile and can keep up with tank columns in the open desert. The Indian army wants this gun for its mechanized strike corps, which launches rapid thrusts deep into enemy territory. The strike corps' T-90S tanks currently outpace their artillery guns, which are towed by wheeled vehicles.

Samsung and L&T will manufacture about 50 per cent of the weapon system in India. L&T plans to build 13 major sub-systems of the K-9 Vajra at its facilities in Pune, Talegaon and Powai. This includes the fire control system, ammunition handling system, muzzle velocity radar, and the nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) system.

Samsung, L & T Bag Indian Army’s $750 Million Howitzer Deal

 

[egodoc222]

$ 7.5 million for one howitzer is expensive.

I like way you divide!!

 

[GURU DUTT]

$ 7.5 million for one howitzer is expensive.

it also comes with all the training and reloading vehicels other such infra

 

[Ankit Kumar 001]

100 Is a small number when compared to Pakistan's near 400 US SPhowitzers.

 

[Abingdonboy]

100 Is a small number when compared to Pakistan's near 400 US SPhowitzers.

So what?

a) This is just an initial order- follow-on orders will be made
b) The IA is also buying 814 (excluding follow-on orders) for MGS
c) At least 1000 towed guns (Dhunush and such) are required.
d) At least 200 ULH will be ordered

The IA is looking to procure 4000-5000 brand new guns of different classes/types within the next 4-5 years.

 

[migflug]

So many howitzers coming.unable to keep track . Anyway I'm for the army

 

[Ankit Kumar 001]

So what?

a) This is just an initial order-ow-on orders will be made
b) The IA is also buying 814 (excluding follow-on orders) for MGS
c) At least 1000 towed guns (Dhunush and such) are required.
d) At least 200 ULH will be ordered

The IA is looking to procure 4000-5000 brand new guns of different classes/types within the next 4-5 years.

Sir my comment was in regard with only tracked SPH systems. They are ahead from us in this.

Yes I agree that we are getting a lot of new Towed and Mounted Guns but a tracked SPH has its own importance.

I hope we order more in follow on orders

And any idea about the support vehicles?

Will we be getting the K10 too?

 

[zambino]

Ye

Sir my comment was in regard with only tracked SPH systems. They are ahead from us in this.

Yes I agree that we are getting a lot of new Towed and Mounted Guns but a tracked SPH has its own importance.

I hope we order more in follow on orders

And any idea about the support vehicles?

Will we be getting the K10 too?

Yes we are getting k10 too. Along with some resupply vehicles.

 

[cerberus]

@Abingdonboy what happened to Denel SPH Bhim any Idea ???
& DRDO M-46 Catapult - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Abingdonboy]

And any idea about the support vehicles?

Will we be getting the K10 too?

Of course support vehicles are part of the deal including the K10- how could that not come with the K9?

@Abingdonboy what happened to Denel SPH Bhim any Idea ???

Denel has been blacklisted.

& DRDO M-46 Catapult - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This was a joke of a concept.

 

[#hydra#]

Sir my comment was in regard with only tracked SPH systems. They are ahead from us in this.

Yes I agree that we are getting a lot of new Towed and Mounted Guns but a tracked SPH has its own importance.

I hope we order more in follow on orders

And any idea about the support vehicles?

Will we be getting the K10 too?

we don't need to Pakistan with numbers, we are not going to engage artillery with artillery. This tracked artillery is good in desert areas, little marshy & areas with loose unconsolidated surfaces. Rest of the areas either wheeled or towed will come in handy. So 100 & follow on orders will be sufficient.

 

[cerberus]

Denel has been blacklisted.

As per my source Ban Has been lifted After CBI Failed to Find Any thing

India Lifts Ban on Denel | Defense News | defensenews.com

 

[Abingdonboy]

As per my source Ban Has been lifted After CBI Failed to Find Any thing

India Lifts Ban on Denel | Defense News | defensenews.com

Well its blacklisting had killed the Bhim outright.

 

[Ankit Kumar 001]

@#hydra#

Well we have enough desert bordering with Pakistan. And a SPH is what we will need while advancing into their territory as The key advantage of self-propelled over towed artillery is that it can be brought into action much faster. Before the towed artillery can be used, it has to stop, unlimber and set up the guns. To move position, the guns must be limbered up again and brought—usually towed—to the new location. By comparison, self-propelled artillery can stop at a chosen location and begin firing almost immediately, then quickly move on to a new position. This shoot-and-scoot ability is very useful in a mobile conflict and particularly on the advance.
And K9 system offers very good advantages, if we are going for it, then we should make sure we go for it in good numbers.

We will need to deploy them all along the Rajasthan border in case of an armoured thrust.

 

[Zarvan]

K9 selected for Indian Army SPH requirement

Larsen & Toubro will manufacture a version of the K9 Thunder for the Indian Army. Source: Samsung Techwin
India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has shortlisted the Samsung Techwin K9 Thunder 155 mm/52-calibre self-propelled tracked (SPT) howitzer for the Indian Army's long-delayed USD800 million tender for 100 such guns.

Official sources said the selection in late September followed desert and high altitude trials in 2013 and early 2014, in which the K-9 bested Russia's MSTA-SP (2S19) gun modified to 155/52 standards and mounted on a T-72 tank chassis.

Senior artillery officers told IHS Jane's that the K9 outperformed the Russian gun in operational mobility, speed, accuracy, and overall rate of fire.

The guns endured a further round of maintenance acceptability trials in mid-2014 undertaken by the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers and the Directorate General of Quality Assurance.

The MoD is now expected to open negotiations with the South Korean government in 2016 for Samsung-Techwin to supply kits to its local private-sector partner Larsen & Toubro (L&T) for assembly at its Pune facility.

The option of L&T licence building the K9s - to be acquired under the 'Buy and Make' category of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) - at a later stage is also under consideration.

Industry sources indicated that negotiations for the K9 could well be conducted under the forthcoming DPP, which is being prepared for publication.

The army's SPT howitzer programme suffered a major setback in 2005 when the MoD banned South Africa's Denel, which had successfully developed the Bhim SPT in the late 1990s by mating its T-6 155/52 turret to the chassis of a locally designed Arjun tank, over alleged wrongdoing in a separate contract to supply the Indian Army with 400 anti-materiel rifles.

The ban was lifted in 2014 after the Central Bureau of Investigation was unable to prove any wrongdoing, but it was too late to resurrect Bhim.

The Indian Army has outlined a SPT howitzer requirement for over two decades, aimed at countering the Pakistan Army's 150-odd US-supplied M109A2/3 self-propelled howitzers.

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K9 selected for Indian Army SPH requirement - IHS Jane's 360