Exclusive: Tata to unveil India's first indigenous 155 mm howitzer

[SpArK]

Exclusive: Tata to unveil India's first indigenous 155 mm Bofors-type howitzer
​

December 3, 2012


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.


Read more at: Exclusive: Tata to unveil India's first indigenous 155 mm Bofors-type howitzer : North, News - India Today

 

[viper1972]

good news . more private company should be involved in Indian defense procurement .

 

[Arav_Rana]

6 round in 3 minute.. I think this is slow fire rate..

but what is good thing. they build with in 2 year. They can do a lot of improvement.. And i personally like TATA. At least they are not like reliance .

 

[sancho]

@ Spark

No offence buddy, but that article is crap.

Tata has not developed the gun, it's a JV with Denel that they have presented at the DEFEXPO this year and IA didn't procured it so far, but it might be an offer for IAs self-propelled howitzer competitions, not to mention that these have nothing to do with the towed Bofors howitzers.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/indian...ath-self-propelled-howitzers.html#post2835245

 

[Abingdonboy]

I think there is some mis-reporting here. TATA is most likely in a JV with a foreign defence firm and will be providing some technical knowledge along with the truck to mount the arty piece on. This system may then be taking part in the IA's SPG competion that will start with trails next year. This is far from a done deal. Many other defence firms will have similar tie-ups with Indian pvt players and will be bringing their "A-game" to win this mighty tender.

 

[janon]

^^
I thought this sounded too good to be true. Modern arty guns can't be developed magically in two years by people who have zero prior experience.

 

[Water Car Engineer]

@ Spark

No offence buddy, but that article is crap.

Tata has not developed the gun, it's a JV with Denel that they have presented at the DEFEXPO this year and IA didn't procured it so far, but it might be an offer for IAs self-propelled howitzer competitions, not to mention that these have nothing to do with the towed Bofors howitzers.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/indian...ath-self-propelled-howitzers.html#post2835245

Denel is banned, so Denel is getting their product through India with TATA re-branding.

 

[Abingdonboy]

^^
I thought this sounded too good to be true. Modern arty guns can't be developed magically in two years by people who have zero prior experience.

Exactly...

 

[MilSpec]

This is bloody brilliant!!!!!!!!!

 

[ironman1]

whatever ! the thing is our companies will do what govt companies can't . they will get the advanced tech cheap and from many vendors without red tape BS . we can't do reverse engineering as a moral principle so this is the way to go !

 

[SpArK]

Pics courtesy kunal and DD

 

[IndoUS]

If TATA can make trucks shown in the above picture then the army should just give TATA the contract of all the future contract for military transport vehicles.

 

[Gessler]

If TATA can make trucks shown in the above picture then the army should just give TATA the contract of all the future contract for military transport vehicles.

Any such trucks contract should be tendered between different private players -

Tata
Ashok Leyland
an maybe even Mahindra if they're capable of it.

 

[rahul_rao]

bhot jaldi ban gyi

 

[IndoUS]

Any such trucks contract should be tendered between different private players -

Tata
Ashok Leyland
an maybe even Mahindra if they're capable of it.

I have my doubts about Mahindra, I know that Ashok Leyland makes army trucks so I guess transportation wise private sector is more than capable of taking care of the army requirement.

I am not sure of Mahindra making any vehicle for the army (do they make the mine protected vehicle for the army that are often shown in army pictures)? Because the only thing that comes to mind is the Mahindra Axe.