I think the 100 km range being discussed is for rockets fired through the gun. I also don't think India is a benign state only looking to defend itself. This statement falls flat on how the status of Kashmir was unilaterally changed and sabre rattling by Indian officials about taking back Pakistani Kashmir.
Making basic grades of steel is one thing. Turning them into guns quite another. Going back in history, the British found that if they made canon balls by casting using fine graphite powder they could make smoother casts, which gave them a strategic advantage - giving them the ability to shoot their guns further out and lower gun wear and tear.
Did it matter how good the steel of the canon balls were? Probably did but less so than the manufacturing method. If I had to guess, this was also the problem with the Turkish artillery imported - they just weren't tough enough - not because they were made with sub-standard steel, but because of the various treatments that the West has perfected over time and history.
At the heart of this advantage of the West - which in their communities they mention - is the poor metallurgical intellectual maturity of the East. At the most basic level, our boys can go to the West and get a degree after memorizing notes, but few if any of them have a hands on "playing with the process".
Just go on Youtube and you will find all kinds of white guys making videos about bullion, steel, metal works, from bubas to sophisticated sounding Europeans. There are no Muslim or Indian equivalents of this. You had recently a Texan in his garage figuring out how Muslims made Damascus blades (also known as blades from Hind, or blades of India) that were the renowned swords of the elite Ottoman Janissaries.
These swords were not replicable until this buba figured it out. No one, for centuries could build them anymore. They would glow lightly in the dark and later research found nanotube construction. Known famously to cut through a falling silk scarf. And very likely a concept that gave rise to the Star Wars light saber.
When you don't have that level of a culture of metallurgy, or even a remote culture of metallurgy (you'll almost never find a desi graduate doing his own metal works and having fun with it), you really don't have a competitive basis for metallurgical innovation. I would wager, you won't find a Masters degree holder actually playing around with his trade.
You see, most of our graduates are trained from a young age to hate education but treat it as a social status. They earn degrees, often by rote learning, not because knowledge excites them but because their families and society expects them to get these degrees. These paper degrees really have little to no use for actually achieving technological advantage.
If you look further, you'd find "Lord" Macauley's Minute on Indian Education, and some underpinnings on why our whole educational epistemology is messed up, which ultimately nips us intellectually from the bud.
Anyways, my apologies for branching out.
