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| Indian Army Haubits FH77/A (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Ankit Panda
India’s new artillery gun is indigenous and stands to considerably improve the Indian Army’s artillery capabilities.
The Indian Army is set to induct an indigenously development 155 mm towed howitzer. The artillery gun, dubbed the Dhanush, will be the Indian Army’s first new 155 mm howitzer since a procurement scandal in the late 1980s in which Swedish firm Bofors (later acquired by Britain’s BAE Systems), designer and manufacturer of the Haubits FH77 howitzer was found to have paid illegal kickbacks in exchange for the contract. The Dhanush was developed by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) under the project name Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS). The project was initiated under the DRDO in 2010.
As my colleague Franz-Stefan Gady reported earlier this year, New Delhi’s announcement of the Dhanush’s induction is no surprise. The system had been undergoing tests for some time. In April, the Indian government released a statement noting that the gun had “met all technical parameters during the winter and summer trials.” At the time, the announcement that the Dhanush had passed all trials was, however, somewhat surprising given that reports as recently as summer of 2014 and winter of 2013 suggested major structural problems with barrel bursts in the prototypes. India’s Ordnance Factory Board reportedly had to modify the metallurgical process used in the manufacturing of the gun’s barrel.
Read the full story at The Diplomat