India has now exorcised the ominous Bofors ghost haunting its artillery modernization planes after a long gap of three decades. The first two of the M777 ultra-light Howitzers (ULH) arrived in New Delhi on Thursday from the United States under a contract signed in 2016.The last artillery guns that India purchased were the much-controversial Swedish Bofors guns in the mid-1980s, the deal for which kicked up a major controversy and left the Indian Army’s artillery program stalled for years. Although the Bofors guns were found effective during the Kargil war and continue to the mainstay.
Due to the Bofors scandal, all plans for technology transfer and indigenous manufacturers are derailed and the 13-lakh strong Army has not inducted a single artillery gun for last three decades. Subsequent scandals revolving around other global artillery manufacturers, like South African Denel and Singapore Technology Kinetic’s, further punch gaping holes in the Army’s long-range, high-volume firepower. Now the original Swedish Bofors Company owned by BAE Systems.
The contract between Indian and US government under FMS (Foreign Military Sales) program for buying 145 BAE System-build M777 A-2 artillery guns signed in last November.According to Defence sours, the present deal with the U.s. is for 145 guns worth $737 million and it has a 30 percent offset condition worth about $200 million. Under offset obligations, BAE Systems will set up an assembly, integration and test facility in India. Twenty-five of them will be imported and remain 125 guns to assembled in India by Mahindra. The guns are meant to equip the Army’s new mountain strike corps in the Eastern sector facing China. Although, the guns will be put through trials before induction into the Indian arsenal. The guns will now be taken to Pokharan in Rajasthan for user trials.
According to the BAE Systems, the 155mm/39 caliber gun with the maximum range of 30 km are air portable and weighing just over 4-tonne due to the use of titanium and aluminum alloys and it can be transported under-slung on helicopters and expected to give Army tremendous flexibility in operations, especially in mountainous terrain. The ULH is being purchased primarily to deploy on mountains in eastern border with China to provide the much-needed firepower to the Indian Army in the region.
After completion of the firing table, the guns will be tested for integrating local ammunition and calibrating it against variables such as weather and temperature and three more guns will received for training purpose. The induction will start from March 2019, with five guns arriving each month till mid-2021. The howitzers will equip the new 17 mountain strike corps, which the army is raising by cannibalizing its existing reserves, for the China front.
Now it is obvious that if the Indian govt.is seriously interested in modernizing its Army, it must start off by the allocation of additional budget and start a system of budget ‘roll-on’ so that money once allotted for the modernization cannot be re-appropriated for any other purpose.
