Posted on 06/27/2016 8:01:06 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
After a remarkably long wait of 30 years, the Indian Army will finally get its hands on new artillery guns.
On Saturday (June 25), India’s defence ministry approved a proposal to purchase 145 ultra light howitzer guns from the British weapons manufacturer BAE Systems. The deal is worth about Rs5,000 crore ($750 million).
The country’s defence ministry wants to give these guns to the Mountain Strike Corps—consisting of over 90,000 troops and to be raised by 2021—to defend India’s 4,000-kilometre-long border with China.
(Excerpt) Read more at defenseone.com ...
If the world all goes to hell, I think China will not fare well.
Of course, neither will we.
Howitzers are a key weapon in mountain warfare, esp. with the Red Chinese using human wave attacks as they did against India in the past.
Now, if they use Flechettes in their shells, it will be “Fed the Vultures” times in the Himalayas.
May even consider a vacation to the UK!......
The ones the US uses are assembled in Mississippi with key parts made in England. It looks like India will follow that model with final assembly of most of the guns there.
Call us when it is over and good luck. Shoot strait. Spend your money and your lives from your sovereign country.
Ping
Quibbling I know, but are these not properly referred to as artillery “pieces’?
You use a mix of VT fuzing and some impact fuzing against human wave attacks. VT provides airbursts for killing and wounding large numbers at once. But the impact rounds are mixed in for the morale effect. In Korea we found that the biggest impact to morale was for a Chicom to see his buddy torn to pieces a few meters from him. Airbursts tend to wound and kill relatively ‘neatly’. Impact fuzing causes a lot more shock.
That works out to 1.2 million per Howitzer which seems a bit too much unless there is a bribe factored in the deal.
Correct. And forget about cluster munitions. They’re inefficient for anything but un-armed vehicles and supplies in the open. They’re also not as accurate as HE. HE gets the job done at a fraction of the cost of cluster munitions.
A guy can be on the periphery of a cluster strike and have no effect. Not so with a 155 rnd. Besides shrapnel, the concussive blast will damage internal organs incapacitating or killing the combatant.
Deals like this generally include parts and support so that may make the per piece cost see higher.
Our guys used Flechettes in 105 howitzers in VN, esp. on the hills defending Khe Sanh.
There was one NVA attack, possibly by a company sized unit, that took some 105 flechette shells head-on.
The AAR in a book on this battle said that there was nothing left of the NVA company. They had been shredded into raw meat.
This was a level-aimed barrage at a charging mass (which became a dead mess).
I agree that a mix of VT and impact fuzed shells is a morale destroyer, but when the enemy is closing in fast, you can blow them away with flechettes (which we no longer have in our inventory - Another DOD/Army planning fiasco).
“They had been shredded into raw meat.”
I always love a happy ending.
With this Gov't the bribe factor is not there.
These guns are supposedly ultra-light-weight, being made from titanium, so they are easier to cart around the Himalayas.
I don't know how to link but you can find some details here
http://www.baesystems.com/en/article/bae-systems-down-selects-mahindra-for-proposed-ultra-lightweight-howitzer-assembly--integration-and-test
Well, if they are made-to-order, and out of titanium no less, the price seems much more fair.
As these howitzers are a lot lighter than standard howitzers I wonder how they compensated for the recoil pushing against the lighter mass?
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