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Army to acquire indigenous 155mm artillery gun system worth Rs 8500 crores

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/cent...-atags-7968599


The Cabinet has cleared the purchase of Rs 8500 crores worth of India’s indigenously developed 155mm / 52 calibre heavy artillery gun system developed for the Indian Army jointly by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), Tata Advanced Systems and Kalyani Strategic Systems. Number of units to be procured = 307. Production will be shared between Kalayni & Tata.

Typically a artillery regiment in the Indian Army has 18 guns on its inventory. Sometimes 24 but 18 is the norm. A artillery regiment is the equivalent of a infantry battalion and is the basic independent operating unit of the artillery arm.

This gun system called Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System will replace the 130mm Soviet era guns. Our heavy gun artillery has in my opinion suffered from the Bofors mess of the late 1980s. instead of saying let’s investigate but continue with the collaboration we shut down the contract achieving little other than leaving the Army unequipped for decades. I do not know but assume the ammunition here is compatible with the K-9 Vajra self-propelled 155mm gun and the old Bofors FH77 gun. This gun seems, on paper, to be similar to the Dhanush 155mm gun developed by the Jabalpur Ordnance Factory of which finally, I believe, only 24 units were procured out of 114 ordered. I do not know if this reflects Dhanush not being upto par. The Dhanush system at 14 tonnes is lighter. Members with better knowledge could opine on whether we need two 155mm towed guns and what is the difference in role between the two.

Great to see the Army following in the footsteps of the Navy in successfully indigenizing its weapon acquisitions

The aim of this thread is to cover the gun, missile & unguided rocket systems of the Indian Army with an emphasis on the indigenously developed weapons. In future posts we will cover the Pinaka rocket system and the Vajra self propelled K-9 heavy gun.

Photo Source: DRDO

The ATAGS system has been developed by DRDO with Kalyani Group



It has longer range and much faster firing rate than Dhanush and Bofors

Not many people know this but we got full ToT from Bofors when the artillery was acquired in the 1980s. DRDO dusted off the floppy disks, accessed the designs and modified the Bofors gun to create the Dhanush! :D The difference between Bofors and Dhanush is longer range (30 km increased to 40 km), achieved by increasing the caliber from 39 to 45.

Private sector is where all the action is. Kalyani Group is really killing it in artillery design and manufacturing, with multiple products.
https://www.kssl.in/our-business-artillery

Kalyani Strategic Systems exports 100 artillery guns in 2024
This scalability, coupled with KSSL's commitment to innovation, has resulted in over $600 million in orders in recent years.
https://manufacturing.economictimes....2024/118570116

Although artillery played a pivotal role in the Kargil War, it did so under significant constraints. While the enemy leveraged American-made weapon-locating radars, our forces had to rely on traditional methods. This technological disparity was compounded by years of neglect of artillery and other defense capabilities, following the controversies and scams of the 1980s.

V.Narayan sir,
I am relatively new to TBHP but i have been voraciously reading almost all your threads on mil affairs and scale models. Thank you for all your efforts on the various threads.

The ATAGS is supposed to both replace legacy systems in many of our field arty regiments which still have the old 105mm Indian field gun and light field guns to 155mm along with the Dhanush, and also help with some new raisings to get our arty power at par with our belligerent neighbours

There is also a plan to upgrade the russian 130mm M46 guns to 155mm as an interim solution but these guns have an inherent limitation in its elevation, which is limited to 45° compared to 70° in the Bofors FH77.

The production of Dhanush has been restarted now after some technical and logistics issue in it was sorted out late last year, iirc. GCF Jabalpur was supposed to be delivering another 26 guns very soon.

The original plan was to have the medium regiments equipped with 155/39(Bofors) guns, while the field regiments would be equipped with eithet 155/45(Dhanush) or 155/52(ATAGS). This has now been updated to rationalize the organic firepower available within the various divisional and corps arty units.

The new plan, iirc, was to have medium regiments equipped with 155/39 or 155/45 guns depending on availability, the field regiments with 155/52 and mountain regiments equipped with 155/39(M777). The Bofors in the medium regiments will be retired slowly as the remaining gun systems comes online and starts becoming available in quantity. This would simplify logistics significantly as the same shell is used across all the arty units, except for light regiments.

If I were to give you a corollary for the various guns, I would say that the Bofors is like the MiG21 bis, the Dhanush is like the MiG21 bison and the ATAGS is Tejas, so there is significant evolution in capability between each version and consequently their operational role.

Great thread! I would like to see more field test reports on how the Automatic Ammunition Handling System (AHS) performed in Indian conditions. Bulk of trials as I know have been in Pokhran. An override mechanism to automatic handling would be necessary given the conditions and state of support the guns get during deployment. Also, with a weight range of 12-14 tons, shoot and scoot capability really needs to be known better or benchmarked.

Whilst reading this I was thinking the K9 Vajra sounds an awful lot like the South Korean K9 system the Poles just bought a boatload of. Sure enough it is one and the same. Just reading through the list of operators, looks like a huge export success with myriad operators from across the NATO and non NATO spheres.

Timely thread V.Narayan as ever! Looking forward to subsequent posts

Thank you @JazzyBala. Welcome to our happy corner, of aircraft, ships, tanks etc, where few Team BHPians come. We focus here on knowledge and information exchange and keep it away from the typical arguments and egos that dominate social media and i dare say some other threads in Team BHP itself. Great to have you. Looking forward to your contribution.:thumbs up

You mean they re-bore the gun? Does that limit the number of rounds that can be fired over the life of the now thinner barrel?

Pardon my noob question. While I understand a little of aircraft and less of warships I am in kindergarten where Army equipment goes. In artillery terms what is the difference between a medium regiment, a field regiment and a light regiment. I can understand that a mountain regiment is and that it needs a lighter gun like the M777. Why not have just one type of regiment {other than mountain artillery regiment} equipped eventually with the ATAGS. Or is it that the artillery regiment gets equipped with what is available and that decides its name? Thank you in advance for your trouble.

Got it. Thank you for putting this in language I can relate to. :)

Not the OP, but I'll try and answer.

A light regiment is typically armed with short range, close support, high arc trajectory guns like 51mm and 81mm mortars. They're highly mobile, can be disassembled and carried by infantry on foot and can be deployed quickly.

A field artillery regiment is equipped with guns ranging from 105mm to 130mm calibres. Due to its weight and larger size of shells, it requires a dedicated vehicle to tow and carry its ammunition.
For example, the Indian Army uses ARDE (Armament Research and Development Establishment) developed 105mm Indian Field Guns along with the Soviet built 130mm M-46 howitzer*.

Twitter | ADG PI-Indian Army


"business end" of an M-46
Some of these M-46's were upgunned by an Israeli firm to 155mm/45 calibre standard.

Similarly, a medium regiment is equipped with 155mm guns that can fire shells at longer ranges than field artillery. These require dedicated towing and ammunition vehicles as well. The FH-77B Bofors, Dhanush and ATAGS belong to this category.


155mm/45 Dhanush howitzer

That's exactly what the FARP or Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan intended. All field artillery guns were planned to be replaced by guns of 155mm calibre.

One argument that I've seen against ATAGS is that it suffers from the same problem that the Arjun MBT faces, it's overweight.
This necessitates procurement of more powerful towing trucks and upgrades to the maintenance machinery in workshops which adds extra costs.
This explains why PIB specifically mentions High Mobility 6x6 trucks alongside ATAGS,
In places where the infrastructure can't support the heavier ATAGS, Dhanush would be suitable.
Since they both fire 155mm shells, the logistics for ammunition wouldn't be difficult, just their barrel length differs.


The CAG report of 2023 doesn't paint a good picture of this plan though. The report states that only 8% of the envisaged guns have been acquired and its been delayed by about 2 decades.
TribuneIndia | Artillery modernisation plan delayed by 2 decades, says CAG report
____

*All howitzers are artillery but not all artillery are howitzers.
Artillery is a broad term that is used to classify weapons of large calibre NOT fired from the shoulder.
A Howitzer has the ability to fire shells at flatter, low trajectory, like a tank cannon, as well as at high angles.

My understanding is a little limited in this matter but from what i understand, the barrel, the breech block and the recoil buffer are new items mounted to the existing gun carriage and gun control system.



FlankerFury has got most of this right. The only change would be that light regiments are mostly equipped with mostly the 120mm mortars these days. They are relatively close to the infantry unit they are supporting and need to be road and foot mobile. The smaller 81mm and 60mm mortars have been pushed to the infantry battalion's heavy weapons platoon these days for organic light indirect fire support.

The various clasification of the regiments are also based on historical names. The field artillery of yore were completely different to howitzers and mortars of the time and some of that nomenclature is still followed in the regiment's designation.

Exactly as FlankerFury says. FARP was designed with the intent to maximise the reach and impact of our artillery units while reducing logistical and training complexities. 155mm offered the most bang for bucks, along with a diverse supply chain for some seriously esoteric shells too, hence it was chosen as the standard around which we will develop all guns for the foreseeable future.

About the overweight thing, I'd say that this more due to our lack of understanding of iterative development as we are, more often than not, accustomed to finished polished products landing up in our markets.

The infrastructure would anyways need to be upgraded since all modern guns are significantly more electronic than mechanical, unlike the previous gen guns but the view of the powers that be is so myopic and short sighted that they cant see this.

Change in barrel length also cause changes in the way the weapon can be used in this case so they are not exactly identical with each other but in a pinch, yes we can do that.

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