Skip to main content

BAE Bofors 155mm Artiliery Gun Back in Indian Artiliery Tender

The BAE Bofors 155mm  gun is back in the competition for a record fourth time for a multi-billion dollar heavy artillery gun order from the Indian Army.


BAE Systems, the  owner of Bofors, has said that that it has “submitted  to the Indian ministry of defence’s latest RFI (request for information) for towed 155mm howitzers, following previous tenders which were cancelled because of the inability of other potential suppliers to meet the tender conditions.”

Along with its Indian partner, Mahindra and Mahindra, the company has offered a version of the FH77 B05 155mm howitzer. It says “a significant proportion will be manufactured in India to meet the specific needs of the Indian Army.”


In the last trial, which was cancelled by A.K. Antony’s defence ministry in July, the Bofors gun and ST Kinetics’s iFH 2000 were the only guns in the competition. 

Army sources said the trial was cancelled because STK’s gun was not calibrated to fire Indian ammunition. But STK sources say they were not given the time sought to re-calibrate their weapon for the summer trial in the Rajasthan desert.

The tender was cancelled because STK’s disqualification made BAE Systems the only vendor and the Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) lays down that procurement must be based on competition, defence ministry sources said.

The guns — the Bofors GH 77 B05 and STK’s iFH 2000 — that the companies had brought for the trials are still in India. The cancellation of the tender pushed the Indian army’s field artillery modernisation programme, already behind schedule by 10 years, at least two more years behind.
Andrew Gallagher managing director and chief executive of BAE Systems India said, “BAE Systems is confident that the FH77 B05 is the best heavy towed howitzer in the world today and meets the requirements of the Indian Army”. The Indian Army used the earlier version of the howitzer in the 1999 Kargil war.

The army plans to buy and produce a total of 1,580 guns of the 155mm/52caliber category. For 23 years now, the army has not added a single big gun to its arsenal since the Bofors FH77B02, contracted by the Rajiv Gandhi government, raised a row over kickbacks.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pakistani JF-17 A Thunder OR A Blunder

Pakistan has witnessed new defense acquisitions in this decade than any other, and in the center of it all is the new fighter which was designed by China with partial funding from Pakistan. It is formally known as JF-17 Thunder. When the fighter was in development, Pakistani online communities were jumping with excitement comparing it with its arch rival India’s modern combatants Su-30MKI, Mig-29S & Mirage-2000H. There were claims of it featuring western Radars and long range missiles, & Chinese ordering some due to its superior capabilities. But the reality is far from it. China having spent significant amount of money into a fighter which it is never going to use, most probably forced Pakistan to accept its avionics to offset some its development costs. Chinese who are known for their self reliance first and quality next, are further downgrading JF-17s capabilities with their poorly copy-pirated avionics. Along with their dubious weapons, any chance of JF

Pakistani F-16s Shoot Down RAF Eurofighter Typhoons During Air Combat Exercises In Turkey

Pakistani pilots flying modernised versions of the 1970s-vintage F-16 Falcon fighter have beaten the RAF's brand-new Eurofighter Typhoon superfighters during air combat exercises in Turkey, according to a Pakistani officer. Analysis: The RAF Typhoon, formerly known as the Eurofighter, should nonetheless have been vastly superior in air-to-air combat whether BVR or close in within visual range (WVR). The cripplingly expensive, long-delayed Eurofighter was specifically designed to address the defects of its predecessor the Tornado F3 – famously almost useless in close-in, dogfighting-style air combat. The Typhoon was meant to see off such deadly in-close threats as Soviet "Fulcrums" and "Flankers" using short-range missiles fired using helmet-mounted sight systems: such planes were thought well able to beat not just Tornados but F-16s in close fighting, and this expectation was borne out after the Cold War when the Luftwaffe inherite

India Planned Attack On Pak Navy Mehran Base To Kill Chinese Engineers

The terrorist attack on Karachi's Mehran Naval Station on May 22 was conceived and launched by India with the primary objective of killing the Chinese engineers present there, a Pakistani newspaper has claimed, citing 'informed sources'. Four to six Taliban terrorists had entered PNS Mehran on May 22, destroying two maritime surveillance aircraft and killing ten military personnel during their 17-hour siege of the naval air base. "India is the only country in the region that feels troubled by the Pakistan Navy, which had awfully beaten the Indian Navy in Operation Dwarka of 1965. Since then, it has been an earnest desire of India to harm the Pakistan Navy but it was perhaps not possible on the battle front, hence it struck the PNS Mehran," The News quoted sources as saying.