Singapore gun arrives today; stage set
for artillery trials
Ajai Shukla
/ New
Delhi April 19,
2010, 0:43
IST
With artillery
having killed more soldiers during the last century than any other
battlefield weapon, the decade-plus delay in equipping the Indian
Army with modern artillery guns is widely considered a major
procurement lapse.
The
stop-start-stop process of buying 1,580 towed guns for the Indian
Army will effectively restart on Monday when a C-130 Hercules
aircraft lands in New Delhi, carrying a 155-millimetre
artillery gun for trials this summer.
This gun, the
Indian Field Howitzer-2000 (IFH-2000), developed by Singapore
Technologies Kinetics, or STK, is competing for the Indian tender
with British company BAE Systems’ FH-77B-05, a derivative of the
controversial and respected Bofors gun. The lower-profile IFH-2000
is the world’s first 155mm 52-calibre howitzer, which the Singapore
Armed Forces have used for over a decade.
A 52-calibre
howitzer fires heavier shells than older, 39-calibre and 45-calibre
guns, inflicting greater punishment on the target. The Indian
tender for towed guns specifies that only 52-calibre guns will be
evaluated.
Trials for
procuring 155 mm, 52-calibre towed guns began in summer 2002, when
the Ministry of Defence (MoD) began evaluating three guns from BAE
Systems; Israeli firm, Soltam; and South African company, Denel.
Five rounds of trials, conducted in 2002; 2003; 2004; and 2006;
reached no conclusion. Denel was blacklisted for corruption in
September 2005; the other two guns did not meet the army’s
standards.
The trials
remain dogged by controversy even after a fresh tender was issued
in 2008. Last year, one of the two contenders, STK, was
unofficially blacklisted for corruption after the arrest of former
Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) chief Sudipta Ghosh. But CBI
investigations have made no apparent headway in the past year; not
even a charge-sheet has been filed against Sudipta Ghosh. Now, STK
has been asked to field its gun for trials.
STK plans to
start preparing for the impending trials by practising firing at
the Pokhran ranges using Indian ammunition and a crack gun crew of
seven former Indian Army artillerymen, recruited by STK’s Indian
partner, Punj Lloyd Ltd.
The BAE Systems
gun, too, is in India, having been brought for the
Defence Expo in February and for trials scheduled immediately after
that. But those trials were postponed when the IFH-2000 was damaged
in Singapore while being loaded into an
aircraft for despatch to India.
“Punj Lloyd is
STK’s Indian partner for the 155 mm gun,” explains Patrick Choy,
STK’s international marketing chief. “STK will rely on them for
logistics and engineering support during the trials; and if STK is
awarded the contract, we will manufacture a substantial part of the
gun at Punj Lloyd’s facilities near Gwalior.”
STK’s rival in
this tender, BAE Systems, has a similar arrangement with its Indian
partner, Mahindra & Mahindra. These two companies have formed
an Indian joint venture, Defence Land Systems, with Rs 100 crore
equity held on a 74-26 per cent basis between Mahindra &
Mahindra and BAE Systems.
At stake in the
forthcoming trials is an order, worth $1.8 billion (about Rs 8,000
crore), for the outright supply of 400 towed guns; and the licensed
production in India of another 1,180 guns. If the
MoD imposes even the minimum offset requirement of 30 per cent,
that would translate into $540 million (about Rs 2,400 crore) worth
of manufacture within India.
STK and BAE
Systems are also vying for a $700-million (over Rs 3,100 crore)
contract for 140 ultralight howitzers (ULHs) for Indian mountain
divisions.
Two more
artillery purchases are simultaneously in the works: A $800 million
(Rs 3,500 crore) order for 100 medium guns, mounted in tracked
vehicles, for self-propelled (SP) medium regiments that go into
battle with India’s strike corps. Another $900
million (Rs 4,000 crore) will buy 180 vehicle-mounted guns for more
SP regiments.
The stakes are
high for everyone involved. For BAE Systems, this is an opportunity
to bury the stigma of the Bofors scandal; for STK, this is a golden
opening into the lucrative Indian market; and for the Indian Army,
desperately short of artillery firepower, this is a chance to fill
a gaping operational void.
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