‘Out-of-the-box’ mantras modernizing, indigenizing India’s Artillery

Indian Army’s Artillery wing is looking to cash in on the benefits of an ‘out-of-the-box’ and innovative approach in producing and deploying weapons and equipment in a fast changing geo-strategic ecosystem, writes ETV Bharat's Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: It is said there are only impossible solutions to insoluble problems. In the backdrop of the ongoing border row with China across eastern Ladakh and an ever-present antagonism on the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, the twin-pronged effort of modernization and indigenization ultimately boils down to a race against tight deadlines and ever-changing goalposts.

Faced with the formidable challenge of fielding state-of-the-art weapon systems and at the same time enhancing indigenization, the Indian Army’s artillery wing is banking on a slew of innovative practices that hold out immense promise.

A top source in the military establishment elaborated on Monday: “While inducting a new weapons system, the process of trials and testing is very time-consuming. What we have done is to conduct the different types of trials on multiple models of the same prototype at the same time. This drastically cuts down on time and hastens final deployment.”

Similarly, the K-9 ‘Vajras’ gun system—essentially procured for deployment in the hot and arid desert areas across the length of the border with Pakistan in India’s west—was tinkered with so as to enable deployment in the sub-zero temperature and high altitude areas of Ladakh.

In the aftermath of the faceoff with the PLA after May 2020, K-9 ‘Vajras’ were deployed along the LAC after making fitments under a ‘winterization’ plan. “One regiment already has the winter kits. The ‘winterization’ plan basically involves taking care of battery, oil, lubricants, etc so that they don’t freeze in the extreme temperatures,” the official explained.

In another move with game-changing possibilities as far as production of military equipment is concerned, the official said the government is actively considering the consortia approach to production, which entails different corporate and entities being made responsible for different components and systems of a single platform. “Then timelines for weapons development, production, induction and deployment will be substantially compressed,” the official said.

“As a result of these approaches, our guns, rockets, missiles, ammunition and surveillance equipment are all in place … The entire modernization effort is looking at indigenization of all weapons systems except howitzers,” the source said, adding that many other weapons platforms are already in the pipeline.