Indian Defence Online, New Delhi — After a spate of scrapped tenders and trials for the Indian Army’s artillery gun, defence public sector undertaking Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) has announced that it is ready with the indigenous 155mm, 52-calibre wheeled gun.
BEML has been made the nodal processing agency and the Indian government has permitted BEML to invite global tenders for the 155mm guns and the proposed contract for over 1,000 guns, besides other ranges of artillery guns including Howitzers. The estimated worth of these contracts is 20,000 crore.
The Indian Army has been desperately short of artillery firepower and a long-range state-of-the-art gun has been due for two decades since the Bofors gun controversy in the 1980s. The Indian Army’s 180-odd artillery gun regiments, each having 18 guns, have not received any new weaponry since the Bofors gun was bought in the late 1980s.
The selection of a suitable 155 mm, 52-calibre towed howitzer to fill this gap began only in 2002, when the Defence Ministry began evaluating three guns from BAE Systems, Israeli firm Soltam and Denel of South Africa.
