Indian Army Artillery Systems : News and Updates

If we combine the number of upgraded M46 and Dhanush 45 delivered till date, i doubt we will be able to raise a regiment.

And ATHOS is actually cheaper to procure even than Dhanush 45. That's a deficiency of 700 guns we are talking, in addition to 1400+ which ATAGS should ideally fill in.

So if a serving person says that we should opt for ATHOS import, he is not actually wrong.

Maybe if Dhanush 45 and Sharag upgrades were on time then I would have agreed with your notion.
Abe laude aur kitna mature karega bsdk 5 saal se ragad raha hai himalaya me ab tak to tera baap bhi mature ho jaata.
Dhanush for which we had both Bofors plans and required expertise via Soltam upgrade program. Even after that Dhanush fired so many round.

ATAGS is not even 50% of that milestone. Wrong to assume ATAGS will come so soon.
 
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But dalal generals dragging ATAGS and lobbying for ATHOS.

ATAGS has gone back to the drawing board for a hydraulics drive system because the electrical system failed. It has to restart trials. Hopefully it will begin in the summer of this year and we will see it go through by next year end.
 
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ATAGS has gone back to the drawing board for a hydraulics drive system because the electrical system failed. It has to restart trials. Hopefully it will begin in the summer of this year and we will see it go through by next year end.
Not failed but corrupt generals changed the requirement at the last moment.
 
Electric back up only for minutes instead of hours ??!? Assuming it's true , isn't there scope for usage of enhanced devices instead of what's being used ?

And this was discovered only during field trials ?!!

Whatever happened to bench testing ??

Can't say what's more ludicrous -The reasons offered here assuming they're factual or the fact that they didn't follow the SOP for testing.

I sincerely hope this isn't one of those tall tales out of Betaal Pachchisi again .
 
Electrical systems can fail based on environment. It's not necessary that the designers can cater to every eventuality, whereas the army tests for it.
 
Electrical systems can fail based on environment. It's not necessary that the designers can cater to every eventuality, whereas the army tests for it

Army prefers Rugged systems which can survive in Heat and Dust of THAR and Ice and Chill of Ladakh and Humidity of Sikkim and Arunachal

Have you seen M46 Guns being fired 🤣

If a system is Too Sophisticated it will fail in our conditions

 
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Army prefers Rugged systems which can survive in Heat and Dust of THAR and Ice and Chill of Ladakh and Humidity of Sikkim and Arunachal

Have you seen M46 Guns being fired 🤣

If a system is Too Sophisticated it will fail in our conditions


Some technologies have simply not matured enough.

The DRDO must have used crappy old batteries with a weak transformer that overloaded in certain conditions in a matter of minutes.
 
I've done a cursory search on the reasons of the failure of the ATAGS during trials. Except for a Financial Express article dated Sep 2021 quoting Lt Gen Chawla there's nothing of note worth citing here .

Even the article in question doesn't quote the General on the reasons for the failure except to state that the reasons have been conveyed to the DRDO with an anodyne statement on how the IA is all for indigenization & support for such attempts to pvt industry players in India adding that the IA wanted them to succeed.

However on the issue of Dhanush he was more forthright identifying production quality issues. I won't quote the article here as it's been linked here before & there's nothing revelatory in it . Besides it can be easily accessed on the net .

What we do know is when the ATAGS in it's present form was allegedly deficient in performance parameters , it was widely reported that the IA has asked DRDO to discard the electric drives & go in for the time & tested hydraulic ones which frankly is considered dated though not obsolete but has a range penalty . ( Hence any ATAGS vs ATHOS comparison ought to take this into account, if the information is accurate. )

Pls note there was no official communication from any of the princpals involved on the precise reason of these failures as can be expected in such cases but were purely speculations from defence correspondents & ex servicemen in addition to a few amateur defence enthusiasts or amateur experts as I label them .

An article from IRDW ( can't be linked here as the link is disabled by the administrators here nor does copy pasting work , I assume , for the same reasons. I'd encourage those interested to check it out on the net ) states that the electric drives would be heavier than the hydraulic ones where the IA has already flagged it's weight issues .( Hence any ATAGS vs ATHOS comparison ought to take this into account, if the information is accurate. )

Kalyani has offered to remedy the situation by incorporating titanium & other aerospace grade material in it lightening the weight but that would have a cost implication which as we well know is already on the higher side even as the IA loves to draw comparisons to the ATHOS. Apart from this , apparently there are also some recoil related issues. Other issues , if any , haven't been highlighted.

Incidentally there's the Kalyani groups Bharat 52 in the same category as ATHOS but the IA isn't interested. In any case by the time it's thru with trials , it'd be a decade I guess by which time some other innovation would have come up . Btw it's a decade since the ATAGS project was first launched . It was supposed to have been inducted in 2017 & then in 2019.

We can already see where this sorry episode is going & the parallels to Arjun if any , I'm sure , is purely co incidental. Incidentally the same Lt Gen Chawla DG Artillery states that the IA were impressed by the performance of the K-9 Vajra & the M-777 howitzers. No surprises on the statement here though it may come as a revelation to some that these are tried & tested products.

I hope someone makes the effort to check up on which Armies internationally have equipped their artillery with electric drives & how did they go about it .

Instead all we have are glib statements from renowned storytellers on why ATAGS failed . Source ? Here's it :

images (3).jpeg
 
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A 155/52 system, 3-4 crore rupees cheaper, 3-4 tons lighter , even if range is 40km would be better. Seawolf class vs virgina class. Do not make something too good. That has its own problems.
 
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