- Officials say India likely to deploy US-made guns along China border
India’s defence officials on Sunday said that field trials were being carried out on two long-range ultra-light howitzers in Pokhran which the Indian Army received from the US after a gap of 30 years since the Bofors scandal broke out.
The test-firing of the guns was primarily aimed at collating and determining various critical data like trajectory, speed and frequency of fire of the M-777 A-2 ultra-light howitzers (ULH) which were expected to be mostly deployed along the border with China, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
The trials will continue till September for formation of the firing table which is a major aspect of the overall induction process, the news agency quoted unidentified army official as saying. Three more guns will be supplied to the army in September 2018 for training, it said.
“Thereafter, induction will commence from March 2019 onwards with five guns per month till the complete consignment is received by mid-2021,” the news agency reported. It said that the Indian Army badly needs the howitzers considering the evolving ‘regional’ security scenario.
India had last procured howitzers in the mid-1980s from Swedish defence major Bofors. The alleged pay-offs in the deal and its subsequent political ramifications had severely crippled the Indian Army’s procurement of the artillery guns.
India had received the howitzers in May as part of an order for 145 guns. India had struck a government-to-government deal with the US last November for supply of the 145 howitzers at a cost of nearly 5,000 crore Indian rupees.
While 25 guns will come in a fly-away condition, the rest will be assembled in India by the BAE Systems in partnership with Mahindra Defence. Last week, the Indian government had empowered the vice chief of the army to procure critical ammunition and spares for key weapons systems to maintain combat readiness for short duration intense wars.
The move, aimed at filling the voids in the army’s combat readiness, came amid nearly a month-long standoff between the armies of India and China in the Dokalam area as well as heightened Indo-Pakistan tension along the Line of Control in Jammu Kashmir.