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| M777 at Defexpo 2012 | Photo / Shiv Aroor |
The Indian government’s Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) today approved the acquisition of 145 BAE Systems M777 ultra-light howitzers for the Indian Army. The deal will still have to be cleared by the Finance Ministry and the apex Cabinet Committee on Security before a foreign military sales (FMS) contract is signed between the Indian and U.S. governments.
The approval means the establishment has been able to step over a controversy that bubbled up a little over a year ago where excerpts of a the classified trial report were clipped to an anonymous complaint letter that landed on the Defence Minister’s desk. Wonder how they got through that one.
If this deal goes through, it’ll be the first howitzers India has bought since the Bofors scam. Sweet irony that BAE owns Bofors now.
these are ultra light howitzzers of 155mm .39 calibre for mountain battle groups. Any news of towed howitzzers of 155mm .52 calibre of bofors type.
Finally one step forward to get the desperately needed guns… Just hope the finance ministry and CCS clear it without further hiccups!
Army Chief's letter to PM has worked, thank God! Hope to God we will get the guns at an early date. They are urgently needed on Arunachal and Ladak borders.
Many points here:
1. Amazing how this took 27 years to see that light of day.
2. It's a good decision. Why not go for 250 rather than the orginal requirement of 145. Keeping in mind aging equipment
3. Now that we have bought it. Why not licence produce them in India or atleast look to BAE systems to share technology with us
4. Congratulations to the Indian Army and most importantly, General V K Singh for stating his case of the Army's needs to the PM. In my view, The General should some day be made the Defense Minister, then only will The Indian Armed Forces be taken of really well.
It is good that they have now started coming out of their shock… I mean the shell shock created by Bofors.
The security of the nation is paramount.
It is good to see that at last they are coming out of the shell shock created by the Bofors.
Security of the nation is paramount.
I hope we also get the Excalbur rounds with these babies!!!
40km to 57km range, GPS guided, 20 mtr CEP .
YIPEE!! All smiles here!!
🙂
I hope we also get the Excalbur rounds with these babies!!!
40km to 57km range, GPS guided, 20 mtr CEP .
YIPEE!! All smiles here!!
🙂
I hope we get the Excalibur rounds with these babies.
40km to 57km range , with 20mtr CEP and GPS guidance!!
All smiles here. 🙂
Finally, some good news at last for the IA.
VK Singh didnot leaked the letter.It was leaked by traitors who were arm in gloves with arm dealer.Now all kind of weapon puchase will be on fast track. So quick kickbacks.
The big question what kind of race these indians belongs to? They can produce artillary gun in 21st century which is a century old technology.
AND we are dreaming to become suppepower with these stuffs.
May be desis are only good for slavery.
I doubt this would have happened without V.K Singh lighting a fire under the PMO's chair ! Good it seems to be working, we need the political class & the bureaucrats to grow some balls and give the forces what they've been asking for over a decade now.
I am sure numbers will be increased shortly after the first round of purchases have been completed and the equipment's put through its paces in subsequent drills & war games. I am pretty certain the follow on clause will be part of the initial contract as has been the case of FMS deals in the recent past.
I doubt the CCS or the Finance ministry will sit over this one for long since once again everyone up there is keen to put out the fire that General Singh lit with his letter to the prime Minister !
for this cost we could have bought a large number of lighter 105mm LFGs supported by Pinaka rockets. If you see the purchases a lot of money is given to buy less number of less capable foreign equipment and very little money is spent on indigenous products. You have mentioned earlier that the indian army is in dead love with the pinaka rockets which are also reportedly achieving an accuracy of less than 10 meters when gps equipped and can have their ranges easily increased by increasing the propellant and reducing the size of the warhead to about 60kg.
Now look at the purchase of M777. Controversy about its inaccuracy suppressed. Competitor ST Technologies barred without notifying any reason. This is a single vendor situation. Obviously Christian mercenaries are at play to delay, disrupt, downgrade and eliminate the power of India. You look at purchases of American defense products. All inflated costs. Low numbers, Lot of conditions, no spares, hyped up specifications, and these follow the surrender of India's Nuclear Power by the agreement with the USA by this puppet prime minister. Contrast this with the Pakistan general who are dubbed iditors have done. They have taken all kinds of assistance from the Americans and have put them to test and have also double gamed by supporting Taliban to extract more concessions from Americans and have defeated the Americans by making them bleed in Afghanistan. Contrast this efficiency with Indian Army and the defence ministry of India. We know who are incompetent people of all.
It is frustrating that we are ruled by a bunch of corrupt puppets who all seems to be CIA agents weakening our country. I'm surprised by the enthu shown here by misinformed people. If we can build a nuclear submarine, ICBM with great accuracy can't we build a simple cheap howitzer. Corruption at play in this.
Guys don't be overwhelmed by this information, bcoz the bureaucracy and the layers of bureaucracy and corrupt politicians will try their best to sabotage or further delay this deal.
This deal is happening only becoz of the letter which leaked.
Jeez…after blacklisting almost the entire international arms industry they fast track a contract to one of the (proven) most corrupt companies in the world…I wonder how…..
That aside, I agree with others here that the equipment is desperately needed, and needed in far larger quantities. Hopefully there will be much larger followup orders (I dont hold much hope of that though) and more importantly they use the recently cleared manufacturing deal for the FH-77 to full effect to bring us up to par with our noisy neighbors.