The Indian government has made the following statement in Parliament today:
The government had secured the right of transfer of technology during the purchase of Bofors guns. Though all the technological documents as per the ToT contract were received by OFB from M/s AB Bofors, the Transfer of Technology was not carried forward as the dealings with the technology provider, (M/s AB Bofors) were suspended. Further, no indent was placed by Army on OFB for manufacture and supply of complete gun system. Capital expenditure of Rs.376.55 crore has been sanctioned by the Government in March, 2012 for creation/augmentation of Large Calibre Weapon manufacturing capacity in Ordnance Factories.
AT LAST THE GOVT IS DOING SOMETHING TO MAKE A HOWITZER AVAILABLE TO THE ARMY
Quote- Though all the technological documents as per the ToT contract were received by OFB from M/s AB Bofors, the Transfer of Technology was not carried forward as the dealings with the technology provider, (M/s AB Bofors) were suspended.
If you had the design documents some 30 years back….will you wait for years to manufacture and think of spending millions to purchase again the same weapon? Happens only in india
Good..atlast we can manufacture desi field gun,which was pending for long time.At the same time we need to rope foreign entity to get latest technology as Bofors gun system is 25-30 years older.
a great step. but starting everything, right from the manufacturing facility and capability and then the designing… it will be another few decades. Probably, arty expansion can be based on these indigenous gun systems. but the present guns do need an early replacement.
In India only!
Have a good gun,have a combat tested and proven gun,have the tech transfer agreement BUT have some allegations or some commissions about 60 crores,DROP everything blindly.
Rather than taking a rational decision we ourselves inflicted a loss of 60,000 crores for todays acquisitions at today's prices.The value of the time lost and the experience that could have been gained in the past decades is inestimable.
If we do not watch out we are about to do the same on the Rafale.
what a pity!!! they had most of technology still they didn't try making their own Howitzer. OFB sucks
And this took 27 years ??????
Awesome news!!Upgrading/acquisition of new artillery guns was long overdue. Traditional Indian acquisition processes are as it is known to be notoriously slow and it is amazing why this ToT arrangement wasnt noticed earlier inspite of the due diligence. Imagine what difference additional Bofors guns would have made during Kargil, where as it is, as everyone knows, these guns performed admirably. This was long overdue hoping for lots and lots more of proactive news on the defence front.
Jai Hind
True Indian Tax Payer
Indigenous howitzzer will be ready by 2050.
Hi Shiv,
Can you post more on what this means? Thanks.
It is already too late, but still it is good. It is better to be late than never. OMG… what a tragic comedy running for 25 years…
Anyhow they should go instantly for a quantity production and later only shall go for design and quality changes and improvements.
even more…
Buy the license for production of the latest Bofors self propelld and the howitzers, Buy the Bonus and the Excalibur shells and India will have ha state of the art artillery force in 15 years.
Shiv you had mentioned about an Indian Howitzzer an 175mm any news about it?
its a pitiful amount of money for a major weapons system.
A car manufacturer like Ford spends more than $500 million to develop a new car. And a car does not need to be as tough as a field gun.
money wasted. DRDO will take another 2 decades to get the guns ready for trials and then the army says we no more need howitzers
Kya pata…Nobody noticed till now the availability of technology documents and All of a sudden someone noticed??..
The government should have come under some "secret" deal with bofors…which i actually support!! and all this is just for public consumption. Bofors would get money for all this and our army gets the badly needed guns.
Whatever may be the reality is, it would be good if the army gets it at the earliest.
Let me also add, the enemy can as well hide under the shadow of the mountain in the himalayas. The very trajectory of the projectile of ordnance fired by these guns, should tell that the enemy on the other side of the mountain can very easily take cover under the mountain, rendering these guns not very effective in the himalayas.
Having said this, they should not be totally useless either over there.
What the army really needs is something like Bhramos, which can take a steep dive and can come vertically come straight down on the enemy.
-sudheendra s
?? ??? ???? ?? ??? ??? ??? ?? ???? ????..
is this a excuse for reverse engineering Bofors tech?
so many ignorant people out here:
1. we don't need to develop system again, we just need to clone them with given blueprint of tech processes already laid out in ToT. so no taking 50 years or 10 years as someone said!
2. artillery does not get outdated easily like aircraft, it just needs new fire-control and artillery radar for aggressive suppression of enemy artillery that can be used with any system like our bofors. so there…
bottom line: it's good now we have the green light. sad that the govt and army messed up big time and oh so late….
Seriously I dont want to hear even one more word related to Bofors kickbacks EVER EVER EVER again! I hasnt gotten anywhere in so many lost decades and it has hurt our army more then anything else. It is WAAAY past time, this issue should have been laid to rest. FORGET BOFORS!! Get over it!! MOVE ON!!……And get some damn guns for Christ sake!!
Our OFBs ans PSUs are not only self-serving, incompetent, negligent but their work ethics need to be reappraised and revamped if they to evolve into world class industrial giants.
All these companies are run by people without the proper managerial skills needed to exploit the inherent strength of these public enterprises. Their approach is non-innovative, not up to international quality standards and held to ransom by short-sighted labour unions.
Politicians use these companies as their vote banks by letting them exist without any accountability, transparency and most of the time condoning their lackadaisical performance.
The only way forward is to let the private sector to be part of defence undertakings which would automatically make the public enterprises to shape up or lose their relavance.
Most of these public enterprises have become the proverbial dog in the manger. They can't produce cutting edge equipment on time and within the allocated amounts but they bar the private sector from getting contracts from the government by using politicians who count on their votes for survival.
So long as top echelon appointments to these companies are motivated by political expediency and not on meritocracy and track record, India cannot hope to catch up with countries like China.
Are you not feeling frustrated by this spineless govt?…
Pak is leasing PoK to China, and our govt is running away in fear..
LCA is gone for another decade..
Arjun is somewhere
ISRO lost their morals.
DRDO is making rotties, mosquito killing equipments, toilets etc
Not a good gun, not a good battle uniform..
If China & Pak attack us now, we will be demolished to ashes..
Who says that Private Sector is so HOLY?
In every scam, one can see the companies involved that belonged to Private Sector.
This is irrelevant that only private sector can do it or only govt sector can.
If the policies adopted are good the result will also be good.
Have India ever thought about upgrading their FH77's into Archers like Sweden has? According to Sweden, one Archer gives the same effect as 6 FH77's.
God save the Indian Army – the Govt has given the work to OFB!!!
OFB is perhaps the worst defense unit in the entire world and without doubt the most hopeless and ridiculous manufacturing unit in India!
Even with blueprints and hand holding the OFB will "struggle" immensely to build this. It will be over budget, late and of poor quality. Hell, if the barrel lasts 2000 rounds it will be a miracle against standard charges. I just hope these guns kill more people end up killing more people down range than due to barrels exploding!
fuck off dis manmohan singh govt with antony
Would this mean, money for buying armament for the IA is now again being diverted for DRDO trying to manufacture somethign in house which might start taking half a decade before the first prototype roll out thus handicapping the IA for another decade. If simultanously orders are placed and delivery given to the IA by the main compnay and along side DRDO or OF with their own budget allocations work on developing the gun, that would be best, otherwise by the time the O.F learns to develop it, irons out the problems, the much awaiuted gun would already be outdated……this would be worse than the LCA history…as atleast LCA was supposedly to eb complete inhouse…ending up with 75% imports and no plane that flies, maligning of the mig 21 and pilots getting killed…
I hope we all comment with due respect to the soldier scholar.
beautiful blog……
Good..atlast we can manufacture desi field gun,which was awaiting for period of your energy and energy and effort.At the same time we need to line foreign enterprise to get most advanced technology as Bofors gun system is 25-30 years older.
shower pumps