Boforsphobia, red tender tape bind Army

“After the Kargil war, we decided we needed more 155 mm artillery guns. Till date, nothing has been added to the kitty. So we have made no progress on the artillery front,” says General (retd) VP Malik who commanded the Army during the Kargil conflict.

A flawed procurement procedure, government indecision and the ghosts of the Bofors scandal have hit the Army where it hurts the most.

The artillery, all experts agree, is the weakest point in India’s defence armour. The Army, warn military analysts, will be hard pressed to deploy enough guns even if a limited conflict broke out all along the LoC.

The issue is that despite lessons drawn from the Kargil conflict and the 2001 Op Parakram troop mobilisation, the Army has not acquired an edge that will back up efforts of “coercive diplomacy” in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

“In case a conventional war is fought, you need a decisive edge. Guns are the crux of the whole issue. What we haven’t got is the edge. You can’t talk about coercive diplomacy if you are at parity,” says former Army Chief General Shankar Roychowdhury.

And not without reason. The mainstay gun of the artillery is the Russian 130 mm M-46 that was due for replacement in the 1990s. The most advanced gun is the Bofors 155 mm Howitzer that was supposed to replace the M-46 but supplies stopped after it got embroiled in the scandal.

The problem lies in numbers. While 410 Bofors guns were purchased, less than 300 remain in active service after spare parts stopped coming in once the company was blacklisted by the government. The M-46 guns are being slowly upgraded by Soltham (Israel) but the results have not been very satisfactory. Pakistan, on the other hand, has bought 115 new 155 mm howitzers from the US under the War on Terror pact.

While the Army had planned replacements for these guns, all three procurement processes got stuck and delayed by a decade. The Army wanted to replace all its M-46 guns with new 155 mm howitzers. When a new tender was finally issued in 2001 after the Bofors scandal, it took six years of trials and evaluations for the Army to say that none of the contenders were good enough.

While there was buzz that the tender was cancelled because the Bofors again emerged as the best of the lot, the Ministry of Defence maintained that no contender qualified for the tenders. A new tender has been put out this year but the procurement process has been pushed back by a decade.

“This tendering, re-tendering and the phobia (of signing deals) is really crippling the Army. It is very disheartening that just because the name Bofors pops up, even if it performs well, things get dropped. We should get over the phobia,” says Gen Roychowdhury.

Other programmes, including one to procure 155 mm Self Propelled (Wheeled and Tracked) guns, have been stuck for close to a decade. While the tracked project got scrapped after eight years of joint development that started in 1999 after Denel was blacklisted, the Army was unable to find a suitable gun for the other tender.

This, after a Parliamentary panel told the Ministry of Defence in 2000 that it should speed trials and procure at least 120 self-propelled guns by 2002. But the guns are nowhere near procurement. A fresh tender has been issued this year, three years after the last procurement process was quashed.

Worse off than the Artillery is the Army’s Air Defence network. The network, set up to protect Army field formations and vital installations from air attack, still relies on guns that date back to the World War II. The Bofors L 40/70 guns that forms the backbone of the AAD are relegated to museums in most countries that used it till the 1980s and early 1990s.

While the guns have been modified, Gen Roychowdhury says it is a “laughable sight to see that the Bofors air defence guns, almost of WW II vintage, cosmetically modernised, still form the backbone of the Army Air Defence”. Despite the changed scenario in threat perception from the air and raising of new commands, the AD gun levels have remained constant over the past three decades.

Experts warn that India will have to pay a heavy price for this glaring “operational gap” in firepower in the event of any outbreak of conventional hostilities. Any conflict on the western border, the experts point out, will be a battle of attrition rather than invasion.

“With Pakistan making clear that its nuclear threshold is low, a deep manoeuvre into the country will be too great a risk. In such a case, victory will be achieved by destroying the war-making machinery of the country. For that we need firepower and we are not adequately prepared,” says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal, Director of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) and a former artillery officer.

Tomorrow: (Stopped in the tracks: Infantry, Armoured Corps battle problems)

Artillery

105 mm Indian field guns: In service for over 30 yrs, obsolete. Need replacement.

130 mm M-46: Backbone of artillery. Was due for replacement in ’90s. Being upgraded to 155 mm by Soltham as interim step, results not satisfactory

155 mm Bofors: 410 were purchased in the late 1980s, spare parts stopped after ban. Fewer than 300 in service

Procurement

155 mm towed: Tenders in 2001, scrapped after 6 yrs. Fresh tendering on, will take 5 yrs

155 mm self-propelled (wheeled): Most firms rejected in 2005. Fresh tenders issued. Expect 5-yr delay

155 mm self-propelled (tracked): After 7-yr trial, Denel selected.

Pause after firm blacklisted; fresh tenders issued. Delayed by another five years