As India’s Procurement Of Mobile 155mm Artillery Guns Stalls, Pakistan Races Ahead With Its Chinese-Made SH-15 Truck-Mounted Howitzer

Pakistan Army is racing ahead with its procurement of hundreds of Chinese-made mobile SH-15 155mm Mounted Gun Systems (MGS).

Meanwhile, the Indian Army remains stuck in the numerous procedures, and processes of the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD).

MGS are artillery guns mounted on a mobile truck-based platform, which increases the gun's mobility, allowing the system to 'shoot and scoot'.

'Shoot and scoot' are tactics used by artillery gunners where they fire rounds in quick succession towards the target and change their position as quickly as possible to prevent detection and counter-artillery bombardment.

Normal towed guns have a disadvantage in this regard.

Towed guns take way more time to set up and move from their firing position than MGS.

For example, before setting up the gun, the artillery crew has to detach the gun from the towing truck, set up the gun in its firing position, transfer ammo from the truck close to the position, and, once the firing mission is complete, reverse the entire process.

This makes them extremely vulnerable to enemy counter-battery fire, and if the gun is caught close to the firing position, its chances of destruction grow manifold.

With the advent of loitering munitions and first-person-view (FPV) suicide drones, as seen in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Russia-Ukraine war, these slow-moving towed guns are even more at a disadvantage.

The only advantage of these towed guns is that they are cheaper than the MGS or the tracked self-propelled howitzers (SPH), which Pakistan has in plenty.

Pakistan in 2018 signed an agreement with China to procure 236 SH-15 MGS.

The delivery of the first batch of these MGS started in 2022. An additional 56 SH-15s were further ordered. These SH-15s are the export variant of the Chinese PLC-181 MGS.

They can fire various extended-range full-bore base bleed and boat tail (ERFB-BB, BT), Velocity Enhanced Artillery Projectile (VLAP), and laser-guided rounds, giving them a precision strike capability out to a maximum of more than 40 kilometres.

According to rumours, they may have also increased these orders to more than 432 SH-15, leaving India way behind in terms of mobile artillery numbers.

India only operates 100 Korean-made K-9 Vajra-T tracked SPHs, which is way less than the more than two hundred odd American-supplied M109 tracked SPHs. On top of it, the over 400 SH-15 MGS, which India has no answer to. These rumours of additional orders give Pakistan an even bigger advantage.

In fact, Pakistan deployed these howitzers with Chinese drones very close to the Line of Control (LoC), in 2023.

When you add this to the hundreds of Chinese PLC-181 MGS and other tracked SPHs that China has deployed in the Tibetan Plateau, the Indian Army falls way short.

Under its 2017 artillery procurement plan, the Indian Army wanted to buy 814 MGS and 100 tracked SPHs. When the orders for these 814 MGS will be given is anybody’s guess.

There were reports that the army was looking to buy an additional 100 K-9 Vajra-T. How long that order will take to materialise also cannot be said with certainty. A new tender for the procurement of 200 105mm 37 caliber MGS from an Indian vendor, likely to be Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited (KSSL), is in the works as well.

The timeline for this order is also not known.

The only bright side in this artillery procurement saga is the emergence of a complete artillery ecosystem within India’s borders. With towed guns of 105mm to mounted guns of 155mm, all of them are available in India with Indian vendors.

Kalyani, with its Mounted Artillery Gun (MaRG) system, DRDO’s truck-mounted advanced towed artillery gun system (ATAGS), and Ordnance Factory Board's truck-mounted Dhanush gun, are in the fray for 814 MGS order.

Bharat Forge has even exported its MaRG system to Armenia.

It's on the army to utilise these domestic capabilities and expedite orders for these guns, lest, let alone China, India may find it difficult to compete even with Pakistan.