All You Need To Know About The Dhanush Artillery Gun Handed Over To The Army Today 

India’s effort to acquire new artillery, starting in the 2000s, had largely been a saga of numerous issued and cancelled tenders. But this changed in November last year, when the Indian Army inducted two different 155mm artillery systems—the United States-built M777 howitzers and the South Korean-origin K9 Vajra self-propelled guns at the Deolali Artillery Centre in Maharashtra’s Nashik.

And now, over three decades after it got 410 Bofors-built Haubits FH77B howitzers under a deal signed by the Rajiv Gandhi government, India seems to have made good of the transfer of technology (ToT) as part of the contract.

The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) today handed over six Dhanush 155mm/45-caliber artillery guns it developed after going through over 12,000 design and technology documents supplied by Swedish firm Bofors as part of the deal inked by the Rajiv Gandhi government in the late 1980s for 410 155mm Howitzers.

Besides the design documents supplied to India as part of the contract, Bofors was also supposed to provide technical assistance in understanding and executing the documentation to build the howitzer in India.

However, soon after the Bofors deal was inked, reports of Indian officials and politicians getting kickbacks made headlines in Switzerland and India. Spooked by the scandal, the then Indian government banned Bofors in 1987, making it impossible for the Army and state-owned firms to deal with it. As a result, the design and technology documents gathered dust for almost a decade.

“The government had secured the right of transfer of technology during the purchase of Bofors guns. Though all the technical 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,” Defence Minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government told Parliament in March 2012.

The ban on Bofors was lifted only in June 1999, at the height of the Kargil conflict, when the army was desperate for spare parts of the gun, which was performing exceptionally well against Pakistan. The same year, the Army finalised its Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan, which envisaged the acquisition of 3,000 artillery systems of various types. The Army was to acquire a mix of 155mm/39-calibre lightweight howitzers and 155mm/52-cal towed, mounted, self-propelled (tracked and wheeled) artillery guns under this plan, which made little progress.

In 2007, the Army rebooted its plan and decided to look at off the shelf options. However, when imports failed to materialise by 2009, it started looking at indigenous options. That’s when the Dhanush was born.

The OFB started working on the Dhanush sometime in 2010. In 2012, BAE Systems, a British multinational company which now owns the howitzer unit of the erstwhile Swedish company Bofors, offered to provide India with the technical assistance promised as part of the 1980s Bofors deal.

A set of mechanical and electronic upgrades have ensured that the Dhanush is a major improvement over the FH-77Bs of the 80s.

One, thanks to the Bi-modular Charge System (used to ignite the shell and push it out of the gun), among other innovations such as longer barrel, Dhanush guns have a range of nearly 38 kilometer. The Bofors guns, in comparison, can fire only up to a range of 27 kilometer.

Two, the introduction of an Automatic Gun Alignment and Positioning System (AGAPS) makes Dhanush more accurate than the FH-77Bs. AGAPS uses enhanced tactical computer, which is part of the gun’s electronic suite, for on-board ballistic computations, a muzzle velocity radar to help minimise error, and an inertial navigation system-based sighting system which can get GPS updates.

Three, the Dhanush is compatible with the Shakti Artillery Combat Command and Control System that integrates and automates all artillery operational functions from the Corps Fire Control Center down to the Battery Command Post to create a networked environment for efficient use of firepower.

Using Shakti, developed by Bharat Electronics Limited and Defence Research and Development Organisation, forces can concentrate artillery firepower at a given point with enhanced accuracy in a short time frame.

Four, due to the auto gun laying capability, Dhanush guns can aim at a target much faster when compared to the FH-77Bs.

Moreover, Dhanush is the first long-range artillery gun to be produced in India, and is nearly 87 per cent indigenous, making its maintenance easier.

The most critical imported parts include the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), which provides power to the system, supplied by BAE Systems and the sighting system by France-based SAGEM. Indian private firm, Force Motors, is developing an APU which may replace the one imported from BAE Systems in the future.

Development of an artillery gun may not be as complicated as making a ballistic missile, but it is a quite a tricky job. One of the most critical aspects is maintaining a balance between the range of the gun and its mobility. And the Dhanush had its share of problems.

During tests of a prototype in August 2013 in Pokhran, a shell burst within the barrel of the gun. Although barrel burst is not an uncommon problem, it was later found that in this case, the accident was not due to a defective barrel, but a result of ammunition wobbling out-of-axis to exert additional pressure on the barrel.

The first round of trial was conducted in 2016 at the Pokhran and Babina ranges and the second round was carried out the same year at the Siachen base camp. During these trials, the guns travelled in towed and self-propelled mode in desert and high-altitude terrains, each clocking over 1,000 km and demonstrating mobility.

But at a time when Dhanush was proving its mettle, another blow struck the programme. In 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation registered a case against a New Delhi-based firm for supplying Chinese-manufactured bearings for the artillery gun, passing them off as being made by CRB Antriebstechnik of Germany. This pushed the programme into limbo for a while.

Again, in May 2017, when six prototypes of the Dhanush were being fired as part of the user-exploitation firing, a gun was damaged when a shell hit the muzzle brake, a part fitted on the top of the barrel to reduce the recoil created following the firing of ammunition. A similar accident happened in July 2018, pushing back the process of induction of the gun into the Army’s armoury.

The first batch of 18 Dhanush guns was to be inducted in 2017, another 36 guns in 2018 and 60 guns in 2019, completing the initial order for 114 guns. However, in June 2018, the gun was still undergoing final user exploitation firings.

But despite these hiccups, the Army has finally got the guns, proving that ToT remains a viable model for the development of indigenous capacity.