Artillery
India last bought an artillery gun in 1986, when around 410 units of 155mm field howitzers were bought from Swedish manufacturer AB Bofors by the then Rajiv Gandhi government. The alleged Rs 64-crore pay-off in the Bofors deal has set back Indian Army’s Rs 20,000-crore artillery modernisation programme by several decades. Since the Bofors purchases, Indian Army has not purchased a single artillery gun in the last two-and-a-half decades. And there has been no effort to build one indigenously too. As a result, India is still mulling over replacing its ageing inventory of artillery guns that are several decades old and are obsolete for modern-day warfare. Among the types of guns it requires include are 814 155mm/52-calibre mounted gun systems of which 200 are to be bought off the shelf and the rest produced locally through technology transfer, 100 155mm/52 calibre self-propelled tracked guns, 1,580 155mm/52 calibre towed guns and another 145 Ultra Light Howitzers (ULHs) for deploying in high altitude areas. Only in 2012 did India make an emergency order for the British major BAE Systems’ M777 ULHs from its American subsidiary through the US Foreign Military Sales.
Submarine
In 1981, India selected German submarine manufacturer Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) to supply it with four of its submarines for Rs 420 crore to help the Indian Navy build a fleet. But all that this deal ended up doing was to derail the Indian Navy’s 30-year plan to have 24 diesel-electric submarines in its fleet, following allegations of Rs 30-crore bribe to influence the contract. HDW was later absolved and is now back in business.
But the technology gains from HDW to build conventional submarines at the Mumbai-based Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) between 1986 and 1994 were completely lost. It ended in Delhi relying once again on Moscow to supply 10 conventional submarines.
The HDW fiasco also forced the Indian Navy to go in for a new global tender after the advent of the 21st Century to help MDL obtain technology to build submarines afresh. That tender resulted in the contract with the French Thales to build six Scorpene submarines that are still under construction. The Scorpene submarines programme is already delayed by three years.
Military Trucks
A defence ministry ban on all-terrain high-mobility Tatra trucks following a corruption taint and the delays in finding its alternative have badly hit the Indian armed forces’ critical projects, including the Akash surface-to-air missile, BrahMos supersonic cruise missile and the Pinaka artillery rockets programmes.
This is not all. The decision not to procure even spares for the in-service 7,983 Tatra trucks, inducted from 1986 to 2012 to form four per cent of the total vehicles fleet of the 11.3-lakh-strong Indian Army, is also adversely impacting their serviceability. These special trucks can operate in all-weather and all-terrain conditions while carrying heavy cargo, surmounting landscape-related hurdles with much ease due to its technological and design innovations. These vehicles are needed by the Indian armed forces to carry their missiles, tanks, equipment and troops to inaccessible locations along the borders in high-altitude Jammu and Kashmir and the North-east, apart from the deserts of Rajasthan. The Indian Army alone immediately needs 1,600-odd heavy motor vehicles that could cost anywhere from Rs 320 crore to Rs 800 crore. Other projects hit include the Russian-origin 90-km Smerch, Pinaka rocket launcher, BrahMos cruise missile mobile launcher, Swathi Weapon Locating Radars transporter, Mechanised Infantry Command Post, Reconnaissance and Support Vehicle, Arjun, T-90, T-72 battle tank transporter, and troop carriers.