India's Artillery Faces a Dangerous Gap: Too Few Radars, Too Little Mobility

India's powerful army faces a critical weakness when it comes to its artillery forces. The country lacks enough Weapon Locating Radars (WLRs), devices that pinpoint the source of enemy artillery fire. This leaves Indian troops at a disadvantage in any potential conflict.

Currently, the Indian Army has only 48 WLRs active, with just 12 more on the way. That's not nearly enough for a force with 59 artillery brigades, each with 48-54 artillery pieces. The plan is to have only one WLR per brigade by 2025/26, leaving many units dangerously exposed.

The situation is made worse by another key issue: only 3% of India's roughly 3200 artillery pieces are self-propelled. This means they can't quickly relocate after firing, making them easier targets for the enemy to strike back against.

A Worrying Comparison​

Things look very different on the other side of the border. Pakistan, India's traditional rival, has a much higher percentage (25%) of self-propelled artillery, and that number is expected to rise.

China, another potential adversary, leaves both countries in the dust, with 83% of its artillery being self-propelled. Chinese artillery brigades also pack a bigger punch with 72 guns each, compared to India's standard.

Globally, armies aim to have 1-2 WLRs for every 18 artillery pieces. Both the US and China follow this practice, giving them a strong ability to detect and respond to enemy fire. India falls significantly short of this standard.

The Need for Change​

Closing this radar gap is essential for the Indian Army to make its artillery forces more effective on the battlefield. The government should also move swiftly to acquire more self-propelled artillery units.

These changes would significantly reduce the risk to soldiers' lives while boosting India's ability to deter aggression.

 

[charminar_waale_ismail_bhai]

This is not about patriotism. There is a certain lobby of retired and present army officials that favor foreign procurement with kick backs.

And lets not even mention about the can of worms that is IA's recruitment process.

If you would think only Bollywood suffers from Nepotism, wait till you hear about the phenominan i.e. Army Kids.

 

[Puneet]

People commenting without any knowledge about defence matters. Advising the Indian Army the way they talk about the cricket team. They bloody well know what they are doing with the limited resources at their disposal. They have done a pretty good job so far. They deserve all the respect that we can give. Jai Hind

 

[Aravind Raveendran]

Indian army has always proved that commonsense is indeed a rare commodity within Indias defense sector.
This article points out a very ugly fact, which I dont understand why no one in the army can foresee.

 

[alpha numeric]

IAF wasted $10Bln and Navy wasted another $10Bln, $20Bln could easily be spent on making critical defense equipment like these.

Of the lot Navy is clearly better. In the land of blind, one eyed man is king. Federal democracies like India, especially India absolute trash at centralized planning and coordination. We couldn't plan properly even When we had planning apparatus. The SKoreans and Turks had centralized administrative apparatus the could nurture and incubate the industry. Why are we so pathetic a failure, everywhere that matters.

 

[alpha numeric]

This is not about patriotism. There is a certain lobby of retired and present army officials that favor foreign procurement with kick backs.

If true, Parasitic leeches the lot of them. This is what happens when the state is incapable of disciplining it's citizens/employees.

 

[alpha numeric]

IA and IAF is worst effected by chandigarh lobby.

Chandigarh is multilandlocked, at least the Navy is safe

 

[Sandeep]

Yet all the retired officers are busy bragging about operation meghdoot(capture of siachem 40 Years ago.).
No one is raising the critical issues plaguing the military right now.
I m telling u seeing the way things are india is doomed if tomorrow china or Pakistan takes aggressive action.

That's not going to happen as we can launch our nuclear weapons! So no war will occur against China.

 

[Sandeep]

The article isn't correct. Having more WLR isn't needed because even 1 WLR can easily find the direction of the artillery shot. It comes down to the range of the radar and RCS it can detect with. Also our indigenously developed WLR are very good, advanced, accurate and even better than the older Russian or USA WLR as we didn't order them again and we have exported our WLR. Now we have developed a much better and upgraded version so orders will be placed on them.

 

[Tanishq Bafila]

People commenting without any knowledge about defence matters. Advising the Indian Army the way they talk about the cricket team. They bloody well know what they are doing with the limited resources at their disposal. They have done a pretty good job so far. They deserve all the respect that we can give. Jai Hind

The Army officials who are doing something for the country will always get respect... Have u seen the requirements of the next Battle tank that army has asked ? There is no such tank currently or under development that have all the requirements and with the cost of 70% less...

Why do they even issue these RFI ? To waste the time of procurement ?

 

[Akhil]

HAL fault. Privatise HAL. Only then IA will buy WLR.

It's HAL's fault as they did not deliver nuts on time in 1757. Which led British victory in battle of Plassey. This nut was essential for Indian army to order WLR now. It's not army fault but fault of HAL, DRDO and private labs. MUST BE PRIVATISED.

 

[Avada kedavra]

That's not going to happen as we can launch our nuclear weapons! So no war will occur against China.

India has a no first use policy genius. And so does china.
So nukes won't be involved unless there is a last minute decision by the govt to just not abide by it's own rules.
It will be conventional war only.

 

[Chand Ashok]

You should be ashamed calling our Armed forces corrupt. Why don't you join Army and change the culture if you think negatively about our forces.

However bitter but is truth. Though majority of men in uniform are honest patriots but top brass has rotten proportions. Everyone knows India has a history of bribes in arms contracts with foreign vendors & facilitated by Arms agents. Amongst these agents a good no comprised of retired top shots from forces.

 

[Sanmesh Parab]

Since we have now willingness and support from govt there shouldn't be such situation in Indian forces. We also privatize the arms production so there is consistent supply. I think Indian govt will definitely looked into it. If not then we know now who's your blame..

 

[Sandeep]

India has a no first use policy genius. And so does china.
So nukes won't be involved unless there is a last minute decision by the govt to just not abide by it's own rules.
It will be conventional war only.

Mate just because they have a no first use policy doesn’t mean that they will follow it. The no first use policy is in reality just words on a piece of paper. If India went to war against Pakistan then they are even happy to use tactical nukes to destroy our invading army and whatever Pakistan territories, cities and people that would be under our control. They will use it because we have a stronger and much powerful conventional force that they can’t compete with. China on the other hand can’t succeed in attacking and winning against us because we can grind them to a halt with our indigenous weapons and defence systems.

 

[Shiva]

It seems this article is like an advertising agent.
It lacks another important aspect that, the range of the existing radars is also not sufficient and need more sophisticated radars.
Such radars are under development indigenously.
But existing imported radars are only for minimal self defense.
It seems, our indigenous efforts are in progress and few foreigner maketers might got some input that, there is technological significant progress in the radar R&D work and in a couple of years they may come up with sophisticated radars and this may close their deman from Indian market.
Thats why, they have started investing in Indian media, to pave a way, a conducive atmosphere, to some Indian Government officials, to accept additional orders on imported radars by accepting some bribe.

Our foolish Indian media people , never do any prework or ground work and simply publish articles.

I dont know, even after 75 years, even after sufficient freedom to media, Indian media is not yet matured enough to have their own reasoning and their own articles by keeping Indian interests in mind.
Even now, they prefer, copy and pasting from other articles published by foreigners.

 

[amerjit johal]

It seems this article is like an advertising agent.
It lacks another important aspect that, the range of the existing radars is also not sufficient and need more sophisticated radars.
Such radars are under development indigenously.
But existing imported radars are only for minimal self defense.
It seems, our indigenous efforts are in progress and few foreigner maketers might got some input that, there is technological significant progress in the radar R&D work and in a couple of years they may come up with sophisticated radars and this may close their deman from Indian market.
Thats why, they have started investing in Indian media, to pave a way, a conducive atmosphere, to some Indian Government officials, to accept additional orders on imported radars by accepting some bribe.

Our foolish Indian media people , never do any prework or ground work and simply publish articles.

I dont know, even after 75 years, even after sufficient freedom to media, Indian media is not yet matured enough to have their own reasoning and their own articles by keeping Indian interests in mind.
Even now, they prefer, copy and pasting from other articles published by foreigners.

It is more profitable to simply copy.
Prework or groundwork or fact checking are not generally in India internet media DNA.