Army incorporates lessons from Russia-Ukraine war in its artillery doctrines, procurement plans

These, they added, are key lessons that have emerged for Indian artillery from the war, and they are now being incorporated in its doctrines and capability development plans.

One official said the Russia-Ukraine war has reaffirmed the importance of firepower as a battle-winning factor, given that 80 percent of war casualties reported in it were due to artillery fire. The Russians are estimated to be firing 20,000 artillery shells a day and the Ukrainian side is firing 4,000 to 5,000 shells every day.

“It has been seen that the massive firepower used in the war has resulted in a lot of destruction. It has underlined the need to have judicious mix of guns and rockets in our inventory,” the official said.

Officials also said the war has emphasised the need to have more precision and terminally guided munitions in the Army’s inventory, and that precision-targeting in the war was carried out using missiles, unmanned conventional aerial vehicles, loiter munitions and long-range artillery terminal guided munitions.

The war has also shown that battlefield transparency had a major role to play in the war by identifying, acquiring and engaging a target in real time. “The war has shown that the time between acquiring and engaging a target has gone down from five to 10 minutes in the past to one or two minutes now. There is a need to engage the target as quickly as possible before it changes course and thus the need for a more effective kill chain,” the official said.

He said battlefield transparency enables a leader to plan and execute his operations, but also helps him remain ahead in the decision-making cycle. It is also critical for his own forces’ survivability.

Officials said the war has brought out the importance of inducting niche technology equipment such as loiter munitions, swarm drones, counter-drone systems and other communication systems. They highlighted that future wars will involve technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics for precise analysis and target engagement.

The war highlighted the need to be prepared for prolonged operations for which there is a need to have indigenous arms industry, which can also surge production of arms and armament when needed.

Officials said lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war have made the Army create a revised Artillery profile. They said while the western front requires more mounted gun systems and self-propelled gun systems, the towed guns systems with a shoot-and-scoot capability would be more apt for deployment along India’s mountainous northern borders.

An official said the Regiment of Artillery’s capability development plans are progressing well as per set time-lines and going forward, the 155mm guns will be standard calibre of all artillery guns in line with worldwide trends.

“We have recently concluded four contacts with different types of 155mm guns. Several regiments have already been equipped with these guns and additional guns are being procured at a fast pace,” he said.

They include 155 mm/39 calibre howitzers, 155mm/45 calibre Sharang gun systems and the 155/52 self-propelled Vajra and Dhanush guns systems.

The Army has already signed a contract for the Dhanush guns with Jabalpur-based Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited (AWEIL), and a one regiment of these guns have already been operationalized.

The Request for Proposal for more types of 155mm guns have been issued by the Army, including 155mm/32 calibre mounted gun systems and advanced towed artillery gun systems or ATAGS.

“In addition, we are starting the procurement process for 155mm/52 calibre towed gun systems which will be the mainstay of the Indian artillery,” the official said. The plan for “Mediumisation” with indigenous guns is likely to be completed by 2042.

Officials said induction of additional regiments of Pinaka is likely to start soon. The DRDO is also exploring increasing the range of Pinaka Rockets to 120 and 300 km.

The missile capability is being enhanced in terms of range and accuracy for both ballistic and cruise missiles by DRDO. The range of BrahMos missiles has been extended and DRDO is also exploring development of a number of other missiles with various ranges and capabilities. “A lot of improvement is taking place in our ammunition systems and the focus is on precision-guided munitions. We are engaged with the academia and the industry for various projects related to 155mm shells,” an official said.

For the Ultra Light Howitzers, Excalibur and Precision Guidance Kit (PGK) have been procured, and there are plans to develop course-correctable fuzes and terminally guided munitions for precision targeting.

In rockets, the Guided Extended Range rockets for Pinaka, presently under trials, will enable accurate engagement of targets up to 70 km and the focus is on a variety of rocket munitions and trials for Area Denial Munitions (ADM) have started. The Army is inducting niche technology equipment such as loiter munitions, swarm drones, runway independent remotely piloted aircraft latest Weapon Locating Radars and Battle Field Surveillance Radars.