The defense ministry has begun moving files to place a repeat order of 200 more 155mm tracked self-propelled howitzers worth over Rs 10,000 crore. This significant order, which will be placed with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) later this year, is the largest placed with an Indian private sector defense firm and could be a boost to the government's plan to modernize the military, build an industrial defense base, and reduce defense imports. A self-propelled gun is a tank chassis outfitted with a howitzer designed to fire on mobile columns. A K9 Vajra weighs 50 tonnes and has a range of more than 50 kilometers. L&T delivered 100 K-9 Vajras in collaboration with South Korean defense firm Hanwha Defense for Rs 4,500 crore. The contract was signed in May 2017, and the army will receive the 100th gun in February 2021. It is still the largest Make in India program signed and completed during this government's tenure.

It is also the quickest method for the army to obtain modern artillery systems.

A new order, which could be placed this year, would see the guns leave Hazira by 2023, with all deliveries completed by 2028. Many of these guns will be specially modified with upgraded engines in order to operate in the high altitude cold deserts of Ladakh and Sikkim.

This massive order could easily be one of the highlights of Defexpo 2022, the defense ministry's biennial land and naval systems exhibition. The 12th edition of Defexpo will be held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, from March 10 to March 13. It also coincides with the government's efforts to turn Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat into a defense industrial hub. The army had planned to order only one more K9 regiment until last year. So, how did this grow to a colossal ten regiments? One obvious reason was China's military presence, which began in eastern Ladakh in May 2020. The army's five existing Vajra regiments (each regiment has 18 guns, not counting the two in reserve) were acquired not for the mountains, but to work with the Indian army's three strike corps, which are spread across the plains of Punjab and the semi-deserts of Rajasthan. The deployment of the People's Liberation Army, followed by the activation of the entire northern and eastern borders, caused the army to scramble to acquire modern artillery. Three K9s were moved up into eastern Ladakh on a trial basis late last year. A senior artillery officer in the Northern Command, based in Udhampur, was a driving force behind this unusual deployment. The guns drove up from Leh to the forward areas of eastern Ladakh on their own (rather than using a tank transporter-trailer), demonstrating their independence. What seemed to have been forgotten was that these guns were originally intended for use in South Korea, a ruggedly mountainous country with a hostile neighbor and climatic conditions similar to those found in eastern Ladakh. The Indian army K9s, on the other hand, needed to be modified in the field with a special low-temperature kit by L&T engineers. Engineers modified the range tables and software that guided these guns in the field once more. The guns are thought to have performed exceptionally well, which bolstered their case for more guns. “If you don’t have at least 10 more regiments of self-propelled artillery, you will fall short all over the border,” says Lt General P Ravi Shankar, former Director-General Artillery. The army’s own howitzer acquisitions were going nowhere. Its insistence on acquiring 400 ‘Athos’ towed howitzers from Israeli firm Elbit were repeatedly rebuffed by the MoD and the case finally closed late last year. The MoD argued, correctly it would seem, that imports would kill indigenous howitzer capabilities developed over the years by a range of private and public sector developers. Seen from the army’s point of view, the two most promising indigenous artillery systems are yet to deliver. Design defects on the Dhanush, an indigenous version of the FH-77B Bofors, have jeopardized an army order for 114 guns. The DRDO-designed Advanced Towed Array Gun System (ATAGS), built indigenously by Tata Defense and Bharat Forge, is yet to clear army trials. The army believes it could take these guns at least until 2025 to pass its stringent trials. To make room for the K9s, the army cannibalized its requirement for nine regiments of wheeled howitzers (a 155 mm howitzer mounted on a 6x6 armored vehicle). The wheeled howitzer program was one of five different types of howitzers proposed after the Kargil War and approved by the government. Around 3,000 new guns were to be purchased in the categories of towed, wheeled, and tracked (on a tank chassis, such as the K-9) mounted gun systems (on a truck chassis), and ultra-light howitzers. Only mounted gun systems and wheeled howitzers are to be purchased. The second category appears to have been abandoned.