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]

Who does the onus of this deficiency lay with?
Import Army's lack of far-sightedness.

If Swati WLR were "imported" platform, the IA would have IMPORTED in thousands.

But desi murgi daal barabar.

 

[beencensured]

Who does the onus of this deficiency lay with?
Import Army's lack of far-sightedness.

If Swati WLR were "imported" platform, the IA would have IMPORTED in thousands.

But desi murgi daal barabar.

They are dreaming of Bradley's and Apaches who difficulties at 4000 meters.

 

[PRASANTh]

Army leadership is accoustomed to bribes for new procurements, when they are not getting those they are fearful of changes. They will buy us,french, russian ,israeli weapons but wont buy indian weapons. They will buy few apaches for billions of dollars but wont buy lch. This mentality has to be broken by strong political leadership.

 

[INDIAN]

From Kargil war times , this is lacking .
Its pathetic to see these type of deficiency in capabilities.

 

[Rinku Pandey]

Army leadership is accoustomed to bribes for new procurements, when they are not getting those they are fearful of changes. They will buy us,french, russian ,israeli weapons but wont buy indian weapons. They will buy few apaches for billions of dollars but wont buy lch. This mentality has to be broken by strong political leadership.

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.

 

[Straight]

IA and IAF is worst effected by chandigarh lobby.

 

[ryan]

Army is waiting for its Balakot moment & then "post" that, it will order imported WLRs as exorbitant prices citing the 'Emergency purchase" clause

 

[Alok Gupta]

I have wondered why the Indian army is still ordering more towed guns. It doesn't make any sense.

 

[GMR]

I have wondered why the Indian army is still ordering more towed guns. It doesn't make any sense.

We (IA) are bigger than 'sense' or any logic.. it takes decades only to start thinking little differently, leave aside "out of box" thinking / ideas..

 

[The_rED_dEVIL]

Who does the onus of this deficiency lay with?
Import Army's lack of far-sightedness.

If Swati WLR were "imported" platform, the IA would have IMPORTED in thousands.

But desi murgi daal barabar.

India's Army and Air Force are only good at planning (unlike Navy).
Air Force's MMRCA is lagging since 2001.
Army planned for Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan since 1999.

Now recently Air Force started MTA programme, and Army started FRCV (MBT) programme. God knows how long they will continue with these programmes.

 

[Pink Panther]

Who does the onus of this deficiency lay with?
Import Army's lack of far-sightedness.

If Swati WLR were "imported" platform, the IA would have IMPORTED in thousands.

But desi murgi daal barabar.

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

 

[Parthasarathi DasGupta]

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.

Why should he be ashamed??? Chandigarh lobby does what it does. Its an open secret

 

[Muraleedharan Nair]

How come Pak military manages to get more bang for the buck than Indian military most of the time?

 

[Deepak Hegde]

Indian army or all forces is always in a pathetic condition in critical areas. The only reason we survive is that we don't face a full scale war. If there were, we would be found wanting. The counterstrike after Balakot already showed how massively we are underprepared. In-spite of knowing 100% that there will be a counterstrike by Pakistan and also knowing where it will be from, we got egg on our face with our response and losses. Looks like we will never learn !!

 

[kumar]

How come Pak military manages to get more bang for the buck than Indian military most of the time?

They induct while we do trial after trials.

 

[kumar]

IA can easily order additional swathi WLR. But, IA procurement is red tape.

 

[Ysmir Rewari]

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.

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

 

[Avada kedavra]

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.

 

[Official]

Excellent point raised however in the Drone Era is the WLR even relevant? Nowadays a cheap sub $500 drone can locate and coordinate artillery fire better than a counter battery radar; case in point Russo-Ukrainian war. Future outlook of India should be to modernise much of the older 39 cal guns to self propelled and induct desi MLRS for shoot and scoot.

 

[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.