New Delhi: It is set to make a deal of about Rs 7,000 crore for 307 Swadeshi Advanced TO Artillery Gun Systems (ATAGS) next week after about eight years after the first and 12 years after the start of development in the Republic Day Parade.
Sources in the defense establishment said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-Netroine Cabinet Committee approved the deal on Wednesday evening by the Security (CCS).
This has paved the way for formal signature of contracts with two private Indian companies – Kalyani Group and Tata Advanced Systems Harrat Forge – which is a development partner for Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
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Sources said that 60 percent of contracts, including a total of 307 howitzers and 327 rope vehicles, would go to the Forge, which emerged as the lowest bidder (L1) and 40 percent for Tatas.
Theprint was in November last year Informed It emerged as Bharat Forge L1 and the contract negotiations began.
The ATAGS program has seen a long growth cycle that began in 2013, mainly due to tests aired by the Indian Army.
The full version of the gun was unveiled in 2016, but it was only in 2020 that winter tests were completed in Sikkim and the desert test was completed the following year.
The gun continued to undergo long -term testing and fine tuning depending on each firing and dynamics round.
As Informed Until Theprint in 2021, one of the most important achievements during the second phase of PSQR (arms purchase and qualitative requirements), Winter Testing was taking the gun in the Northern Sikkim plateau areas to the highest point of the North-most operating area (Lukrape).
The movement of Lukrep meant 341 km and the gun was tested in 10 days.
Atags otherwise bends easily with steep shield and narrow hairpin to the inaccessible mountainous area, without any need, the tower can interact with the need to close the gun from the tower. In a similar area, other systems need to be transferred to unwanted and self-powered mode, which increases the overall travel time.
The total distance traveled by ATAG in mountains and high height was 526 km, as a toe from abroad compared to the dynamics testing of 23 km for foreign guns as part of the army’s efforts to purchase a gun system.
The army dispute was that Atag was a very heavy gun and needed a lighter for hill finance.
Foreign guns who were competing were Athos of France’s Nexter and Israel’s Alebit System.
Another concern that the army had with the weight in addition to the weight, which they said that had a “gun’s inability” system to meet the critical performance parameters, especially in relation to fire rates.
However, sources in the ATAGS program then competing with the army’s claim that the fire rate included a bursting of five rounds in a minute, 10 rounds of intense firing in two and a half minutes and a continuous rate of 60 rounds in 60 minutes.
In comparison, albit systems claim that Athos can fire three rounds in 30 seconds, 12 rounds in three minutes and 42 rounds in 60 minutes.
The third concern was expressed during the internal verification tests of ATAGS in a firing range in September 2020. The gun barrel burst while firing a goal.
Sources had said that the barrel burst was not due to an engineering defect, but the defective ammunition produced by the then Ordnance Factory Board.
Incidentally, cost is also a factor. While the price of Ethos will be less than Rs 11 crore per piece, ATAGS is spent between Rs 16 to Rs 18 crore anywhere.
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Army wants a new todd gun system
A region where the atags are out of other systems, the boundary. The extended range sub-boat tail (ERFB BT) is the ATAGS range of 35 km with ammunition and ERFB Bibi (Base bleed) ammunition is 45 km. Atags actually opened fire on the 47 km border in 2017.
However, it will not be atags, but the new 155 mm/52 Caliber TOD Gun System (TGS) is the main gun of artillery in the future. Informed,
TGS means more than 18 tons of ATAG for weight less than 15 tons.
Army is looking at 400 TGs that can work in all areas-dand, ground, high altitude, desert and semi-desert.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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