Eurosatory 2012 Highlights

Israel Aerospace Industries’ ELTA Systems has unveilled its EL/M-2138T ‘Green Rock’ Tactical Counter Rockets, Artillery & Mortars (C-RAM) weapon locating radar for supporting a variety of ground forces missions, including force protection, fast response to enemy-attack and friendly-fire correction. Installed on all-terrain vehicles (ATV), the system comprises a dual-band radar system to acquire and track trajectories of ballistic munitions such as MBRL rockets, field artillery projectiles and mortar rounds. The EL/M-2138T calculates the launching point and predicts the point of impact. Whenever a threat to friendly forces is detected, a warning is sent to the area’s control centre and to the interception systems to respond to the threat and its source/s.

The Leopard 2 MBT's design never ceases to evolve! This should serve as a valuable lesson worthy of emulation for the CVRDE when it comes to the Arjun Mk2 MBT.     

Elbit Systems has launched the Clip-On Coyote (above), a modular un-cooled sight that easily integrates in front of any sniper’s rifle telescope. Weighing less than 1.7kg, the Clip-On Coyote enables shooting ranges on accurate calibres for snipers for more than 1,000 metres, cutting-edge thermal imagery quality, detection range of 2.5km and more than 8 hours of continuous operations. Specially designed for team operations, the system also offers a Video Net Kit for team efficiency. Comprised of video recording, transferring and receiving capabilities, the kit has also the ability to connect several snipers to the same net, enabling them to share and coordinate mission data. It also provides enhanced command and control and advanced monitoring and investigating capabilities.

Below is the Artemis 30 air-defence cannon from Greece’s Hellenic Defence Systems, which is now the only system left in the fray after the Skyranger/Skyshield 35 deom Rheinmetall Air Defence (formerly Oerlikon Contraves has been disqualified by the MoD. However, the future prospects of the Artemis 30—being promoted by Bharat Electronic s Ltd--in India is also in grave doubt now, since Abhishek Verma’s Ganton Ltd is also enmeshed with Hellenic Defence Systems. Which in turn means bidding ‘goodbye’ for good to the procurement of gun-based air-defence systems for the Army, Navy & IAF, and instead going ahead with the procurement of only missile-based VSHORADS/MANPADS and SHORADS solutions. The other option is to procure from Russia some 500 ZU-23-2 guns and have them upgraded in a manner similar to what will be done to the Army's existing 468 ZU-23-2s, for which Punj Lloyd and an industrial partnership of OFB/BEL are competiting for the upgrade contract.

Anyway, the talk of the town here at EUROSATORY 2012 is the utter intellectual backwardness of the Indian Army, which is very aptly being described as an institution “preparing for third-generation warfare (conventional conflicts) with a World War-2 mindset”. Take for instance, the sheer ineptitude with which the Indian Army prepares its GSQRs. Since September 2010, no less than 41 RFPs have been issued and nullified due to faulty GSQRs, stringent GSQRs, faulty vendor analysis prior to issuing the RFPs, and deficiencies in defining & fine-tuning ToT issues by deliberately keeping the Army’s Master General Ordnance (MGO) Branch out of the competitive tendering processes. On average, Army HQ takes several years to draft a GSQR, a task that ought to be completed within two years. Next, instead of taking just a month to draft the RFP, it takes nine months. Subsequently, the technical evaluation of the RFPs, which ought to be concluded within a 3-month period, instead takes six months. Finally, the subsequent General Staff evaluation, which ought to be wrapped up within 7 months, is instead concluded by the 18^th month.

To top it all up, there is the regressive mindset that is now being witnessed in the forthcoming competition for 155mm/52-cal howitzers. For instance, the Indian Army, instead of focussing on just mounted gun systems (MGS) like motorised and tracked self-propelled howitzers that can be air-transported by platforms like the C-130J-30, C-17A and IL-76MD, is instead hell-bent upon acquiring 1,580 new-build 155mm/52-cal towed gun systems (TGS) and only 800+ motorised MGS. The second issue that irks many is the Army’s strange and unexplainable mindset which believes that motorised howitzers are more expensive than the TGS, which requires a separate tow-truck and is therefore far more expensive than a motorised MGS.

Coming to the TGS competition, the principal bidders are expected to be the TRAJAN (a towed version of the Caesar) that is being proposed by prime contractor Nexter Systems of France and its Indian industrial partner Larsen & Toubro, the FH-77B05L52 from the Mahindra Defence Systems/BAE Systems consortium, and the ATHOS-2052 from prime contractor ELBIT Systems (which now owns Soltam Systems) and its Indian industrial partner, the Kalyani Group. Both TGS contenders have been invited for competitive mobility-cum-firing trials on a no-cost no-commitment basis, which are expected to be held between this December and next June. It remains to be seen whether or not the FH-77B05L52 will take part in the trials. RFPs for the motorised MGS and for upgrading the existing M-46 field guns to 155mm/45-cal standard have yet to be issued, although RFIs were issued two years ago!

Which then brings us to the future of the inventory of existing 39-cal FH-77B TGS. Depending on whom to believe, it would seem that the MoD’s OFB-/BEL-developed 155X45 proposal for an upgrade package that will transform the existing FH-77B into a 155mm/45-cal howitzer will have to be subjected to competitive trials against the re-engineered GHN-45 155mm/45-cal TGS now being developed by the Kalyani Group with the help of ELBIT Systems. The moot question here is: can India afford to have such cost-prohibitive competitions involving local military-industrial entities on a no-cost no-commitment basis, or should a well thought-out market segmentation procedure be practiced in the interests of deriving win-win solutions within the shortest possible timeframe? 

My formula for success would be as follows: scrap the requirement for acquiring 1,580 new-build 155mm/52-cal TGS and instead authorise the OFB/BEL consortium to upgrade all existing 360 FH-77Bs to the 155X45-standard, and also authorise the Kalyani Group/ELBIT Systems industrial partnership to upgrade up to 800 M-46s to 155mm/45-cal standard, and procure at least 1,600 motorised MGS, preferably that version of the Caesar that can be air-transported even by C-130J-30s.