As reported in my post "M777 BARREL EXPLODES DURING FIRING TRIALS AT POKHRAN" on 12 September I reported that a barrel of one of the two M777 which India received from US for firing trials exploded during the firing.
Army has ordered 145 M777 howitzer at cost of 5000 crore rupees so each howitzer approximately costs 35 crore rupees.
As reported by me earlier according to sources the shell came out of the barrel in fragments and causing this accident so from the look of it, it seems to be an ammunition related accident. One similar accident also happened few years ago during trials of homegrown Dhanush howitzer where the barrel exploded and it was concluded that the explosion was caused due to use of very old ammunition which lead to the explosion of barrel.
I in that post suspected that ammunition could be one reason for the failure of the howitzer and raised questions on the quality of ammunition & in preliminary inquiry reports it is being reported that the ammunition was the reason for the barrel blast. Further investigation in the matter is going on and final reports are expected soon.
OFB officials have again defended the OFB supplied ammunition by saying that the supplied ammunition had undergone quality checks and that during the firing a lot of complex things occur & the accident can be caused by several other factors excluding ammunition.
By the looks of the Preliminary findings and the past track record of OFB it is very tough for them to defend their products and this again raises serious questions about the quality of OFB supplied ammunition.
We should wait till the final inquiry reports are out and strict action should be taken against the culprit.
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Don't be too surprised if M777 is fragile : with a 4200kg weight while usually, a 155mm Howiter weights 8-11t, it's very likely that tolerances to powder loads are likely to not be large. Well, great, you can carry a M777 suspended under some choppers, then you're in to buy only a brand of shells and not another or else...
ReplyDeleteMoreover 35 crore means $5.3M
M777 range : 24km, 30km with ERFB base bleed and 40km with M982 GPS guided shell ($68k/shell).
Well, especially at such price, it wasn't a good idea to buy this!
Why?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAESAR_self-propelled_howitzer
Range : 42km, 50km with boosted shell.
Accuracy : 1m, no need for GPS guided shells...
Price : less than €3.95M/unit.
Moreover, as France is considering getting more CAESARs, many TRF1 Howitzer which is equivalent to M777 are considered to be retired...
Well, they're heavier but have a higher rate of fire and none is known to have blown due to allegedly faulty ammos...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRF1
IMHO, getting these 2nd hand would have been cheaper than dirt
I think India could take profit of this blown gun to cancel the contract. Gosh, never heard of a blown Howitzer here. Would Nexter deliver such thing, Gvt would hang them by the balls...