Nagpur: After a pause for want of a spare, the production of Dhanush, the Indian Bofors artillery guns, has resumed with the Advance Weapons and Equipment India Limited (AWEIL) planning to deliver 26 new howitzers to the Indian Army during this financial year. This will take the total number of Dhanush guns with the Army to 50. There is an order to supply 114 guns in all reported TOI.

The Dhanush is made at the Gun Carriage Factory (GCF) at Jabalpur. The first batch of six guns was handed over by the GCF to the Army in April 2019.

The Army which has ordered 114 Dhanush artillery guns, and has one regiment operational already, is expecting to receive all the guns by 2026, according to defence sources. With focus on long-range and augmented firepower, the Army is also looking at vastly increasing the range of the Pinaka Multi-Rocket Launch Systems (MRLS) and the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) is working on it. The Pralay surface-to-surface quasi-ballistic missile too is in advanced stages of induction, sources said.

“One regiment that was equipped with Dhanush was operationalised only last year. There has been slight delay due to some imported components, among others… All that has stabilised. By 2026, Army should be getting balance regiments,” a defence source said.

Dhanush is a 155 mm, 45-calibre towed artillery gun with a range of 36 km, and it has demonstrated a range of 38 km with specialised ammunition. It is an upgrade of the existing 155 mm, 39-calibre Bofors FH 77 gun. The Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited, carved after corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board, now manufacturing the Dhanush guns has a team on site and is working with the Army, sources stated.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has underscored the importance of long-range firepower, both precision as well as saturation, and MRLS have proven to be decisive, sources noted. In this regard, the indigenous Pinaka Rocket System developed by the DRDO has been a success story for the Army, the source noted.