Army likely to complete inducting 114 Dhanush guns by 2026

The Army which has ordered 114 Dhanush artillery guns, derived from the Bofors guns, on order and has one regiment operational, is expecting to receive all the guns by 2026, according to defence sources. With focus on long range and augmented firepower, the Army is 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, sources said.

The Army which has ordered 114 Dhanush artillery guns, derived from the Bofors guns, on order and has one regiment operational, is expecting to receive all the guns by 2026, according to defence sources. With focus on long range and augmented firepower, the Army is 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, 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 155mm, 45-calibre towed artillery gun with a range of 36km and has demonstrated a range of 38 km with specialised ammunition. It is an upgrade of the existing 155m, 39 calibre Bofors FH 77 gun. The Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited, carved after corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board, now manufacturing the big guns has a team on site and working with the Army, sources stated.

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

The Army currently has four Pinaka regiments and six more are on order expected to inducted in the next few years. In addition to adding numbers, the Army is keen on extending its range as well the configurations available. “The induction of additional regiments of Pinaka is likely to commence shortly. The DRDO is also exploring increasing the range of Pinaka Rockets to 120 and 300 km,” the source stated on this.

As reported by The Hindu earlier, the range of original Pinaka rockets is 37 km which has been enhanced to 45 km with the upgraded Mk-1 and the guided Pinaka has a range of 75 km which the Defence Acquisition Council has already cleared for procurement. A Pinaka Area Denial Munition rocket system has also been developed and successfully flight-tested by DRDO and Indian Army in April 2022. Pinaka with a range of 120 km is also under development, DRDO officials had stated earlier. Army is scheduled to conduct trials of these extended and guided Pinaka very soon, sources said.

Among other MRLS, the Army has five Grad rocket regiments and three Smerch regiments both of Russian-origin. Smerch is the longest range rocket system in the Army’s inventory with a range of 90 km. However, eventually Pinaka will eventually become the mainstay of multi-rocket systems.