“BEING one of the oldest weapon manufacturing units in the country, Gun Carriage Factory (GCF) Jabalpur has proved its mettle with indigenous development of world’s longest firing ‘Dhanush-155 gun. Along with Dhanush, GCF is also developing some new guns of variant uses with rigorous research and development works. Pride of Jabalpur, Dhanush Gun will be serving the nation for a long time to come,” informed Senior General Manager of Gun Carriage Factory Jabalpur S K Singh, while addressing a press conference on Friday. The 114-year-old GCF has now unmatched expertise in indigenous production of weapons to strengthen armed forces on national borders. Indigenous artillery gun will take India out of perpetual import and foreign dependency for artillery gun.
Senior GM Singh informed that indigenously developed ‘Dhanush-155’ is the pride of Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and also brought the name of Gun Carriage Factory, Jabalpur (GCF) on world map. The 12 prototype Dhanush guns manufactured at GCF have successfully passed through rigorous internal and user trials in extreme climatic and torrential conditions. Prototype guns have fired around 4,200 rounds in last 54 months’ trial and emerged as exceptional gun in terms of accuracy and constituency.
Indigenous content of Dhanush is more than 81 per cent and efforts are being made to reach indigenisation level of 90 per cent by 2019. OFB is geared up to provide a comprehensive support system for spares, training and maintenance for Dhanush Gun System, which are not readily available for imported gun system. Mentioning about success story of Dhanush-155, Senior General Manager Singh informed that a significant decision was taken by Defence Acquisition Council in October 2011 for modernisation and development of 45-caliber, 155 mm indigenous artillery gun system, a project named ‘Dhanush’ was undertaken in GCF, Jabalpur, with collaboration of sister Ordnance Factories, PSUs and Private Industries.
In 2014, prototype of Dhanush was made ready for user trial and evaluation. He added that Dhanush Gun System has successfully completed winter trials at Sikkim and Leh, summer trials at Pokharan besides firing demonstration at PXE Balasore and Babina range, Jhansi. DGQA evaluation and maintainability trials have been completed already. For more than a year, Dhanush gun was undergoing user exploitation at Pokharan, where two incidents leading to damage of Muzzle and Barrel of the gun took place. An expert panel of officers of different departments of MoD carried out an investigation to ascertain reasons of accident.
Design of entire gun systemwas revisited and international standards were used for testing functioning standards. Investigation team could not find any design related defect in the gun system of Dhanush. Dhanush Gun System has build confidence among Indian industries and DRDO that 155 mm gun system with all complexities and intricacies can be developed and produced in India. It is a result of this confidence building initiative of GCF that many Indian players are undertaking development of 155 mm gun system.
‘Dhanush, Tried And Tested Successfully’
GCF Senior GM S K Singh informed that reliability in the field of functioning was an area of concern which has been addressed in last one year. During last 2 trials of Dhanush, one at PXE Balasore and another at Pokhran user exploitation. In last user exploitation trial at Pokhran, gun system successfully completed battery firing comprising 6 guns at Pokhran on June 7.
Above 300 rounds were fired in last 5 days on trial schedules and all 6 guns fired around 50 rounds each. On June 7, all 6 guns fired simultaneously around 100 rounds without any major stoppage. BMCS of OF Nalanda was used during firing trial of Dhanush. Besides this, MBCS from Nexter, South Africa was also fired from Dhanush.
Dhanush-155 Pride of OFB
Indigenous content of ‘Dhanush-155 gun, world’s longest firing, is more than 81 per cent and efforts are being made to reach indigenisation level of 90 per cent by 2019. Dhanush has successfully completed winter trials at Sikkim and Leh, summer trials at Pokharan besides firing demonstration at PXE Balasore and Babina range, Jhansi. Dhanush has build confidence among Indian industries and DRDO that 155 mm gun system with all complexities and intricacies can be developed and produced in India.