On 25 October 2018, the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for up-gunning the existing 130 mm M-46 artillery guns to 155 mm/45 caliber.
On behalf of OFB, the contract was signed by Shri Alok Prasad, Deputy DG/Weapons, whereas Ms. Nidhi Chhibber, JS & AM (LS) signed it for MoD. OFB would be required to up-gun 300 existing 130 mm M-46 guns to 155 mm/45 calibre. These are to be supplied to the Indian Army in a span of four years. This upgraded weapon system has been christened as “Sharang” after the bow of Lord Vishnu, which was crafted by Lord Vishwakarma.
The achievement is even more creditable as the OFB was awarded this contract after emerging victorious in a competition where two guns of foreign origin also participated. This was against a request for proposal issued by the Indian Army in 2013. OFB presented a fully indigenous solution against the other two equipment of foreign origin. Sharang is a shining example of ‘Make in India’ and bears an indelible stamp of the OFB as a leading manufacturer of artillery guns.
Various performance parameters, viz. maximum range, direct fire, rate of fire, accuracy and consistency, among others, were evaluated during the Field Evaluation Trials (FET) through actual firing at the Pokhran range. OFB’s Sharang gun was the ONLY compliant gun after the completion of the trials.
About : Sharang is an indigenously developed weapon that is aimed at meeting the Indian Army’s requirement to replace the existing Russian-made 130 mm caliber M-46 towed guns, which have been in service since 1968. This up-gunning is a highly cost effective solution to substantially enhance the strategic capabilities of the Indian Army in terms of range (an increase from the existing 27 km to 39 Km), lethality (130 mm ammunition to 155 mm ammunition) and artillery area coverage against the enemy.
The gun is capable of firing NATO series ammunition also with the old 130 mm chasis. This will be a big step in the ongoing modernization efforts of the Indian Army. In the long run, the export potential of this gun could be profitably explored. As far as ‘accuracy and consistency’ trials were concerned, Sharang performed exceedingly well. Its performance was 10 to 100 times better than the specified RFP values. The credit for this achievement goes to the establishments under the OFB for carrying out optimization of design through in-house R&D at the Ordnance Development Centre, Kanpur and subsequent production at Ordnance Factory Kanpur which has state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities.
Sharang weighs 8.4 tonnes, with an overall length and width of 11.84 m and 2.45 m respectively. The barrel is approximately 7 m long and is equipped with a single baffle muzzle brake and horizontal sliding wedge breech block. A semi-automatic operating device enables auto opening of the gun breech and a pneumatic ramming system eases the effort of the gun crew while ramming the projectile during gun firing.
In course with its glorious history, OFB continues to remain at the forefront in meeting the requirements of the Indian Army and the nation.
IndianBureaucracy.com wishes the very best.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.