‘Precision ammo’ fails test at high altitudes:India

Exhaustive trials of the new-generation Krasnopol ‘precision guided ammunition’ procured by the Indian Army are being conducted by a high-level Russian team after inaccurate fire almost killed some soldiers of an artillery observation unit. The Army, which had procured over 3,000 rounds of the Russian artillery ammunition, fired from the 155 mm Bofors Gun, at a cost of over Rs 500 crores, found it to be wildly inaccurate during use in high-altitude areas. The ammunition is supposed to hit targets accurately after they have been tagged by a laser designator. Sources said that during a training exercise in Kargil, the shells went way off target and almost hit an artillery team that had been deployed kilometers away to check its accuracy. The Russian team is now conducting trials on the ammunition at heights of over 11,000 feet. “The problem is that the ammunition works when fired in the plains but goes totally inaccurate when it’s being fired from, say, 11,000 feet to a target at 17,000 feet,” sources said. The Army is hoping that the Russian team will find a way to correct the defect in the munitions. This comes even as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had slammed the Army for buying the ammunition in bulk without adequate evaluation. The Army had urgently placed orders for the ammunition during the 1999 Kargil war after it realised the importance of a precision-guided shell that could be used to target enemy positions accurately. The idea being that instead of using hundreds of shells to target a particular enemy position, a few Krasnopol shells could be used to wipe it out. In the latest CAG report, which blasts the Army for procuring the ammunition in bulk without properly testing it, it has also been pointed out that ammunition worth Rs 151 crore that was procured in 1999 was found unfit for use after merely seven years as opposed to its declared shelf life of 15 years. The report highlights that despite such discrepancies in performance, additional orders worth Rs 526 crores were placed by the Army without conducting proper trials.

Posted in: Artillery,India