Dhanush howitzer

The Dhanush is a 155mm towed howitzer used by the Indian Army. The design is based on the Bofors, now Haubits FH77 which India acquired in the 1980s.

Development
The Dhanush project was started by OFB to replace the older 105 mm Indian Field Gun, 105 mm Light Field Gun and the Russian 122 mm guns with a modern 155mm artillery gun.

The initial indigenous development of artillery guns in India started way back in the 1970s by the Artillery Gun Development Team under Brig Gurdyal Singh at Gun Carriage Factory, Jabalpur and resulted in the induction of 105mm artillery guns in the Indian Army. Later with the purchase of Bofors and the corruption issue resulted in no artillery guns procured for the Indian Army. The purchase of Bofors gun in the 1980's included the technology transfer to OFB. After years being unable to acquire or import foreign artillery guns due to corruption charges OFB came out with the Dhanush gun which is which is an improved version from the Bofors design. In trials it came out better by 20 to 25 percent than the bofors in parameters like range, accuracy, consistency, low and high angle of fire and shoot-and-scoot ability.

In a presentation made to defense minister A K Antony, the Army informed DRDO that it would place orders for over 140 howitzers after the artillery guns are field tested. DRDO’s Pune-based Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) is the lead research agency.

In 2015 the army ordered 114 guns from the Ordnance Factories Board. Version 2 of the Dhanush is under development. It will upgrade the current 155mm/45 mm caliber to 155mm/52 mm caliber.