Bharat 52

Bharat-52 is a long range artillery gun developed indigenously by Bharat Forge and is one of the four gun platforms that the company is showcasing in Goa at the DefExpo India 2016. This is the first gun developed by Bharat Forge in 2014. KSSL's state-of-the-art Bharat-52 is a long-range 155mm/52 caliber gun. It is the first indigenous solution of its kind designed and developed in India. Bharat-52 is a futuristic towed gun, providing a highly maneuverable field artillery solution. It has been designed for accuracy, stability and reliability during moving and firing maneuvers, and is based on the requirements of the Indian Army.

Bharat-52 is capable of a range exceeding 40km and utilizes self-propelling capability and automatic laying mode. The Anti-backlash drive for elevation and traverse make it a truly unique system and a robust solution for superior battlefield operation. It is designed to operate as an all- weather system and has superior all-terrain mobility. Extremely easy to deploy, it takes a team of six crew members to deploy the system within one minute during day time and 1.5 minutes during night time. Bharat-52 in self-propelled mode is capable of achieving a mobility of 30kmph using its own diesel engine and electronic steering system.

Bharat 52 features electronic gun controls and a load assist system to improve its gun laying accuracy and rate of fire and has a firing range of about 41 km. Bharat 52 was extensively tested initially in Weapons test range in the United States due to no access to Indian weapons testing facilities but recently was also tested from Proof and Experimental Establishment’s (PXE’s) facilities at Balasore and firing trials at the Ordnance Factories’ facility at CPE Itarsi in 2017.

Even though Bharat 52 was developed by a Private company at its Private Capacity which has not seen any direct financial aid from the Indian Government, Export clearance will ensure that Government of India will stand as a sovereign Guarantees to the Exporting country on behalf of the firm and will intervene if and when, if any disputes arises due to payments or spares related issues for which firm will pay a certain amount to the government to facilitate such a deal, if it gets orders for its system.

Kalyani Group acquired dysfunctional Canadian defense firm which had developed the GC-45 howitzer. The GC-45 (Gun, Canada, 45-calibre) is a 155 mm howitzer designed by Gerald Bull . The variant called Bharat 52 was developed to be offered as the low cost, local alternative to the Indian Army. It is re-engineered and modified GHN-45 howitzer. Bharat forge obtained the technical know-how from Maschinenfabrik Liezen (Noricum) by the acquisition of a GHN-45 howitzer and importing the production-engineering machinery from RUAG for the manufacture of barrels. It has an ELBIT (Israel) autoloader.

The Indian Army has not shown interest in BHARAT-52 as the ongoing modernisation of artillery i.e M-777, K-9, Dhanush and ATAGS are on time. The only required tender left was the 155/52 wheeled GMS.