The Bharat-52 gun is a 155mm, 52 caliber towed

howitzer A howitzer () is a long- ranged weapon, falling between a cannon (also known as an artillery gun in the United States), which fires shells at flat trajectories, and a mortar, which fires at high angles of ascent and descent. Howitzers, like ot ...

manufactured by

Bharat Forge Bharat Forge Limited is an Indian multinational company involved in forging, automotives, energy, construction and mining, railways, marine, aerospace and defence industries. The company was founded by Nilkanthrao A. Kalyani on 19 June 1961. He ...

, a subsidiary of

Kalyani Group The Kalyani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate focused in four primary sectors, viz. Engineering Steel, Automotive & Non-Automotive Components, Renewable Energy & Infrastructure and Specialty Chemicals. It has also made strides into ...

. Bharat-52 is a long-range gun system that has been completely designed and developed in India. It is designed to operate in all weather conditions and has super maneuverability on all terrains. Bharat-52 is being considered by the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

to fulfill its requirements for towed howitzers. Kalyani group has also made a strong pitch for supplying heavy weapons to the Saudi Arabian military. Two gun systems, both developed by Kalyani Group, will be sent to

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

for trial evaluation by the Royal Saudi Army. The guns include the Bharat 52 and the Garuda V2, a 105 mm gun mounted on a light vehicle chassis for added mobility.

Development

The Bharat-52 is a derivative of the GC-45 towed howitzer designed by Canadian artillery expert Gerald Bull's

Space Research Corporation Space Research Corporation was a corporation founded by Gerald Bull, after the budget for his research at Project HARP for the United States and Canadian federal governments was cut in 1967, in order to commercialize the technology of long-range ...

, who had earlier worked on

Project HARP Project HARP, short for High Altitude Research Project, was a joint venture of the United States Department of Defense and Canada's Department of National Defence created with the goal of studying ballistics of re-entry vehicles and collecting ...

and later

Project Babylon Project Babylon was a space gun project commissioned by then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. It involved building a series of " superguns". The design was based on research from the 1960s Project HARP led by the Canadian artillery expert Gerald ...

for

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

. After SRC moved to Europe Noricum, the arms division of the Austrian steel company Voest-Alpine bought the rights to the GC-45. They made a number of detail changes to improve mass production, resulting in the GHN-45 (Gun, Howitzer, Noricum). The GHN-45 was sold to the

Royal Thai Navy The Royal Thai Navy ( Abrv: RTN, ทร.; th, กองทัพเรือไทย, ) is the naval warfare force of Thailand. Established in 1906, it was modernised by the Admiral Prince Abhakara Kiartiwongse (1880–1923) who is known as ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(as the

PLL-01 The PLL-01, also known as the WAC-021, is a type of 155 mm howitzer designed by Gerald Bull and built by Chinese defense manufacturer Norinco. History In 1980s, Chinese military industry acquired the license to produce GHN-45 howitzer from No ...

), among others. Kalyani Group recently purchased Noricum, bringing its entire manufacturing line to India. With the purchase, Kalyani obtained intellectual property rights of the GHN-45 and developed its indigenous derivative, the Bharat-45. The Bharat-45 45 caliber howitzer was later further developed into a 52 caliber version, the Bharat-52.

References

Artillery of India Howitzers {{Artillery-stub