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

howitzer The howitzer () is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon (or field gun) and a mortar. It is capable of both low angle fire like a field gun and high angle fire like a mortar, given the distinction between low and high angle fire break ...

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. History The company was founded by Nilkanthrao A. Kalyani on 19 Jun ...

, a subsidiary of

Kalyani Group Kalyani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Pune, India, founded in 1961. It operates in various key sectors including engineering, steel, automotive and non-automotive components, renewable energy and infrastruct ...

. 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 (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

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 West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

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. The gun system is likely to participate in the Towed Gun System tender for induction into the Indian Army.

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 a ...

(SRC), who had earlier worked on

Project HARP Project HARP, 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 uppe ...

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 (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

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

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(as the

PLL-01 The WAC-21 (also called Type 88 and WA021) is a Chinese 155 mm howitzer produced by Norinco, It was developed with the assistance of Gerald Bull. History By the late-1970s, Gerald Bull was aiding the development of longer-ranged 155 mm ca ...

), 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