Indian Army Chief Promotes $10B Wish List

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Indian Army Chief Promotes $10B Wish List By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI, NEW DELHI


The Indian Army needs to modernize to keep ahead of growing Pakistani capabilities, Army chief Gen. Joginder Jaswant Singh told reporters at an annual press conference Jan. 13.
A senior Army planner said, “250,000 troops deployed in the Kashmir valley lack the very basics in weaponry.”

Among the efforts already under way are:

• Arming the homegrown Advanced Light Helicopters.
• Replacing Cheetah and Chetak helicopters.
• Buying intermediate-range helicopters.
• Buying short- and medium-range air defense systems.
• Improving troops’ ability to fight at night with night-vision sights and thermal imaging systems for small arms and tanks.
• Upgrading existing 135mm artillery guns.
• Buying Smerch and Pinaka multibarrel rocket launchers.

The planner said the Army plans to spend around $10 billion to buy more than 300 kinds of weapons through 2012.
T
he service also will spend $1 billion in the next three years to network its platoons and larger units with sensors, weapons, computers and communications, the planner said.
As part of a longer-term network-centric warfare effort, the service will also import weapons and gear, including mobile and static electronic warfare systems; high- and low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles; optical imaging systems on helicopters and aerostat radars; military intelligence communications, surveillance satellites with synthetic aperture radar and signals-intelligence systems; and electronic intelligence systems on ground vehicles, helicopters, aerostat radar systems and low-Earth-orbit satellites.

The service is also planning to spend more than $2 billion on arms for 450,000 infantry troops, including rifles, carbines, grenade launchers, Kornet E missiles and 84mm rocket launchers.
The Army will seek foreign suppliers of, among other things, hand-held thermal imaging systems, rifle-mounted optical sights, under-barrel grenade launchers, electronic warfare and radio transmission receivers, lightweight binoculars, digital compasses and Global Positioning System-equipped navigation gear.

The Army also intends to buy several thousand highly mobile, new-generation armored vehicles in the next two years.

In 2007, the planners said, the Army will order 500 self-propelled guns and 197 high-altitude multi-utility combat helicopters, and will order thermal imaging systems for about 1,200 T-72 tanks and 2,000 BMP-2s, and thermal imaging fire-control systems for about 900 T-72s. These vehicles will also get explosive reactive armor and nuclear, biological and chemical protection suites.
The service annually spends about $1 billion on weapons and ammunition, $600 million on combat vehicles and $300 million on communications equipment. •