The Indian army deploys self-propelled artillery on the plateau?
As one of the "traditional projects" of the Indian military, each year's various military services are full of promotional videos. The Indian Army officially released the "Indian Army 2022" promotional video, showing the newly purchased German SIG Sauer SIG-716 assault rifles, domestic "Akash" anti-aircraft missiles, "Alkash" and "Joan" main battle tanks and "Pinaka" rocket launchers, as well as locally assembled South Korean K-9 self-propelled artillery, can They were seen passing through the so-called "Ladakh region".
Given that China and India have just completed new border negotiations, and the multiple new weapons seen in the promotional video are deployed near the Sino-Indian border, this shows that the Indian army is "showing off its power." Many people think that there is China. Among them, the most eye-catching one is the K-9 self-propelled artillery imported and assembled from South Korea. Highland areas can provide fire superiority to Indian troops.
The K-9 self-propelled artillery is a product of South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries. Samsung Heavy Industries obtained multiple technology licenses from Western countries and developed this 52-tube, 155 mm caliber self-propelled howitzer. tons, with a maximum range of 40 kilometers and a maximum rate of fire of 12 rounds per minute. Thanks to the relatively advanced Western technology, K-9 has excellent paper properties and is exported in large quantities as the main self-propelled artillery of the South Korean army, arousing the interest of the Indian military.
In April 2017, India and South Korea signed a contract to purchase 100 K-9 self-propelled artillery pieces. The first 10 units were produced in South Korea and the last 90 units were assembled in India. In 2019, the Indian Army received the first batch of domestically produced K-9 self-propelled artillery and deployed it to the Army's Western Command near Pakistan. But in addition to defending Pakistan, the Indian army, which lacks modern self-propelled artillery, also wants to take advantage of the K-9's high mobility and deploy it on the plateau. The People's Liberation Army's Type 05 artillery is intended to compete with the Type 05 artillery. Truck guns and other self-propelled artillery.
However, although India's introduction and production of K-9 has been relatively smooth, it is still a bit unrealistic to expect this type of artillery to become a "firepower artifact." The performance of other weapons imported and manufactured or imitated by India is often first-class compared with the original weapons. For example, the Su-30MKI fighter jets and "Victory" tanks assembled by India itself, I know. All things considered, I doubt that a home-made K-9 self-propelled gun will be comparable to the original Korean K-9.
More importantly, modern artillery operations require the cooperation of a series of systems to conduct effective operations. A typical modern artillery battalion, in addition to artillery, also requires a combination of ammunition vehicles, maintenance vehicles, reconnaissance vehicles, radar vehicles, command vehicles and other functional modules to form an artillery system. This is precisely South Korea's weakness. The K-9 self-propelled artillery itself has excellent performance, but the rest of the equipment in the system is 0. Except for the matching K-10 ammunition truck, it cannot form a complete artillery unit.
Capped K-9’s upper limit of combat power will definitely drop significantly. On the other hand, China not only has a domestically produced Type 05 self-propelled artillery that is on par with the K-9, but also has a domestically produced artillery combat system. In recent years, the best-selling domestic self-propelled artillery in the international market largely relies on our company's "self-propelled artillery not only sold by itself, but also exported together with the artillery system." So although the K-9s owned by India may indeed be superior, it is hard to say whether they can compete with the PLA's artillery.