First K-9 SP Artillery Guns made by Indian L&T Rolled out Today

An year after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a facility to manufacture the K-9 self-propelled artillery gun at the L & T company facility in Gujarat, the first locally-made SP guns rolled-out today. 

Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh tweeted this morning, “heading to Surat (Gujarat) today. Shall visit the L&T Armoured Systems Complex at Hazira and flag off K9 Vajra-T Guns, manufactured under 'Make In India' programme.”

A second tweet by him said, "visited the L&T’s Armoured Systems Complex (ACS) in Hazira today and flagged off the freshly manufactured K9 Vajra-T guns which are indeed future ready combat vehicles.."

L&T had in 2017 won the Rs 4,500-crore contract from the Ministry of Defence to supply 100 units of K9 Vajra-T 155 mm/52 calibre tracked self-propelled gun systems to the Indian Army under the Indian government’s "Make in India" initiative.

The manufacturing complex is executing the "K9 Vajra-T 155 mm/52-caliber tracked self-propelled Howitzer guns" programme. The K9 Vajra contract involves delivery of 100 such systems in 42 months, which is the largest contract awarded to a private company by the Ministry of Defence.

L&T had signed a transfer of technology contract for guns with South Korean company Hanwha Defence.

According to L&T information, the K9 VAJRA-T is a variant of K9 Thunder which is is serving as one of the main conventional deterrent forces in the South Korean Army. K9 Thunder has established its superiority through demonstrations and evaluation tests at various proving grounds in extreme weather conditions, jungles, barren deserts and severely cold areas.

By demonstrating its ability to handle Indian as well as all NATO standard ammunitions, K9 VAJRA-T has proven its excellent conformability to any field artillery unit.

The company has set up the Armoured Systems Complex at Hazira, around 30km from Surat, to manufacture and integrate advanced armoured platforms, such as self-propelled artillery Howitzers, future infantry combat vehicles, future-ready combat vehicles and future main battle tanks.