Article Posted on : - May 10, 2010

Chief of the Army Staff General V K Singh along with Chairman, CII Defence Committee on Land Systems Brig Rtd. KA Hai (R) and Lt. Gen K R Rao(L), Director General, Regiment of Artillery Integrated Headquarters of MoD (Army), at the 3rd International Seminar on Artillery Technology on Monday. PTI photo

NEW DELHI (PTI): Army Chief General V K Singh Monday sought greater interaction among the armed forces, DRDO and industry to help produce better missiles and rockets to meet the country's artillery firepower needs.

"The user, the developer and the producer form a triad. Army is the user, which comes up with its operational requirements. The developer is the DRDO, which has made fair progress on Pinaka and BRAHMOS artillery systems. Industry is the producer. Great amount of interaction is required among the three, so we get better artillery for the armed forces," Singh said here.

Describing artillery as the "decisive arm" in a battlefield, he told a CII-organised seminar on artillery that its role was proved beyond doubt in the US war in Iraq and in the Kargil war a decade ago.

"Right from days of yore, artillery has always been a decisive arm. It is the artillery which has brought in devastating firepower to break the will of the enemy, whether it was in the days of the Moguls or it is today," he said.

"The developments in missile technology, guidance system and transparency in battlefield have made a person sitting on target the most vulnerable. This has been amply proved in the two Gulf wars and in the Indian context during the 1999 Kargil episode, where artillery was battle-winning factor in ensuring that the will of the enemy was seriously degraded," he said.

Noting that the emerging trend in artillery firepower deployment was "synergising and orchestration" of all resources towards degradation and destruction of the enemy, he said it reduced the enemy's fighting capability, making it easier to break its cohesion and ultimately his will to fight.