India to Order 300 Dhanush 155mm Howitzers to Form 15 New Artillery Regiments.

India is preparing to order 300 additional Dhanush 155 mm/45-caliber howitzers, dramatically expanding its domestic long-range artillery inventory and adding about 15 new artillery regiments. The move signals New Delhi’s push to rebuild artillery mass with indigenous systems while reducing reliance on legacy Bofors-era guns.

The Indian Army is moving to order 300 additional Dhanush 155 mm/45-calibre howitzers, a step that would sharply expand organic long-range fires, create 15 more artillery regiments, and deepen India’s shift toward a larger indigenous 155 mm gun base. Reported this week by ANI and amplified by other defense outlets, the follow-on buy would come on top of the original 114-gun order and signals that New Delhi now sees the Dhanush not as a stopgap but as a scalable in-service capability. In practical terms, the decision is about restoring artillery mass after decades of procurement drift and giving commanders more tubes for suppression, interdiction, counter-battery fire, and sustained support in hard terrain along India’s land frontiers.
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Indian Army Dhanush 155 mm howitzers support New Delhi's push to expand indigenous long-range artillery, strengthen counter-battery and deep-fire capability, and replace aging legacy gun systems with a more modern 155 mm force (Picture source: Indian MoD).

The Dhanush is far more than a licensed rerun of the Swedish FH-77B Bofors gun. India’s ordnance sector used the original transfer-of-technology package for the 155 mm/39-calibre Bofors and re-engineered it into a 45-calibre weapon, a change that lengthened the barrel and pushed the system into a more capable range band. Official Ministry of Defence releases describe an inertial navigation-based sighting system, auto-laying, on-board ballistic computation, an advanced day-and-night direct firing system, a modern target acquisition suite, and communications compatibility with the Army’s SHAKTI Artillery Combat Command and Control System. The gun weighs under 13 tonnes, has 400 mm ground clearance, elevation from -3 degrees to 70 degrees, traverse of 60 degrees, and an auxiliary self-propulsion arrangement that helps it deploy and reposition in mountainous terrain without depending entirely on the towing vehicle.

Its battlefield value lies in how those features translate into tactical effect. The Dhanush fires standard NATO 155 mm ammunition and can use bi-modular charge systems, which official sources say increase range; open reporting places its reach at roughly 38 km depending on ammunition and propellant configuration, compared with about 27 to 30 km for the older Bofors standard cited in reporting on the platform’s evolution. That gives Indian formations a materially better counter-battery envelope, deeper interdiction reach against assembly areas and logistics nodes, and a stronger ability to strike from more protected gun areas. Digitized laying and ballistic computation also reduce response times and improve first-round effectiveness, both critical in mountain warfare where firing windows can be short, and relocation after firing is essential to survive enemy surveillance and return fire.

India needs a weapon in this class because its artillery problem is not solved by any single gun family. The Army already fields the US-origin M777 for heli-lifted employment in difficult terrain, and the K9 Vajra tracked self-propelled gun for high-tempo maneuver and powerful fires on the western front. It also signed contracts in March 2025 for 155 mm/52-calibre ATAGS systems explicitly to replace vintage and smaller-calibre guns and improve operational readiness. Dhanush sits between those categories as a domestically supportable medium towed howitzer that can be fielded in numbers, maintained through Indian industry, and moved into sectors where the Army wants more reach than legacy guns but does not always need the weight, logistics footprint, or cost of heavier tracked or next-generation long-range systems. That combination is especially relevant for a force balancing mountain requirements against China and large frontage demands opposite Pakistan.

The project’s development arc also explains why this order matters politically and industrially. After the 1987 Bofors purchase, India’s heavy artillery acquisitions stagnated for years, even though the Kargil War reinforced the decisive value of 155 mm firepower. The Army’s Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan and later Artillery Profile 2027 were designed to reverse that decline by standardising around 155 mm systems across multiple categories. Dhanush emerged from that effort as a joint programme involving the Ordnance Factory Board, the Indian Army, DRDO, BEL, SAIL, and private firms. The gun completed arduous trials in desert and high-altitude conditions, received bulk production clearance in February 2019, and the first six guns were handed over in April 2019. But the programme then suffered from muzzle-hit incidents, production-quality concerns, and fresh reliability firing, with reporting in 2022 showing the Army still validating performance before wider fielding.

India already fields Dhanush systems, although open-source counts have varied as deliveries progressed. ANI reported this week that around four regiments have already been inducted and two more are expected soon, while reporting in June 2025 described two operational regiments and a third being raised under the original 114-gun plan, which covers six regiments. What is no longer in doubt is that Dhanush has crossed from prototype status into Army service. In force-structure terms, it is part of the broader mediumisation drive intended to phase out vintage and smaller-calibre artillery and reduce dependence on aging Bofors-era stocks by moving more of the regiment of artillery toward a common 155 mm family.

The strategic significance of a 300-gun repeat order, therefore, goes beyond the weapon itself. It would stabilize production for AWEIL, deepen India’s domestic gun-making ecosystem, and give the Army a credible mass-induction path while ATAGS scales into service. Combined with M777, K9 Vajra, and ATAGS, the Dhanush follow-on suggests India is finally constructing a layered artillery architecture instead of chasing disconnected buys. For Army Recognition readers, that is the real story: India is not simply purchasing another howitzer. It is rebuilding the density, commonality, and survivable firepower that modern land campaigns demand.