In 2020, India's latest Atagas gun was developed, according to the military, the gun has a range of 48 kilometers, is a veritable world first, and because of this, on the day of the Attags test, not only experts from all sides gathered together, but even the commander-in-chief of the army came to the scene to visit.
Maybe he didn't believe in the soldier's level, or maybe he wanted to show his face in front of the commander-in-chief. In short, before the artillery test firing, the 4 experts were busy around the artillery for more than 1 hour, however, at the moment when an expert pulled the firing rope, a loud noise caused a thick smoke around the artillery, and when the smoke dissipated, the officers and men present understood what was happening.
It turned out that the first test firing of the gun had a blasting accident, and the powerful air wave directly blew away 2 experts who were farther away, even if the doctor did everything in his power later, he was still powerless to return to the sky; even worse than the two of them were the 2 experts standing next to the gun, because they were too close to the blasting point, they could not even leave the corpse capital.
The first test shot damaged 4 military experts, which naturally made the Indian military very dissatisfied, but it is doubtful that after the accident, the military still sent the artillery to the "front line" service, which can be said to completely disregard the safety of the artillery.
The Indian military claimed that the reason for killing the four experts was not the problem of artillery at all, but the shells produced by the state-owned OFB Group were too inferior. However, after the Indian military taunted the domestic ammunition, the boss of OFB stood up, saying that the military's own ability was not enough to rely on shells to explode.
For a time, the war of words between THEB Group and the Indian military also exploded on the Internet, and later, the military even gave up cooperation with state-owned enterprises for a time and turned to private companies to purchase ammunition, of course, this also caused the outside world to have a full of questions, in the end is there a problem with India's new artillery, or will the shells explode?
Today, let's talk about whether India's self-produced ammunition is really embarrassing and useful. And is this explosion accident an act of "throwing the pot" by the military?
In fact, in a sense, the artillery explosion accident can only be regarded as a fuse, because the beam between the Indian military and the state-owned enterprise OFB Group was concluded as early as 2014 when OFB took over the army ammunition business, in fact, in addition to the bullets used by soldiers, the company is also responsible for the production of shells, mines, grenades and other weapons.
I have to say that at this time, offline Group is indeed the limelight. You know, the Indian Army claims to be a million soldiers, tanks, artillery and other weapons are changing the pattern of loading, at the same time, the Indian army since the 60s of the last century began to develop new weapons, regardless of whether they later entered service, these weapons in the experimental period, the demand for ammunition is undoubtedly very huge.
On the other hand, the Indian Army has always had the characteristics of being militaristic, which makes it possible to stock up on "ammunition" in order to show their combat effectiveness and open the arsenal for media coverage from time to time to enhance national confidence. Because of this, OFB Company instantly changed from an obscure enterprise to a top arms company in the world, not only making a lot of money in business, but also gaining "unlimited" exposure.
What the Indian military did not expect was that within half a year of cooperation between the two sides, they were fiercely swung together by the OFB Group. At the beginning of 2015, India held a military exercise on the Deccan Plateau, although compared with the previous land, sea and air collective dispatch, this military exercise only participated in the army, but on the plateau to carry out large-scale charge training, is undoubtedly very targeted, which naturally makes some Indians get great satisfaction.
However, the Indian military, which has always been very happy, stopped after the exercise, not only did not disclose to the media any "grand situation" of the exercise, but when the reporter asked about the results of the exercise, the spokesman was even more silent about the details. However, the military's concealment stimulated the curiosity of the outside world, and soon there were "hackers" who entered the military's internal website, and when they saw the live video, they understood why the Army would keep the exercise secretive.
It turns out that many Indian soldiers have encountered the phenomenon of exploding their guns when they are conducting shooting training. Among them, some of the barrels were directly exploded into the shape of petals, some were fired directly in the magazine, and even more, with the firing pins, directly threw the bolt into the face of the soldier. In such harsh shooting conditions, many Indian soldiers were "hit" by scattered gun parts with blue noses and swollen faces, and some were cut off their hands or eyes before they even experienced the new bullets, losing the opportunity to kill the enemy.
Of course, although a number of soldiers were injured, compared with the previous situation of always getting wet due to gunpowder or too many burrs that led to jamming, the bullets produced by the OFB Group this time have not appeared, and from this point of view, the bullets they produced are at least in the color of internal gunpowder.
However, compared with the infantry participating in the exercise, the Indian tank and artillery unit suffered, because of the quality of the shells, 3 tank shells directly detonated in the warehouse, directly opening the tank "Tianling Cover"; 6 howitzers also exploded the chamber when they were fired, blowing the artillery into pieces.
Faced with this situation, the Indian Army immediately destroyed all the ammunition participating in the exercise and issued an ultimatum to the OFB Group that it must produce the required ammunition within 1 year, and at the same time, the holes that were previously destroyed must be filled.
I have to say that the Indian military, which has always been confused, has finally been clever, after all, if such ammunition is placed on the battlefield, it will definitely become the number one enemy of the Indian Army. However, there is a way that "the wise must have a mistake", because the exercise did not use mines, so the military obviously forgot that mines are more lethal to soldiers than other weapons, so in 2016, they forgot to destroy the mines of the OFB Group, and paid the price.
In July of that year, an arsenal in Maharashtra suddenly exploded, causing a chain reaction that engulfed the entire factory in a very short period of time, in which 7 guards were directly killed and more than 40 people were seriously injured. After investigation, the relevant departments learned that the accident was caused by the mines produced by OFB.
This type of mine is a new type of anti-infantry mine, it is reasonable to say that the anti-infantry mine mainly relies on shrapnel to injure people, in other words, it should not have the power to detonate the factory, but somehow, OFB made it into an anti-tank mine, and this is why it can cause such a fire, and the dead soldiers are basically not hit by shrapnel.
Since OFB took over the Indian Army ammunition business, such situations have occurred from time to time, but there are only big and small. In the five years from 2014 to 2019, there were more than 430 accidents, with 27 officers alone dying, not to mention ordinary soldiers, while nearly 170 people were also left with lifelong disabilities due to inferior ammunition.
Let's go back to the original question, in 2020, India's new Atages guns exploded during test firing, using shells provided by the OFB Group, and the reason why no officers died this time may be because they learned to hide away. So, is it true that the OfB Group should be fully responsible for the accident, as the Indian military claims?
In fact, before the Atages artillery "hurt people", India also test-fired a howitzer called Danush, and the two guns are a certain degree of competitive products, both of which belong to the first step of India's completely independent research and development.
On the day of the Danush artillery test firing, under the order of the officer, the gun barrel, after a muffled sound, emitted black smoke and directly scattered into the shape of lily petals, and only the poor artillerymen who participated in the test firing, like the results of the Attagus artillery, they were also blown up.
Of course, the reasons for the accident of the two guns are also very different, the Attagus gun is because the shell exploded when it was just fired, so that the entire gun was instantly restored to a part state; the Danush gun was because the shell collided with the muzzle of the retractor when it flew out of the barrel, and this is the reason why only the barrel was blown into petals.
It should be known that in the danush artillery test firing, the same shells produced by the OFB group were used, and even the most problematic batch, however, the cause of the accident was only because the specifications of the muzzle brake were too rough, and the shell was scratched, which had little to do with the quality of the shell. What's more, the gun had been successfully fired 6 rounds before the accident.
From this point of view, the quality of India's military industry is equally worrying. Although the Indian military claims that the Danush and Atages guns are completely "domestically produced", in fact, the Danush guns are a modified version of the world-famous gun FH77B, which is known for its low failure rate and high service life; and the Indian military just reassembled the gun, while the Atages gun, it is a full-tail Indian domestic production, in other words, even if the ammunition is not a problem, he still has a high possibility of blowing up.
It has to be said that since the aircraft produced by Hindustan Airlines have fallen repeatedly, the shells produced by THEB Group have resulted in the lives of 4 experts at one time, which has the intention of replacing Stan Aviation and becoming the "number one enemy" of the new generation of the Indian army, of course, the Indian military enterprises that produce artillery cannot completely shirk their responsibilities, after all, when the ammunition is no problem, the artillery will explode. Therefore, for the war of words between the Indian military industry and the OFB group, it can only be said that they are "throwing the pot" at each other.