BEL Weapon Locating Radar - History

History

The Indian army projected a requirement for fire-finding radars in the 1980s. As early as 1989, the Indian Army evaluated the American AN/TPQ-36/37 radars. However, these radars were not allowed to be sold, and the procurement process was stopped by the Government. In February 1995, a Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued to five companies for procurement of 4 WLRs. Only Hughes (now Raytheon) responded to the RFP. After trials, the radar was found to not be meeting the General Staff Quality Requirements (GSQRs) of the Indian Army, which were found to be too stringent, and were relaxed. At the same time, it was decided to consider development of an indigenous WLR by India's primary defense contractor, DRDO.

In September 1998, an RFP was issued for the urgent purchase of WLRs - An/TPQ-36/37 from Hughes (USA), Thomson CSF (France) and ISKARA of (Ukraine). However, the American and French radars were withheld after sanctions were imposed after the Pokhran-II Nuclear tests, and negotiations with the Ukrainian manufacturers came to no conclusion. Additionally, DRDO was not authorized to begin development of a WLR. These lacklustre efforts to obtain a WLR system were severely criticized by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence.

Efforts to acquire such a system intensified after the Kargil War, where the Indian Army was severely disadvantaged by its lack of firefinding radars. While the Pakistani forces were equipped with American AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radars, India only had British Cymbeline mortar detecting radars, which were not suitable. Almost 80% of Indian casualties during the war resulted from enemy artillery fire, making such a radar critical.

To correct this weakness, in 2002, the Ministry of Defence issued an RFP to five manufacturers. With the lifting of sanctions in late-2001, the US Government offered to sell the AN/TPQ-37 radar to India under their Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme for . 680 million each. In July 2002, India placed a $200 million USD order for 12 AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radars. Initially, only 8 were ordered for $140 million USD, but the order was later increased to 12. The radars were integrated on BEML-manufactured Tatra truck platforms. Delivery of all 12 radars was completed in May 2007. Concept design work on the WLR also accelerated in the aftermath of the Kargil War.

The WLR project was officially sanctioned in April 2002, with a sanctioned amount of 200 million and an estimated completion time of 40 months. The first working prototype was to be ready by April 2004. The final project cost was $49 million USD. In January 2003, an intent for procurement of 28 WLRs was placed with BEL.