The Indian Navy received the first-ever fully made-in-India 30mm ammunition, giving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make-in-India initiative in the defence industry a big boost. The ammo will be used in the AK-630 guns installed on warships. An important national achievement is that all domestic ammunition has been produced by the private sector. It took a year to build, and every component is native.
The Indian Navy supplied technical support in the form of finalized drawings, design specifications, inspection tools, and proof and testing of ammunition as part of its pursuit of Atmanirbharta through supporting the industry.
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The 100% domestic 30mm gun ammunition was given to the Indian Navy by the chemical manufacturing firm Economic Explosives Ltd. of Nagpur, and Vice Admiral SN Ghormade, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, accepted it.
About AK-630 Weapon system
The AK-630 is a close-range, fully automated rotary cannon armament system developed by the Soviet Union and Russia. The six gun barrels of the weapon each have a calibre of 30 mm, hence the designation “630”.
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The 30mm AK-630M automatic gun mount is made to engage both air and surface targets, including anti-ship missiles, planes, helicopters, and other kinds of air strike weapons, as well as small surface ships, drifting mines, fire emplacements, and observed enemy people on land.
It is a remote-controlled turret-style mount that uses a sighting station and a fire control radar system (backup control post). It has an automatic belt feed system, an AO-18 gun with a rotating, continuously cooled six-barrel cluster, and a breech block mechanism to ram the cartridge and extract the case after the shot.
The AO-18 uses water cooling of the cluster, enabling it to carry out demanding duty firing.
System Specifications
The system is controlled by MR-123 radar, television detection, and tracking, and is installed in an enclosed automatic turret. The primary objective of the weapon is defence against helicopters and aircraft. Due to the limits of the radar and aiming system as well as the dispersion of a short-barreled gun, effectiveness against anti-ship missiles and other precision-guided weapons is constrained.
The entire weapon system, known as A-213-Vympel-A, consists of the MR-123-02 Fire Control Radar System, SP-521 Electrical-Optical Tracker, and AK-630M Gun Mount. Two 30 mm gun mounts, two 57 mm gun mounts, one 30 mm gun, or one 30 mm gun and one 57 mm gun can all be controlled by a single MR-123 radar system at once.
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Aerial and surface targets can be engaged by the radar system at distances of 4 and 5 kilometers (2.5 and 3.1 mi), respectively. A MiG-21-sized aerial target can be located by the electro-optical system at a distance of 7 kilometers (4.3 mi), while torpedo boat-sized surface targets can be located at a distance of up to 70 kilometers (43 mi). Features include high jamming immunity, laser range finder, and TV optical sight. There are also tracking and surveillance modes.
Fully automated, the gun mount can also be operated remotely by an operator using either a mounted gunsight or the control panel. It fires at a faster rate than the Phalanx (Block 1 and earlier) and Goalkeeper CIWS variants. They are frequently mounted in pairs, and larger ships may have up to four pairs mounted. They serve as an efficient point defence (last) layer. The drawbacks of gun-based CIWS include short engagement times and the requirement for numerous volleys to completely eliminate a danger.
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About the ammunition
Combining missile and gun armament was the ideal answer for shipboard air defence, taking into account the complexity of protecting ships in today’s combat environment against sophisticated air assault techniques. This cannon’s design offered the ideal fusion of projectile terminal effectiveness, rate of fire, ammo-carrying capacity, compactness, ease of use, and dependability.
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The following targets can be hit by these weapon/munition systems:
- Anti-ship missiles that have gotten past the first line of defence for ship-borne air defence
- Low-flying aerial targets, including cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, stand-off weapons, and fixed and rotary-wing aircraft
- Targets on the water and on land with minimal armour
- Several different types of coastal fortification
- Sea mines that float
Basic characteristics
- Delivering strong projectile ballistic performances
- Low-weight and small-size cartridge cases,
- Tiny cannon weight and dimensions
- High weapon system ammo carrying capacity
- Improved cartridge case production and surface coating technique, allowing for the extraordinarily rapid rate of fire, great reliability of weapon performance, and high mechanical stress resistance.
- The extraordinarily high interior and exterior ballistics performance and terminal efficiency of current HE projectiles against a variety of aerial and ground targets
- High reliability, based on extensive experience in ammunition mass production practice rounds for training purposes
- High-reliability self-destruction device
- High-reliability tracers for enabling the visual control of projectile’s flight wide range of targets engaged
- High cost/efficiency and cheap price
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