The government has authorised an outright purchase of 145 ultra-light howitzers from the US, a highly-placed defence ministry source said today.
The ultra-light howitzers are for the mountain artillery divisions of the Indian Army to be used in high-altitude frontiers opposite Pakistan and China. They can be transported slung from some helicopters.
The defence acquisitions committee has decided to take the foreign military sales route. Foreign military sales is a US programme of government-to-government sales of military hardware bypassing a lengthy system of competitive bidding. But bidders who lose out to foreign military sales orders allege that the system lacks
http://machbirds.blogspot.com/2010/01/nod-to-us-gun-purchase-minus-bids.html