Draft:Artillery Combat Command and Control System

The Artillery Combat Command and Control System (ACCCS), under Project SHAKTI (lit. 'Power') is an indigenous, entirely digital, integrated, and networked system that is developed in partnership with the Indian Army's Directorate General of Information Systems (Project Management Organization), Bengaluru-based Bharat Electronics, and DRDO labs Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Armament Research and Development Establishment.

It is Indian Army's first Combat Command, Control, and Information (C3I) system. From the corps to the artillery battery, the ACCCS network of computers automates and supports decision-making for all operational facets of operations. The Regiment of Artillery's fire power component is centralized at ACCCS and is made to easily connect with the C31 grid as a whole. The Director General of Artillery Lieutenant General KR Rao, and Chief of the Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor received the ACCCS on 12 June 2009. Project SHAKTI would enable the Regiment of Artillery by automating all artillery functions at all command levels, according to Army Chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor.

System

It is one of the most effective operational information systems used by the Indian Army and is always being improved. Technical fire control for fire power accuracy based on time and location, tactical fire control, fire planning, deployment management to attain maximum fire densities at critical areas, and operational logistics management are all tasks that the Artillery Combat Command and Control System can accomplish. It can focus artillery firepower at the tactical scale and deliver devastating hits at important positions with consolidated firepower.

The project has a ₹36 billion (US$400 million) price tag as of 2007. According to a report dated 22 November 2007, ACCCS was experiencing technical issues and the project was behind schedule. Help from abroad has been sought to fix it. BEL denied technical issues and informed about the change in quality requirements in the middle for computers and other subsystems by the Indian Army. As per sources from Ministry of Defense, BEL purchased outdated computers from Elbit Systems as a stopgap measure until indigenous development was complete. Hence, the Indian Army desired their upgrade. The American Army Battle Command System served as the foundation for Project SHAKTI. CAIR was responsible for designing and developing the core technology. The development and production of computers and intelligent terminals connected as a wide area network was the responsibility assigned to BEL. The artillery computer center, battery computer, remote access terminal, and gun display unit are the primary subsystems. Artillery control equipment, guided missile systems, and artillery gun fire control systems are all remotely connected to ACCCS. These systems are then connected to the military headquarters and the commander on the battlefield. The fire control system is developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation with Rosboronxport's assistance. The communication control system, guidance systems, and reconnaissance systems make up the ACCCS fire control system. It was anticipated that ACCCS would effectively boost artillery firepower by an estimated five times as a result of automation.

According to the Indian Army's mandate for artillery units to deploy Mounted Gun Systems (MGS), the 2021 request for information proposal stipulated that the fire control system (FCS) must be compatible with Project SHAKTI. In terms of technical fire control, fire planning, deployment management, and operational logistics management, the ATAGS is compatible with ACCCS.

Upgrades

The Indian Army is working on a number of programs to achieve information supremacy in all areas. The Army is establishing captive data centers throughout the nation, which will be fully operational by the end of 2023, in order to operationalize the upgrades over a high-bandwidth secure network.

The Indian Army is working with Bharat Electronics as part of Project Sanjay to build the Battle Surveillance System (BSS), which will complete the sensor-shooter grid by connecting it with the ACCCS and give artillery officers at every level an integrated surveillance picture. Sensor data and information will be integrated into an all-encompassing system that facilitates prompt decision-making. Extensive validation of BSS was conducted across plains, deserts, and mountains between August and October of 2022. BMS has satisfied all of the Indian Army's expectations. All Indian Army field formations along the northern and western borders would receive their deliveries by December 2025, with BEL having been granted the contract.

The Situational Awareness Module for the Army (SAMA), a comprehensive combat information decision support system re-designed as Army Information and Decision Support System, is being developed by the Indian Army in collaboration with the Bhaskaracharya Institute For Space Applications and Geo-Informatics and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, to provide commanders a comprehensive picture of the battlefield by combining inputs from all operational and managerial information systems such as ACCCS, BSS, Situational Reporting Over Enterprise-Class GIS platform (e-Sitrep), and MISO. It was put into use in May 2023 for corps-level field validation. The Army's Northern Command was the first to operationalize SAMA in June 2023. The e-Sitrep is tailored to the Army's operational requirements, featuring geographic visualization, temporal and dynamic querying, and analytics based on authorization levels. It was deployed in June 2023. On a single GIS platform, Project Avgat integrates inputs from the operational domain, logistics, satellite imaging, topography, and meteorology to introduce multi-domain spatial awareness. By the end of 2023, it had been operationalized. An application to provide high-resolution weather forecasts was developed by the Indian Army in collaboration with the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting for artillery operations under Project Anumaan.

On 20 January 2013, the Indian Army received a new artillery combat and control system dubbed Shakti from BEL in collaboration with DRDO to meet the network-centric warfare requirment. It will be the primary subsystem of the Army's Tactical Command Control & Communication Intelligence (Tac C3I) system. The improved tactical computer, handheld computer, and gun display unit that make up Shakti are all connected via fiber-optic cable, landlines, or tactical radio networks. Shakti integrates and automates artillery operating tasks using software that integrates with the Global Navigation Satellite System and Geographic Information System. Shakti's primary responsibilities include calculating trajectories, handling fire requests, managing ammunition, recommending gun deployment locations and observation posts for both offensive and defensive operations, providing ammunition and logistical support on time, and creating task tables, fire plans, and automatic gun program generation. BEL and DRDO collaborated to build the system software. Numerous user assessments, integration testing, verification and validation trials, and a comprehensive field evaluation trial have all been conducted on it.