The Indian Ministry of Defense has signed a deal with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to buy 41 modular bridges made in India for the Indian Army Corps of Engineers. This is a big step towards making defence equipment in India, which is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to make India self-sufficient.
A Mobile Bridging System (MBS), which is another name for a modular bridge, is a flexible combat support vehicle made to help military operations by quickly moving tanks and armoured vehicles across obstacles like rivers. This has a metal bridge that folds up and can be opened up in minutes to make a ready-made bridge over the gap.
The bridge is built on a vehicle that is usually armoured and can be moved to different places as needed. With the ability to cross craters, anti-tank ditches, blown bridges, railroad cuts, canals, marshy lands, rivers, and ravines, the system is a key part of operations for both armoured and infantry units. Once everyone has passed over the obstacle, the vehicle reattaches to the metal bridge and pulls it back to move on to the next one.
The Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) designed the bridges, and L&T, which was chosen by DRDO to make them, will make them. Costing an estimated Rs 2,585 crore, the contract was signed on February 8, 2023.
Each set of modular bridges has seven carrier vehicles based on 8×8 heavy mobility vehicles and two launcher vehicles based on 10×10 heavy mobility vehicles. They can launch a single-span, 46-meter assault bridge that can be used over obstacles like canals and ditches. The bridge can be launched and retrieved quickly.
The Indian Army will use these bridges instead of the Medium Girder Bridges that are currently launched by hand. The fact that these bridges are designed and built locally will give them many advantages over the current bridges, such as longer spans, faster construction times, and the ability to be launched and retrieved by machines.
This purchase will improve the Indian Army’s ability to build bridges on the Western Front and show how far India has come in designing and making top-quality military equipment. It will also make it easier to sell more weapons to friendly countries.
