A mortar crew’s most exposed moment has always been the setup. The truck stops, the crew climbs out, the tube comes off the back and the baseplate goes into the ground — and for several long minutes, everyone is standing in the open. On 12 November 2026, Kalyani Strategic Systems (KSSL), the defence arm of Pune’s Bharat Forge, unveiled a system built to erase that moment entirely: the 120mm Rapid Attack Mortar System, or R.A.M.S, a mortar that fires from the vehicle it rides in.
Mounted on an agile 4×4, RAMS is designed to give mobile forces rapid-response mortar fire that keeps pace with the way wars are now fought — fast, dispersed, and watched from above. The company says the system moves from travel mode to firing mode within moments, and relocates just as quickly after firing, so a crew can shoot and be gone before an enemy can answer.
Fire from the vehicle, then disappear
The heart of RAMS is a simple idea with a large payoff: the crew never has to dismount. The 120mm mortar fires directly from the vehicle, removing the need to emplace the weapon by hand. That compresses the sensor-to-shooter cycle, cuts the crew’s exposure, and keeps the detachment protected through the whole engagement — faster response, greater mobility, and better crew safety, as the company puts it.
The system has been designed for the hardest ground India’s soldiers operate on: high-altitude regions, extreme cold and heat, and monsoon conditions, across mountain passes, deserts and plains, where a traditional towed mortar takes longer to deploy and needs far more logistical support. It is built for the Indian Armed Forces as well as international customers, and the company says it is designed and developed entirely in India.
“R.A.M.S is designed to give our armed forces credible, responsive capability at high altitude and in the most challenging conditions, while keeping our soldiers protected,” said Amit Kalyani, Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director of Bharat Forge. “We design for the challenges ahead — we design and build in India, for India and for our partners around the world.”
The company behind it
KSSL is the wholly owned defence subsidiary of Bharat Forge, and it drives the Kalyani Group’s defence business. The company says it brings more than six decades of design, engineering, metallurgy and advanced manufacturing to the table, spanning artillery systems, armoured and protected vehicles, small arms, ammunition, and marine and unmanned platforms.
More Read
RAMS is the newest branch of an artillery family that has already proved itself abroad. KSSL’s MArG series of 155mm mounted guns — which the company describes as the world’s first 155mm gun system on a 4×4 high-mobility vehicle — comes in 39, 45 and 52-calibre versions. The MArG 39 weighs 18 tons, carries 18 rounds and, the company says, can be deployed in under two minutes, even at night. By January 2026 the company had delivered 72 MArG 155/39 systems to Armenia under a $155.5 million export order, and in June 2026 it signed a partnership with America’s AM General to offer the MArG 52 for the US Army’s Mobile Tactical Cannon programme, with deliveries planned from 2027 if the proposal is selected.
The same stable includes the ATAGS 155mm towed howitzer, co-developed with the DRDO for the Indian Army, the air-portable Garuda 105 gun system, and the Bharat-52 towed gun. The momentum behind the business is visible in the deals around it: a strategic alliance with Thales, announced in September 2026, to build indigenous 70mm rocket capability, and a ₹240 crore capital infusion from Bharat Forge into KSSL completed in October 2026, with ₹163 crore of it flowing onward to Agneyastra Energetics to set up an ammunition-shell filling facility.
Why it matters
Mortars are the infantry’s own artillery — the fire support a battalion carries with it, rather than one it has to call in. A mortar that fires from its vehicle and moves before it can be found makes that support faster, safer and harder to suppress, exactly where India’s toughest terrain demands it. RAMS takes the shoot-and-scoot philosophy KSSL proved with its big guns and shrinks it down to the weapon every infantry unit knows best. It is Aatmanirbhar Bharat in its most practical form: an Indian company, building on Indian metallurgy and Indian battlefield experience, putting a homegrown system into the hands of Indian soldiers — and offering it to the world.
Keep reading: A Cleaner Push to Orbit: Inside Dream Aerospace, the Chennai Startup Building Green Thrusters for India’s Satellites · No Fire, Just Thrust: Inside SiriNor, the Pune Startup Building the World’s First All-Electric Jet Engine · More Aerospace & Defense stories
Like stories like this? Add Exceptional Technology as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting in your search results and Discover feed.
