A Lecture cum Demonstration on the M777 Howitzer Yudh Abhyas day deployment sequence was conducted at the Mahajan Field Firing Ranges in Rajasthan on Wednesday, part of the ongoing 22nd edition of the India United States joint military exercise. The session took Indian and American gun crews through the duties of key appointments, gun deployment and local defence coordination around the Ultra Light Howitzer, before moving into drills on shifting position under simulated counter bombardment fire.

What the M777 Howitzer Yudh Abhyas demonstration covered

Instructors walked personnel through the sequence a gun detachment follows once an M777 is emplaced: assigning key appointments within the crew, deploying the gun into a firing position, and coordinating local defence around the site so the battery can protect itself while it fires. The lecture cum demonstration format paired a walkthrough of each step with a live run through on the ground at MFFR.

Officers from both armies observed the drill together, with the demonstration built around procedures the Indian Army's Ultra Light Howitzer regiments train on for high altitude and semi mountainous terrain, the setting the M777 was inducted to cover.

Countering bombardment with alternate positions

A separate block of the exercise covered movement to alternate gun positions during counter bombardment, the tactic guns use to displace once an enemy locates their fire and begins returning it. Crews rehearsed shoot and scoot drills, firing a short mission and relocating before counter battery fire can register the position.

A joint training exchange

The activity was framed as an exchange of best practices between Indian and American gun crews rather than a one sided demonstration, with personnel from both armies working through the drill together at MFFR. Yudh Abhyas has run artillery serials of this kind at earlier editions, and this year's M777 Howitzer Yudh Abhyas sequence folds into the broader mountain warfare training taking place at the ranges.

Yudh Abhyas 2026 at Auli and Mahajan

The current edition of Yudh Abhyas 2026 opened with a ceremony at Auli, Uttarakhand, while training has run in parallel at the Mahajan Field Firing Ranges, where infantry dominated operations and the employment of Integrated Battle Groups in mountainous terrain form the exercise's stated aim. The Indian Army has previously paired the M777 with Indian Air Force Chinook helicopters for underslung movement, demonstrated in a separate training activity by Eastern Command's Brahmastra Corps, and the emphasis on rapid relocation carries across both the air mobility and the shoot and scoot elements of the gun's employment.

More on the exercise, including troop numbers and the formations involved, is available on the Indian Army's official channels at indianarmy.nic.in and the Ministry of Defence at mod.gov.in. The US Army's Defense Visual Information Distribution Service also carries a dedicated feature page on Yudh Abhyas 26.

The M777 in Indian service

The M777, designated the Ultra Light Howitzer by the Indian Army, is a US origin 155mm towed gun ordered specifically because its titanium construction lets it be broken down and moved by helicopter into terrain that rules out road mobile artillery. That air mobility is the reason the gun has become a fixture of exercises focused on mountainous and semi mountainous operations, including this week's drills at Mahajan.