Home made or Assembled, Tejas 40%, Arjun 55 %

Homemade or Assembled, Tejas 40%, Arjun 55 %

The defense minister said in parliament that indigenous component in the home made projects like Tejas, Arjun and Brahmos has many foreign components, which make India once again to be top on the arms importer. Under new defense procurement policy, India tries to slower down the imports and wants to self-reliant on most aspects, However due to lack of technology India remains to import major weapons from Foreign.

Brahmos is the known reliable system, which was a 50-50 joint project of India and Russia, even so India holds 51% of the stakes in Brahmos. Still India can't indigenous the Brahmos missile. Ministry said 65% of the missile components are outsourced, It's an easy guessing game that why the procurement cost of Brahmos remains high.

Arjun is also developed in mind to boost the Indian Army's firepower also it was developed to replace the older T 72 tanks in Indian Army, which was bought from Soviet and assembled in India. Ministry reported in Parliament that more than 55% of Arjun's components are outsourced.

Mainly the engines, missile firing unit's and the tank's fire control system, actually those systems are made in India, the components are the one which could be bought from outside. As an example Fire control system of Arjun was developed with the Support of Israeli's. they still buying those sub-components  where DRDO just assembling them in India.

Tejas is the known project which is slated to replace the Soviet origin MiG 21 from Indian fleet, India plans to make each and every component of the fighter jet in India, Due to lack of technological aspects, India couldn't achieve major breakthrough's in aviation technology. The airframe of the Tejas developed with support from French and German experts, and it's developed besides on the Mirage 2000 Airframe.

ADA plans to power the Tejas with home made engines, They given the project to the another state-run company named GTRE. GTRE initiated a project under the code name of Kaveri to develop a 90kN engine for Tejas. However, the program failed to deliver a good engine with required power output. So India needs to be bought engines from foreign.

Radar, Radome and refueling probe also bought from foreign, Missiles also bought from Foreign. Which makes the Tejas only 60% indigenous, nearly 40% components are still outsourced.

As some reports from served officials criticized the work culture of HAL and DRDO. who is doing just screwdriver jobs rather than working on new projects, lack of fund also concerned about that issue?  If the same continuous in future it's clear during a war like situation, India needs to spend a large amount of money just for buying ammunition's and sub-components.

Test Firing of New Tank Ammunition for Arjun MBT

 Test Firing of New Tank Ammunition for Arjun MBT 

    Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully conducted test firing of new tank ammunition Penetration-Cum Blast (PCB) and Thermobaric (TB) Ammunition, specially designed for Arjun Tank at Chandipur, Odisha on 6th Jan 2016. 

    The trials were found to be very effective and the damage was devastating with the firing of ammunition successfully destroying the target tank and severely damaging its turret, barrel, tracks, ammunition bin, various sights, antennas etc. The ammunitions have been developed by Pune based DRDO laboratories Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) and High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL). 

    An innovative chemical composition has been developed by HEMRL after extensive research for the TB ammunition. During the development phase, these ammunitions were extensively evaluated against different simulated targets viz., armour plates, concrete structures and fortifications. 

    The trials were conducted jointly with Army and was aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ammunitions on derelict tank fitted with instrumentation to measure the shocks, blast pressure and temperature at various locations and on advanced imaging systems. The trials were unique as for the first time such evaluation is carried out in India which will give a quantum jump in the fire-power of Arjun tanks.

     The technical trials were witnessed by Directors of HEMRL & PXE, Director DQRS, Army representatives and other senior officials from DRDO.

 Press Information Bureau

Ajrun MBT Mark 2 Deployed very Soon

Ajrun MBT Mark 2 Deployed very Soon

    Sources close to Defense ministry confirms that Army set to receive the first lot of 40 Arjun Mark 2 Tanks soon. Arjun almost finished all trails and set to enter the pre deployment plans. The First batch of ordered 40 Tanks will be deployed along the Punjab and Rajastan Borders. Arjun meets the Army's fire power requirement, defensive systems and the required speed performance. The three main elements of the battle tank. Forty of the new Mark 2 tanks will form a new Tank regiment.

    Indian Army plans to induct more numbers of Arjun Mark 2 Tanks. the Mark 1 version is an limited  deployment due to low numbers. Indian Army operates 124 Mark 1 Arjun Tanks. and Plans to induct more mark 2 version. The mark 2 has 93 new improvements include 13 major structural modifications. The improved 120mm rifled gun can fire anti tank rounds and missiles. The Mark 2 also equipped with remote controlled weapon station for anti personnel use.

   During the army's extensive trails Arjun mark 2 outperformed the T 90 MS. the T 90 Bhishma is an third generation main battle tank. while the Arjun mark 2 is an advanced third generation tank, which incorporates many advanced features for defensive and offensive roles. The Battle tanks are designed to combat against the tanks. However modern tanks packs more punch, which can provide close fire support during an invasion.

    Arjun not only designed to perform missions in desert lands. Arjun can perform missions in all over India in any circumstance. Compared to the Mark 1 the Mark 2 has an important upgrade of firing anti tank missile through it's rifled gun. the Indo Israeli missile LAHAT uses the laser guidance to hit targets beyond the non line of sight. This makes the new Arjun tanks can hit enemy targets far beyond the line of sight.

    The missile firing also improves the Arjun's fire power range. Currently the Lahat is the only anti tank missile that can hit enemy targets at long range and in high precision. The Lahat has the effective range of upto 8 kilometers. The Arjun's fire control mechanism and  battlefield survivability is designed with the help of Israeli's. much of the modern fir control systems and countermeasure system derived from the Israeli Merkava tanks.

    The Tank isn't built with the steel or iron. Most part of the Tanks' structure made by the Kanchan armor. The Plates are designed and developed by the defense metallurgical research laboratory. The composite of the material remain classified. The kanchan being used in the Arjun tanks only. During the trails the Kanchan able to withstand from an 107mm recoilless shell. the trails followed by firing High explosive and armor piercing warheads. Those shells are used in the most Tanks who has no missile firing capabilities.  The Kanchan withstands from those shells fired by the T 72 within the point blank range.

Known Anti tank ammunition

   The Arjun MK 2 not only comes with the Kanchan armor, same like other main battle tanks, the Arjuns too comes with explosive reactive armor as secondary armor. The ERA gives an additional armor protection to the Tank. however the ERA will not be placed all over the Tank. It will be fitted in the weak points of the Tank such as gun point and sides. With the support from Elbit Israel. Arjun has very less weak points in front side and gun points, makes the Arjun tank best battle tanks which can withstand from enemy direct fire.

    Arjun MK 1 is more mobile compared to the Mark 2 variant. Mark 2 has a over weight of some 10 tons compared to the 55 tons of Arjun Mark 1. The future tanks must come with light in weight which gives the tanks shoot and scoot capabilities. However the Mark 2 can attain  40 kmph in cross country. Arjun does have the capability of fire on the move. The Arjun hold the world record of heaviest tank in service. The overweight is an disadvantage to the Mark 2, The overweight makes difficult in quick deployment. Due to the heavy weight the IAF's C 17 is the only air lifter which can air lift the mark 2 Tank.

    The Arjun's fire control systems allows the tank to engage both stationary and moving targets even in non line of sight. The fire control system allows the missile autonomously select targets and engage in high accuracy. The accuracy can be expanded with the help of Tank's target acquisition system and nearby flying UAV's. Arjun is combat capable in all rough weather conditions, day and night missions. Arjun is a mobile fortress which can able to withstand from CBRN - Chemical Biological Radio-logical and Nuclear  attacks.

    The Arjun can carry 40 ready to fire main gun ammunition, Include the Lahat missile, HESH and AFSPDS rounds.  Mark 2 comes with a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun for anti aircraft role and another 7.62 for anti personnel use. both the gun can be fired automatically makes the crew safe inside when engaging the close targets.

The Arjun Mark 1 MBT

   The Arjun carries four person inside the Tank, Gunner, Loader, Commander and the driver. The Arjun mark 2 don't have the automatic reloading system. A disadvantage of the tank, Because of the manual loading Arjun has limited fire rate.

   Once the Army deployed the first batch of 40 Mark 2 tanks. The Heavy vehicle factory planned to produce 300 more in coming years for the Indian Army. However the Arjun Tank is not available for export. Since Latin American countries shown interest in the Arjun Tank. 

  

Pakistan Buys 282 Refurbished T 55 Tanks from Serbia

Pakistan Buys 282 Refurbished T 55 Tanks from Serbia

    It's interesting and surprising from the Pakistani side that they invested into vintage T 55 tanks along with old APC and field guns from Serbia, but those are very well upgraded by the Serbians before hand overing to Pakistan. The upgrades includes Armour protection, new Generation Explosive reactive Armour added along with digital controls systems added in the Upgrade. makes them safer against  RPG's and heavy machine gun rounds.

The T 55 is a Medium Tank 36 Tons of weight, using a 100mm Main gun along with a 12.7mm for anti personnel usage, which shows good for mobility and good for asymmetrical warfare, where Pakistan suffering since decades. actually Pakistan need a good small arms to protect themselves from it's Terrorists. here T 55 is a good option because it's reliable against terrorists attacks and available in low cost both in procurement and maintenance. most of the fights fought by the Pakistan is  with their own Jihadi's.

        The Pakistanis went for Cheap Tanks rather than good APC and Infantry fighting Vehicle's which is not good against such Heavily armed militants, even they have good number of APC's named Talha which is not good against those Terrorists, usually they were easy targets to the terrorists.

     These Tanks were good in Mobility due to lower weight, with the ERA Armour It can be deployed in Battlegrounds, and It's more than good against the modern IFV's, But it's not a real threat to India when it's deployed to near border. but good for Ambushes only.

                    Pakistan is not known for Keeping good numbers of Main battle Tank, they have some less than thousand Modern Battle Tanks, nearly 300 Brand new T 80 from Ukraine, and some Pakistani Chinese Made Al Khalid MBT's.

             Mean Time India Have triple amount of Modern MBT's, and two new programs to increase the numbers. more than 300 Arjuns are under operational, nearly 1000 of MK 2 version planned, more than 1000 of T 90 in Operational. and 2500 modernized T 72 Ajeya Tanks.

                  But looks like The Pakistanis need a good numbers of MBT's o confront against the Indian Forces, mostly all of these Indian Tanks will be deployed along the Indo Pakistani Border, makes the Pakistani's pinned downed if war broken out. Pakistani's have no other options but increase the numbers of Battle Tank.

               Even if it is looked like Those T 55 procurement only for attacks against terrorist, but they frequently uses the Air power to defeat the Terrorists. but there is no way using those Tanks against Terrorists, because they easily can ambush if it was used in the Urban warfare. even though those terrorists uses huge size of IED's to break those Tanks from bottom end,

                The Pakistanis has the only option to Stop the Indian flotilla of Tanks by using latest generation Anti tank missiles, but the problem is no one ready to supply most sophisticated fire and forget Anti tank missiles to Pakistan. the Pakistanis uses the Chinese made  variant of HJ 8 Anti Tank missiles, which is good against older generation Tanks, The Modern Tanks comes with more defensive options from Armour upgrades to active protection system. also those HJ 8 uses the wire guidance which makes the Handler keep an eye of the target till the missile strike the Tank. which is not a good option in modern battlefields.

    But India also have the same wire guided missiles, but they have two other projects for fire and forget types, one is through procurement the Spike missile variants from Israel, another is home made Nag missile.

Problem in Arjun Tank, T 14 in Sight

Problem in Arjun Tank, T 14 in Sight

The Russian T 14 Armanta Tank

        Startling reports have emerged in a leading newspaper stating the already inducted Arjun battle tanks have been suspended from action owing to problems in their systems. An undated article published in “Economic times” has claimed that of the 124 deployed Arjun MK1 tanks only 12 to 15 tanks are currently in service and the remaining tanks have been pulled off service and have credited the source to an anonymous Army official. Which would mean not even a single regiment is operational at the present, each regiment contains at least 48 tanks.

      The report has further claimed that these tanks are developed with only 40% indigenous materials and the rest of the technologies are imported. With persistent problems in the ToT clauses the Army has failed to maintain these main battle tanks and also states “ The Army has identified more than 96 problems of which 18 have been classified as major issues and these issues have been credited for making the tanks go off the duty. Furthermore the report has indicted the current MoD and has stated that the minister is very keen to fund projects to procure new system for the tanks.

       But report seems to baseless and botched up theory, earlier Indian defense watchers and some strategic experts raised their voice, when the Russian T 14 Armanta MBT made debut, and predicted that Army would say something about existing Arjun fleet and would try to buy the new Russian T 14 system, and that's the truth too.

       A strong Russian lobby is still believed to be in the business to make sure India invest in T 14 R&D. Russia had earlier persuaded India to buy their BMP 3 IFV, India steered clear of the deal and went against the Russian pitched BMP 3’s.

     The Arjun is one of the best tank for Indian conditions which was developed by CVRDE and DRDO with the support of Israeli's, once the Israeli's called the

Arjun Tank as Desert Ferrari.

       The then Indian Army Chief Gen Deepak had appreciated the Arjun's performance and had approved it to be inducted into the Army in early 2009. There were rumoured reports in which the Arjun winter trials performance reports were sabotaged and was noticed that false data’s were fed to the system.

      It's the Chinese who learned last 2009, when India Tested Advanced Laser Warning and Countermeasure System (ALWCS), the suite comprises a laser warning system, infra-red jammer and an aerosol smoke grenade system. The sensors of these systems are mounted on the front sides of the turret, which are the Major Defensive systems in Arjun Tank.

     After the T 14 lobby emerged there seems to be a lobby with the army working to look at the induction of T 14 and is trying to downplay the home grown Arjun project.

   Also the news was first published by Manu Pubby in Economic times, who is a reliable defence journalist but it's hard to digest that such a loosely based report has been put forward by such an imminent person. It has to be seen what course this issue will take in the coming days.

 

The Pre production Testing Models of T 14 Armanta

The Desert Ferrari Arjun Tank

Arjun Tank

Indian Army's Main Battle Tank programs

A look at the Indian Army's Main Battle Tank programs 

Posted By Saurav Jha

The Arjun MK II MBT

    In August 2014, the Defence Acquisition Council(DAC) finally gave the go ahead for 118 Arjun Mk-2 MBTs for an order value of about Rs 6600 crores.This signalled a return to production for the Arjun MBT line at Heavy Vehicles factory (HVF), Avadi that had been lying idle since 2010-11 when the last Arjun Mk-Is rolled out. Nevertheless the piecemeal order is indicative of the fact that the Indian Army (IA) continues to insist upon the demonstration of a potent missile firing capability from the Arjun Mk-2's gun before it places an indent for a much larger order. And a much larger order, as has been known to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is absolutely needed to make it viable to indigenize various sub-systems in the Arjun Mk-2. Meanwhile, the IA continues to face issues with its pool of T-90S MBTs and is increasingly turning to the Defence Research & Development Organization(DRDO) to upgrade these tanks with domestically developed technologies in a manner resembling DRDO's Combat Improved Ajeya (CIA) program for existing T-72s in the IA's inventory. Be that as it may the IA has to support economies of scale in the overall Arjun program as that will have a direct bearing on India's ability to productionize the Future Main Battle Tank (FMBT) that is needed to replace the IA's ageing T-72 park heading into the 2020s.

     The Arjun Mk-2 variant developed by DRDO's Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) essentially grew out of the IA's recommended upgrades post the Arjun Mk-I's comparative trials with the T-90S which included among other things the incorporation of an anti-tank missile firing capability, an increase in penetrating power of ammunition used and the mounting of explosive reactive armour (ERA) panels. In order to comply with these requests besides generally updating the Mk-I design and making its assemblies more production friendly, CVRDE has made some 89 upgrades to the baseline Mk-1, including 19 major improvements such as the incorporation of animproved commander's panoramic sight, a track width mine plough, automatic target tracking,power driven air defence gun, advanced running gear system, final drive with reduction ratio, an improved slip ring, capability to fire new thermobaric ammunition,ERA, a laser warning countermeasure system, and a new auxiliary power unit (APU) generating in excess of 8 KW of power i.e double that of the Mk-1's APU.

    The Arjun Mk-2 also features the capability to fire the Israeli LAHAT missile in an anti-tank role through its 120 mm main gun. However the LAHAT has turned out to be a sticking point between the IA and DRDO since besides uneven accuracy, smoke regurgitation from the LAHAT missile into the fighting compartment as it is fired through the main gun has been deemed as too hazardous by the IA. As of now DRDO has dropped the LAHAT from its Arjun Mk-2 MBT plans and is instead pursuing the Canon Launched Guided Missile (CLGM) being developed indigenously at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL).

         The missile firing capability requirement grew out of the fact that though the Arjun Mk-I with a score of 25.77 beat the T-90S with a score of 24.50 in the firepower criteria during the 2010 comparative trials if the T-90S's missile firing capability were to be kept aside, the T-90 fared marginally better in the overall final score primarily on account of its Invar missile firing capability. The comparative trials were on four parameters viz. fire power, survivability, reliability and miscellaneous issues of the tank with weightages of 40, 35, 15 and 10 respectively. As per the trial report, MBT Arjun performed better than the T-90 tank in accuracy and consistency of firepower. However, the T-90S seems to have performed better in lethality and missile firing capability. Importantly, the IA concluded (April 2010) that "Arjun had performed creditably and it could be employed both for offensive and defensive tasks with same efficacy of T-90 tank'.

          Now if the Mk-I itself could do that, then the Mk-2 given its technology, will certainly do far better. In fact in terms of both firepower and survivability the Mk-I will easily surpass Eastern Bloc tanks with or without taking into account a missile firing capability. As such the Arjun Mk-2 is clearly something that the IA should be using to overmatch Pakistani tanks, especially in the desert sector where the T-90S's electronics and sights have been known to function erratically. This is now sought to be remedied, by retrofitting existing T-90Ss with an air-conditioning unit being developed by DRDO. In fact other sub-systems developed by DRDO for the Arjun Mk-2 program are also expected to be featured in the T-90S including CVRDE's ERA Mk-II.    A DRDO developed commander's non panoramic thermal imaging sight for the T-90S has also entered production with Bharat Electronics Limited and the Ordnance Factory Board. The T-90S will also use indigenous high accuracy fibre optic gyros developed by DRDO's Research Center Imarat (RCI) and feature fire control systems originally developed for the Arjun Mk-2.

        So, the T-90S upgrade path is similar to that followed for modifying T-72M1s to the CIA standard which includes indigenous ERA, navigation aids, an uprated 1000 HP power pack, fire suppression system, new displays and sights. Almost a 1000 CIA's have been delivered to the IA, which now probably feels that the time is ripe for upgrading older T-90S lots besides building new ones with the improved features, since production seems to have finally stabilized at around 90-100 units a year.

          The T-90S's domestic production at HVF after all has been a difficult process with the Russian OEM refusing to transfer technology for vital assemblies such as the gun system (including the barrel) and turret armour plates. For the first 175 T-90s produced at Avadi, the gun system had to be imported off the shelf from Russia. However starting 2012, an indigenous 125 mm smooth bore gun developed by DRDO with a 'modified chemistry barrel' of the existing T-72 gun has gone into production having completed trials in 2010.This modified chemistry barrel has also successfully completed a life cycle test conducted at Armoured Corps Centre & School Ahmednagar. The last two years have also seen the indigenization of the T-90S's commander hatch control unit, indigenous production of 50 types of critical optical components of the T-90Sand indigenously developed cable harnesses for the same. Overall the latest batches of T-90Ss will be between 80-90 percent indigenous by value. At the moment HVF is racing to fulfil the old indent of 300 tanks (of which 80 percent may have been delivered) and is looking to commence production for some 236 more tanks as per the December 2013 indent given to it by the IA. Overall the number of T-90Ss in the IA's inventory today is just over 900 units.

         Even as the domestic production of the T-90S stabilizes there may be a move underway to procure some 354 T-90MS tanks from Russia directly to counter the Chinese at some points on the LAC. Proposals for any more direct import from Russia however is a little strange given that the focus instead should be on producing sizeable numbers of Arjun Mk-2s and deploying them in the Punjab and Jammu sectors as well which would free up enough domestically built T-90Ss to be deployed against China. With a power /weight ratio of 21.0, and the nominal ground pressure (NGP) of 0.95 kg/cm2 the Arjun Mk-2 is more than capable of being deployed in these areas. Moreover the .feasibility report by the railways has confirmed that the movement of Arjun loaded wagon anywhere is not a problem. The Arjun Mk-2 is strategically mobile enough to be deployed to Punjab especially given that enough bridging equipment of maximum load class 70 is available anyway.

         A larger production run for the Arjun Mk-2 say of the order of about 500 units will allow its developers to indigenize about 70 percent of its systems, from the current 40 percent. This is important because having domestic suppliers for these systems with stabilized quality will make it easier to productionize the proposed FMBT at a future date which will use sub-systems of this variety that have been refined and improved. It must be noted that while CIA induction is well and good many of the IA's T-72s will run out of their designed service lives by the early 2020s which would mean that new tanks would have to replace them given the IA's authorized tank strength of some 3717 units.

       Some of the replacements will be Arjun Mk-2s themselves, others however will be the FMBT that will have to be kept at around 50 tons by weight as far the IA's broad requirements go. The IA however has still not been able to narrow down precisely what it wants from the FMBT, but broadly speaking this tank will feature either a 125 mm or 120 mm smoothbore gun with missile firing capability, an active protection system, next generation hydro-pneumatic suspension that will be succeeded by fully active suspension and a power pack that generates either 1500 or 1800 HP. At the moment it seems that the 1500 HP Bharat Power Pack under development as a national mission mode project involving DRDO and industry will power the FMBT which the IA may want to be closer to 45-50 tons than not.