robinrater
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India's Arjun tank
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Keysersoze
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hmmm... well Key you may have a point there. Now I am going to be spending time trying to research the "flat surface" issue..
I have discovered the answer to the above question.......Appparently it's ceramic armour that requires it to be "slab" sided. Ceramics cannot be sloped as it exposes more of the tiles to damage when sloped. Hence the flat surface.
JDW has a an article that talks about persisting problems with Arjun leading to India looking for increased foreign participation to allow for the program to be salvaged.
*India's Arjun MBT remains on the starting block
An Indian parliamentary committee has urged the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to seek foreign assistance to overcome continuing problems with the Arjun main...
23-Mar-2007
http://jdw.janes.com/public/jdw/index.shtml
Wonder what the rest of the text says? Can anyone post it?
*India's Arjun MBT remains on the starting block
An Indian parliamentary committee has urged the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to seek foreign assistance to overcome continuing problems with the Arjun main...
23-Mar-2007
http://jdw.janes.com/public/jdw/index.shtml
Wonder what the rest of the text says? Can anyone post it?
Keysersoze
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Yeah I posted this a little while ago. Unfortunately non of us has the full subscription (It's very expensive! plus you can lose it if you reproduce stuff!)
Keysersoze
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Arjun, Main Battle Tanked
Shiv Aroor / AMITAV RANJAN
Posted online: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 0000 hrs
Cost over-run: almost 20 times. Delay: 16 yrs, and counting. Army says too heavy, too hot, Russian T-90s better; even Minister admits tracks will be replaced by imported ones; DRDO says we will build new one
New Delhi, November 13: The Arjun tank has no future. It still cannot fire straight. The T-90, a far superior tank, can kill the Arjun. We would not cross any border with these tanks.
Strong words, from Brigadier D K Babbar, the Army’s pointsman for the Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun project at the Mechanised Forces directorate until he retired last year from the 94th Armoured Brigade. Babbar, who spoke to The Indian Express, has reason to be disillusioned. So has Army chief General J J Singh who was more diplomatic last month: “We will see where we can use it to get optimum use.”
It’s not going to be easy.
Over 30 years after Project Arjun was sanctioned by Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet to make a home-grown battle tank that would address the armoured deficit identified during the 1971 war, the Army is now faced with a troubling prospect: inducting a lumbering, misfiring, vintage design tank like the Arjun, and that, too, in large numbers.
This, after DRDO over-shot Arjun’s project deadline by 16 years — from 1984 to 1995, finally closing the project only in 2000 — and the cost over-run is almost 20 times the original estimate. This is the highest percentage over-run for any DRDO project.
With five pre-production tanks forced upon the Army’s 43rd Armoured Regiment in 2004 and 23 tanks to be handed over shortly, MBT Arjun is about to be pushed into full-rate production outside Chennai, with the Army bound by its commitment to buy 124 for two regiments, all of which are to be delivered by 2008.
Still having 58 per cent of its content imported - including its engine, the integrated gunner’s main sight and tracks— the Arjun tank was put through confirmatory trials in the Mahajan ranges in July but the Army wasn’t holding its breath.
Consider these: At a mammoth 58.5 tons, Arjun is a full weight class over the Russian T-90 and nowhere near as agile.
• In May, the Defence Ministry publicized the Army chief’s inauguration of a product called Bogie Flat Arjun Tank (BFAT) built by Bharat Earth Movers in Bangalore. What it didn’t say: these were specially built rail wagons wide enough and reinforced to carry the massive 3.85-m-wide Arjun. For, the tank will crack the existing freight wagons.
• According to the Army’s latest trials, the decade-old problem of overheating persists. Two of the tank’s main subsystems, the fire control system (FCS) and integrated gunner’s main sight, which includes a thermal imager and laser range-finder, are rendered erratic and useless by the Arjun’s abnormally high peak internal temperature, which moves well beyond 55 degrees Celsius. This is in testimony to the Parliamentary committee.
• Following failed trials in summer 1997, which were criticized in a 1998 CAG report for a series of malfunctions, transmission failures and overheating, and an exodus of scientists from DRDO the same year, the tank’s production cost shot up steeply. Its unit price in 1997 was Rs 10.8 crore. It’s official unit price now: Rs 16.8 crore.
Former chief Gen Shankar Roy Choudhary had promised his service quick inductions, only to be faced with yet another extension by DRDO. In the same period, the Sino-Pak Al-Khalid tank was productionised and had begun inductions. When contacted, Roy Choudhary said: “I was a strong proponent of the Arjun tank but its performance was disappointing.”
• On October 12, Minister of State for Defence Production Rao Inderjit Singh told The Indian Express that it was decided — after the recent trials — that the production-series tanks will be stripped of their indigenous tracks and will have imported ones. So will the first few tanks that roll out of the Heavy Vehicles Factory outside Chennai. In other words, after three decades of research, Main Battle Tank Arjun cannot stand on its own “indigenous” feet.
• The project, according to testimony provided in January by the Defence Ministry to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, has produced virtually nothing. DRDO admitted to the same committee in June that it would be able to develop an indigenous engine, gunner’s main sight and tracks only if the Army places an order beyond 124 tanks. However, the Army has no such plans, making it uneconomical and non-feasible to reduce import content.
“License production of the above items may be feasible with enhanced order quantity for Arjun tanks and may result in reduction in import contents,” admits DRDO. It is, therefore, no surprise that the Army will progressively begin inducting between 800-1000 T-90 Bhishma tanks, which will be built under license from Russia, from 2008, making the letter ‘M’ in Arjun’s prefix not just superfluous but bogus. Why?
“It is important for the Army to maintain combat superiority over its adversaries. There have been delays and slippages in the MBT Arjun project,” Army Headquarters said in written replies to The Indian Express. Five months ago, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence said, “The Committee also desires that accountability for delay in production of the Arjun Tank may be fixed.” But the Arjun, which has cost the exchequer Rs 305.6 crore so far (representing one of the largest ever cost-overruns in percentage terms), has the influential DRDO high command unfalteringly behind it. DRDO chief Manthiram Natarajan, chief architect of the Arjun programme and a 2002 Padma Shri, has been associated with the programme since its birth in 1974 and became Programme Director in 1987. When contacted, he said, “Defence scientists are conscious that there have been time over-runs on some of the projects. But even today, it is much more cost efficient than tanks of same calibre being produced elsewhere.”
But DRDO is undeterred. With the Army’s armour perspective plan drawing out 60 regiments by 2020, DRDO told the Parliamentary panel that it’s now developing what it calls Tank-X, a hybrid consisting of an Arjun gun turret mounted on a T-72 chassis. Two tanks have been prepared, and DRDO has said it will shortly offer them to the Army for an evaluation. No guesses for why the Army isn’t terribly excited.
Cost over-run: almost 20 times. Delay: 16 yrs, and counting. Army says too heavy, too hot, Russian T-90s better; even Minister admits tracks will be replaced by imported ones; DRDO says we will build new one
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/16589-2.html
Shiv Aroor / AMITAV RANJAN
Posted online: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 0000 hrs
Cost over-run: almost 20 times. Delay: 16 yrs, and counting. Army says too heavy, too hot, Russian T-90s better; even Minister admits tracks will be replaced by imported ones; DRDO says we will build new one
New Delhi, November 13: The Arjun tank has no future. It still cannot fire straight. The T-90, a far superior tank, can kill the Arjun. We would not cross any border with these tanks.
Strong words, from Brigadier D K Babbar, the Army’s pointsman for the Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun project at the Mechanised Forces directorate until he retired last year from the 94th Armoured Brigade. Babbar, who spoke to The Indian Express, has reason to be disillusioned. So has Army chief General J J Singh who was more diplomatic last month: “We will see where we can use it to get optimum use.”
It’s not going to be easy.
Over 30 years after Project Arjun was sanctioned by Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet to make a home-grown battle tank that would address the armoured deficit identified during the 1971 war, the Army is now faced with a troubling prospect: inducting a lumbering, misfiring, vintage design tank like the Arjun, and that, too, in large numbers.
This, after DRDO over-shot Arjun’s project deadline by 16 years — from 1984 to 1995, finally closing the project only in 2000 — and the cost over-run is almost 20 times the original estimate. This is the highest percentage over-run for any DRDO project.
With five pre-production tanks forced upon the Army’s 43rd Armoured Regiment in 2004 and 23 tanks to be handed over shortly, MBT Arjun is about to be pushed into full-rate production outside Chennai, with the Army bound by its commitment to buy 124 for two regiments, all of which are to be delivered by 2008.
Still having 58 per cent of its content imported - including its engine, the integrated gunner’s main sight and tracks— the Arjun tank was put through confirmatory trials in the Mahajan ranges in July but the Army wasn’t holding its breath.
Consider these: At a mammoth 58.5 tons, Arjun is a full weight class over the Russian T-90 and nowhere near as agile.
• In May, the Defence Ministry publicized the Army chief’s inauguration of a product called Bogie Flat Arjun Tank (BFAT) built by Bharat Earth Movers in Bangalore. What it didn’t say: these were specially built rail wagons wide enough and reinforced to carry the massive 3.85-m-wide Arjun. For, the tank will crack the existing freight wagons.
• According to the Army’s latest trials, the decade-old problem of overheating persists. Two of the tank’s main subsystems, the fire control system (FCS) and integrated gunner’s main sight, which includes a thermal imager and laser range-finder, are rendered erratic and useless by the Arjun’s abnormally high peak internal temperature, which moves well beyond 55 degrees Celsius. This is in testimony to the Parliamentary committee.
• Following failed trials in summer 1997, which were criticized in a 1998 CAG report for a series of malfunctions, transmission failures and overheating, and an exodus of scientists from DRDO the same year, the tank’s production cost shot up steeply. Its unit price in 1997 was Rs 10.8 crore. It’s official unit price now: Rs 16.8 crore.
Former chief Gen Shankar Roy Choudhary had promised his service quick inductions, only to be faced with yet another extension by DRDO. In the same period, the Sino-Pak Al-Khalid tank was productionised and had begun inductions. When contacted, Roy Choudhary said: “I was a strong proponent of the Arjun tank but its performance was disappointing.”
• On October 12, Minister of State for Defence Production Rao Inderjit Singh told The Indian Express that it was decided — after the recent trials — that the production-series tanks will be stripped of their indigenous tracks and will have imported ones. So will the first few tanks that roll out of the Heavy Vehicles Factory outside Chennai. In other words, after three decades of research, Main Battle Tank Arjun cannot stand on its own “indigenous” feet.
• The project, according to testimony provided in January by the Defence Ministry to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, has produced virtually nothing. DRDO admitted to the same committee in June that it would be able to develop an indigenous engine, gunner’s main sight and tracks only if the Army places an order beyond 124 tanks. However, the Army has no such plans, making it uneconomical and non-feasible to reduce import content.
“License production of the above items may be feasible with enhanced order quantity for Arjun tanks and may result in reduction in import contents,” admits DRDO. It is, therefore, no surprise that the Army will progressively begin inducting between 800-1000 T-90 Bhishma tanks, which will be built under license from Russia, from 2008, making the letter ‘M’ in Arjun’s prefix not just superfluous but bogus. Why?
“It is important for the Army to maintain combat superiority over its adversaries. There have been delays and slippages in the MBT Arjun project,” Army Headquarters said in written replies to The Indian Express. Five months ago, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence said, “The Committee also desires that accountability for delay in production of the Arjun Tank may be fixed.” But the Arjun, which has cost the exchequer Rs 305.6 crore so far (representing one of the largest ever cost-overruns in percentage terms), has the influential DRDO high command unfalteringly behind it. DRDO chief Manthiram Natarajan, chief architect of the Arjun programme and a 2002 Padma Shri, has been associated with the programme since its birth in 1974 and became Programme Director in 1987. When contacted, he said, “Defence scientists are conscious that there have been time over-runs on some of the projects. But even today, it is much more cost efficient than tanks of same calibre being produced elsewhere.”
But DRDO is undeterred. With the Army’s armour perspective plan drawing out 60 regiments by 2020, DRDO told the Parliamentary panel that it’s now developing what it calls Tank-X, a hybrid consisting of an Arjun gun turret mounted on a T-72 chassis. Two tanks have been prepared, and DRDO has said it will shortly offer them to the Army for an evaluation. No guesses for why the Army isn’t terribly excited.
Cost over-run: almost 20 times. Delay: 16 yrs, and counting. Army says too heavy, too hot, Russian T-90s better; even Minister admits tracks will be replaced by imported ones; DRDO says we will build new one
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/16589-2.html
TexasJohn
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Good catch there bud! Do you have a link or two maybe?
TexasJohn
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ceramic armors require that they (indivual tiles) be sandwiched in layers and seperated. ussaly a shock absorbing front to protect the tiles from non-penetratig impacts a simple resin or poly compound can do this. But rigedly encased in steel or titanium on the sides and rear to provide rigidity to resist penetrating impacts. becuase impacts damage the tiles, ballistic sloping potentially exposes more tiles to impace as the enemy round deflects and travels across the face of the armor instead of expending all its energy in one location. Slab siding reduces this and lets a smaller segment of armor bear the full brunt of the attack without weakening the rest of the protection package.
When seen from this PoV the Arjun is beutifully laid out with almost no angles caapble of compromising the armor package. Although putting the site in the center of mass is begging for mission kills as the optics gets taken out.
The Arjun uses Kachan (Gold) and it is rummored to be world class. I have no doubt that due to delays in the rest of the Arjun program the armor has been continually updated to meet new threat levels.
When seen from this PoV the Arjun is beutifully laid out with almost no angles caapble of compromising the armor package. Although putting the site in the center of mass is begging for mission kills as the optics gets taken out.
The Arjun uses Kachan (Gold) and it is rummored to be world class. I have no doubt that due to delays in the rest of the Arjun program the armor has been continually updated to meet new threat levels.
If you are going to troll, at least learn to spell correctly..
I have to agree with the fact that Chinese tank looks perfect and Indian tank looks like old Tiger tank from WW2... The 90 degree slope must be a wrong design. Even basic tank ideas are opposing 90 degree angle. Somehow the Indians must have skipped that lesson just like the fact that it is heavy armoured while it needs speed, the fact that it is heavy while it has to cross small bridges, the fact that it is still mainly imported, the fact that it does not suit hot area's while it will be used there etc etc etc
Don't mind the spelling. The fact that the person doesn't like the design is not very difficult to understand.
Zraver the location of optics of due to carryout over of faults owing to similarity with Leo's and German consultancy in the design. I hope some one realizes the need for change before it is too late.
Also it is interesting to know that the armor material also dictate the design of the turret shape. According to your opinion how would the flat faced design fare with respect to kinetic rounds/misiles?
Sadly for the men using those tanks,it is not the looks rather the protection that matters. They wont sing songs about how beautiful Chinese tanks are if they dont survive to tell the tale.
And you saying Arjun with lesser ground pressure and hydro-pnuematic suspension would be slower than T-series tank with higher ground pressure and torsion bar suspension?
TexasJohn
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Munir, do read through Zraver's post. This sentiment is also shared by several Armored Corp veterans ( and he is one). It may be squared, but that's again because of the ceramic armor. The tiger tank in it's day was a formidable tank. History speaks for itself!
It depends on what the Kachan in the production models is being formulated to resist. One thing India does not lack is brain power, IIT makes sure of that. They have the capability to design a ceramic every bit the equal of the new Chobham II. If it is designed to ressist KE over CE then CE will suffer and vice versa. Since I don't have acess to classified info on the armor I can't say for sure. But do remember India has acess to the 2A46M-5 L/52 with (presumably) the BM-42M or BM-48 mid leangth penetrators which should in theroy equal or exceed Pakistan's DU round. If Pakistan relies on KE penetrators to kill tanks (and they do) then I would surmise that KE protection is high.
One a side note, expect the Arjun to under go a Leo 2A6 type transformation with ERA on the top now that PA is getting TOW C's.
Munir,
can I call you stupid? I mean thats what you are so its just being honest.
The basics in armor design are to posistion your armor in such a way as to maximize its protective value. With Ceramics this means slab sides (I am assuming the Chally 2 has applique or spacing behind the angles and ahead of the ceramic for obvious reasons)
Ballistic shaping relies on deflecting the enemy shot and by increasing the thickness of the armor via the aspect of the armor presentated to the enemy fire. This was a good idea in WW2. In 1992 the world saw just how useless ballistic shaping was to modern APFSDS rounds.
The Russians, Ukrainian, and Chinese and others who use tanks with Ballistic Shaping have completely discarded the value of the steel. The Russians use heavy ERA, the Ukrainian's use Vozh composites, and the Chinese use ceramic facings.
Keysersoze
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Regards the shaped armour issue.....If it is no longer in vogue why has the Leo A6 got shaped frontal armour? Those additional panels are hollow. I have seen the panels off the tank.
I have read that Leo uses perforated steel.Hence the angular shaped compared to flat faced cermanic armour. Guess it might be better to angle steel based armour.
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