Bharat Rakshak

Well let me kick off the new year and the new thread by what I found. This is what T-55 can look like.
Notice the gap between the first and second set of wheels.
More Information Here.
http://www.military-today.com/tanks/jaguar.htm

Apologies if this has been posted before but it was new to me.

January 19, 2012: The Polish largest arms producer Bumar will deliver 204 WZT-3M Armored Recovery Vehicles under a US$275 million signed earlier this week in New Delhi, Tomasz Basarabowicz reports. According to the agreement the vehicle production will be done primarily in India, by BELM, which has already produced 362 WZT-3 supplied for the Indian Army so far.

Since 1999 India has ordered 556 WZT-3M ARVs, to support the armored units equipped with T-90 and T-72 armor units deployed with the Indian Army. The WZT-3 is based on the PT-91 chassis, the Polish derivative of the T-72M.

Arjun mk-2 with latest improvements might be ready for Army trials in June this year, but there has been some encouraging development in countries Main battle Tank’s saga. Delays in putting down requirements for the FMBT, countries next generation tank which Indian army hopes to field by 2020 might see rise of Arjun MK-3.

Arjun MK-3 if sources are to be believed will have some dozen improvements over Arjun MK-2 in terms of features in battlefield communication and engine refinement. DRDO is already working on a 1500 BHP engine for Arjun MBT and a further improved variant of it will also power FMBT in Future.

Army after lengthy trails for years refused to purchase Arjun MBT due to technical issues with the Tank, which DRDO took several years to remove all the flaws of the tank to make it acceptable to the Indian army, but Army had placed orders for only 126 tanks in first batch of Arjun MK-1 and later placed further orders for 126 tanks in Arjun MK-2 configuration which required some major and minor improvements in the tanks fire power and Armor.

Arjun MK-3 orders might come has a positive response from the Indian army , since DRDO time and again had maintained that orders less then 500 will the make the project development cost unrecoverable . further orders of 126 tanks will bring the total orders close to the required numbers and currently DRDO is also all set to revive the stalled self-propelled howitzer “ BHIM “, which will have a Arjun MBT chassis .

DRDO will select the Gun for self-propelled howitzer by end of this year and integration and user trials should take place next year.

And then the user trials will go on for years ) no one needs an astrology degree to predict this

why is Desh buying such a large number of recovery tanks? is this another way of sneaking in more tin-cans by Rodina lovers?

Arjun, Dhruv Get Thumbs Up From Indian Army Chief

...

Asked if the number of Arjuns will go beyond the 248 already on order, Singh said the deployment of Arjuns will decide the number of tanks that will be inducted into service.

"And accordingly, the numbers have been fixed as per the number of units that will operate Arjuns," he said, without specifying the numbers.

...

Because in times of peace India could use them for farming.

Why do we need around 600 armed recovery vehicles? Are we planning to fight WW# alone?

perhaps because we had very few earlier and are now kitting up to appropriate levels. dont forget they can salvage damaged ICVs and artillery tractors, tunguskas, ZSUs, SAM telar's as well...apart from 3000 tanks spread over a 3000km border...if anything we need a 1000 more made locally..or converted off the T-55 and vijayanta ..pretty useful things to have imo.
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Would you rather have the army go to a farmer and use his tractor to pull the tank to the rear. Puts a new meaning to Jai Jawan, Jai Kasaan.

It would be interesting to know what the "fixed" number of units that will operate the Arjun MBTs. That will give the most definite total numbers planned.

CJ, please find out what that "fixed number of units" is?

Would you rather have the army go to a farmer and use his tractor to pull the tank to the rear. Puts a new meaning to Jai Jawan, Jai Kasaan.

Would you rather have the army go to a farmer and use his tractor to pull the tank to the rear. Puts a new meaning to Jai Jawan, Jai Kasaan.

We have an Arjun Chassis based ARV, it would have provided superior power that these Polish ones?

their lobbies and moles in delhi are the strongest and rooted for decades now...

secondly they have us by the short hairs in certain areas - SSN program help, some help on space pgm, chakra, vik, brahmos. MKI, PAKFA, agat seeker for astra ... which are all strategic projects that nobody would help us with....

so PMO has to grin and bear it for now, in parallel with cutting them out of as much other action as possible, as the recent flurry of western deals and domestic projects show.

a business mag had an article of asia motor works - AMW - factory in Bhuj- I would say a promising co worth keeping an eye for to use in the defence automobile space.

Why do we need around 600 armed recovery vehicles? Are we planning to fight WW# alone?

Hi all,

I have always wondered about one thing, how come Russian defense deals are never seriously implicated in corruption scandals. Either they are quite honest (which i find hard to believe) or they are being protected somehow. Also, how come the glaring differences between the selection process of Arjun and T-90 aren't taken up for any serious investigation. I understand it if it was just the Govt or the Army, but it seems even the News media is giving the Russians a free run, while they look for scams in any other defense deal. Also, I would rather not point out specific instances of such bias and apparent disingenuousness, as they have already been pointed out ad nauseam in this forum. I really just want a honest answer to this question that has irked me for quite some time.