Well, you learn something everyday.
Here sample this:
Someone named "Sidirenko" left the following comments on Ajai Shukla's blog (after this article on T-90 ToT issue)
claims that Russia has betrayed India or has refused to transfer the T-90S-related manufacturing technologies that it had earlier promised to are equally false and downrught mischievous. These claims can only be made by folks who haven;t read the contractual documents. The fact remains that right from the start Russia NEVER agreed to share the production technologies of its K-5 ERA tiles & the 2A46M-2 cannon with India. ToT regarding these two items was NEVER put on the table by Russia, for starters. So how can Russia be blamed for something it did never committed to in the first place? The Russians have learnt a bitter lesson from the former eastern Bloc countries like Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic & Croatia (part of erstwhile Yugoslavia) that have blatantly sold T-72 clones post-1991 and therefore Moscow has been determined never to let history repeat itself. That's why it even refused to supply the 2A46M cannons for the Malaysian PT-91Ms of Polish origin, and the cannons were ultimately supplied by Kerametal of Slovakia.
And Russia isn't the sole exception when it comes to practising such policies. For instance, how many countries using the Rheinmetal-developed 120mm smoothbore cannon have actually produced it under licence? Not the Japanese, not the South Koreans, not the Swedes, Singaporeans or Poles, not Israel, and not Turkey. So why should anyone expect Russia to make the exception for India? And what exactly is to be gained by making such cannons in-country? How does it translate into any operational advantage over one's enemies? And especially in India's case it is far more cost-effective to import the 2A46M-2 directly from Russia and use the money saved to further improve and enhance the performance of the Arjun MBT's indigenous 120mm rifled-bore cannon.
And this is what our favourite analyst, PSG, wrote as a reply to our very own Austin sahab on T-90 gun ToT issue
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID ... 1847103118:
1) In all my 24 years of dealing & negotiating with both the Soviets & Russians, I have NEVER come across a situation where they first offer something on the table & then take it away. The Russians are pretty straightforward just like the Germans and are upfront on ALL issues. Regarding the T-90S MBT’s licenced-production programme, the ToT for the 125mm 2A46M-2 version of the Rapira & for the armour tiles not just for the turret, but also for the hull’s frontal glacis and side panels, were not on the table. Also excluded was the source-code reqd for gaining access to the algorithm that was used for computing fire-control solutions based on pre-programmed ballistics charts/tables & data derived from the turret-mounted meteorological sensor. In other words, the digital ballistics computer was out-of-bounds and had to be imported off-the-shelf. There are two sound reasons for this: Firstly, the Russians wanted to avoid the situation prevailing since the early 1990s when several T-72 clones from Serbia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland & Ukraine were being offered for export, with Russia losing out on royalty fees. This time around, the Russians, being wiser, decided not to part with their most crucial and prized elements/components (like the cannon barrel and armour panels) and not make any exceptions, even for India. Secondly, Russia—in deciding to withhold the secrets of its ballistics computations—also ensured that no one else could produce ammo for the 2A46M-2, thereby ensuring that only Russia-produced ammo was compatible with the 2A46M-2.
2) Consequently, what did the Indians do? Rather than go the expensive way of trying to figure out the know-how & know-why of the 2A46M-2, the CVRDE & HVF chose the least expensive option of integrating the OFB-built 2A46M barrel of the T-72 with the turret of the T-90S, thinking that this ‘fix’ would suffice. What was overlooked was the incompatibility of this cannon with the ballistics computer of the T-90S. There was also another reason why this ‘fix’ was chosen: when in early 2001 the Indian Army tried to fire the OFB-built 125mm APFSDS rounds & IMI-supplied CL-3254 & CL-3579 APFSDS rounds from the 2A46M-2, it emerged that these rounds fell well short of their targets, since these rounds were all optimised and calibrated for compatibility of the maximum chamber pressure of the 2A46M (a cannon that is available from several sources for a song and therefore its ballistics parameters can be easily programmed into any ballistics computer), and NOT with that of the 2A46M-2 (a cannon that is not available outside Russia and therefore companies like IMI, for instance, cannot develop suitable 125mm rounds optimized for this cannon). And since inventories of these OFB-produced and IMI-supplied were steadily increasing, it was decided to use the 2A46M cannon on the OFB-built T-90S units. So now, what’s happening is that the 310 + 347 T-90S MBTs are using Russia-supplied 125mm rounds, while those 300 T-90S MBTs being built by the HVF are meant to use OFB-/IMI-supplied rounds
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Now, I guess, lot of great minds think alike.