Nelson,nelson wrote:I have issues with the following.
Arjun fits the requirment of terrain that IA would operate in.
Arjun is superior.
Arjun is indigeneous.
I have followed this thread and others on BRF for nearly a decade now. I am unconvinced even after going through the 'threadbare' discussions on Arjun. I have some datapoints and views to share. Fellow posters can ignore them. If the posts look meaningless or amounts to trolling, moderator action is welcome. Namecalling and attributing motives may please be avoided.
Arjun is superior: Unless you have a problem with Shukla like Sanku, this is what he wrote: Arjun tank outruns, outguns Russian T-90.
Note the MK2 order came after this trial.
Some excerpts:
The Arjun tanks, the observers all agreed, performed superbly. Whether driving cross-country over rugged sand-dunes; detecting, observing and quickly engaging targets; or accurately hitting targets, both stationery and moving, with pinpoint gunnery; the Arjun demonstrated a clear superiority over the vaunted T-90.
“The Arjun could have performed even better, had it been operated by experienced crewmen”, says an officer who has worked on the Arjun. “As the army’s tank regiments gather experience on the Arjun, they will learn to exploit its capabilities.”
“The senior officers who attended the trials were taken aback by the Arjun’s strong performance”, an army officer who was present through the trials frankly stated. “But they were also pleased that the Arjun had finally come of age.”
The army’s Directorate General of Mechanised Forces (DGMF), which has bitterly opposed buying more Arjuns, will now find it difficult to sustain that opposition. In keeping out the Arjun, the DGMF has opted to retain the already obsolescent T-72 tank in service for another two decades, spending thousands of crores in upgrading its vintage systems.
And this:Tank experts point out that conducting trials only in Mahajan does not square with the army’s assertion that they are evaluating a role for the Arjun. Says Major General HM Singh, who oversaw the Arjun’s development for decades, “If they were evaluating where the Arjun should be deployed, they should have conducted the trials in different types of terrain: desert, semi-desert, plains and riverine. It seems as if the army has already decided to employ the Arjun in the desert.”
There that's the bridges excuse again.But Business Standard has learned that senior officers are hesitant to induct the Arjun into strike corps. Sources say that the Arjun will be kept out of strike formations on the grounds that it is incompatible with other strike corps equipment, e.g. assault bridges that cannot bear the 60-tonne weight of the Arjun.
Arjun fits the requirment of terrain that IA would operate in: Answered partly above, with Army presupposing what terrain that the tank would operate in.
However, I have more fundamental question.
If we can agree that the US Abrams tank is one of the, if not the, pre-eminent tank in the world today, I would like to ask you and other posters here a simple noobi type of questions.
Were the US designers concerned at what kind of "terrain" the tank would operate in? Considering the fact that US deployment plans are worldwide, as opposed to ours which is restricted to plains of Punjab, deserts of Rajasthan and hilly regions of the North East, were they ever worried that the bridges the tank may have to cross around the world might not be able to bear its weight? Or that roads may be too narrow for it to pass? Or perhaps young children would be scared to see such a huge beast of a tank? (Yes the Russians make much more petite looking, pretty tanks which can go round and round and make kids laugh).
Why is that only the Indian Army worries about things like terrain, bridges and other stuff and not about which is a better machine which ensures crew survivability and greater strike power?
In your decade of analysis have you found answers to these questions? I ask you because I'm still looking for a rational explanation.