Apologies if reposting. I think I saw someone trashing the author of this column, so Im sure there are several readymade responses to this article. But it is interesting in of itself. On the one hand, the difference in class between the two tanks means nothing in the real world. It is a non sequitur to say that it is unfair advantage that Arjun is heavier and better armoured, so it has certain unfair advantages. After all, if it has those advantages, then that is sufficient reason to suspect that it is, in fact, a better tank!
The trouble is, that the DRDO is not taking the army into confidence at any turn, and I think that that is the army's main beef with them. Theyre taking the attitude of "We're making this, and you have to use it". Like so many things in India's arcane governmental mentalities, I think at the root of all this is just a gigantic ego clash. For which both parties are to blame.
On the one hand, the DRDO is a bureaucratic organisation, and its attitude to work is often very "chalta hai". Even the greatest DRDO booster cannot claim that it doesnt have its shortfalls. The attitudes of several of the "Secretary, Defence Research" in the past, have shown scant regard for the opinions and requirements of the armed forces. So in a manner of speaking, this Arjun project fight is also "teaching the brass a lesson", because they can, because the government of the day puts less stock in the words of soldiers than it does in those of bureaucrats. And it is no fiction that the first lot of Arjuns needed to be refurbished, and that there are severe build quality issues (though this is not necessarily DRDOs fault. OFB is not under their ambit).
On the other hand, the tank has on occasion been praised by its trial operators. So if the brass is letting ego hassles get in the way of objectivity, and nitpicking over things, thats also bad.
The whole atmosphere is vitiated, and IMO, MoD needs a complete restructuring, to change the way that our armed forces, and our mil-industrial complex operate. But thats a seperate issue. Anyway. article appended below.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/arjun ... h/585683/1
Arjun vs T 90: Tank trials to kick off next month
After immense pressure from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) the Army has decided to go ahead with comparative trials between the Arjun tank and the T 90 Main Battle Tank (MBT) next month. While it will be interesting to see how the ‘indigenous’ tank holds up to the Russian origin mainstay of the Indian Army, the unfairness of comparing two totally different tanks has rankled experts both within and outside the military establishment.
On the face of it, both DRDO and the Army say that the comparative trials are not actually a competition between the tanks but are aimed at defining and finding a role for the Arjun in India’s armoured fleet. However, the Army is feeling the heat from DRDO which is aggressively marketing the trials as a testing point that could pave the way for more orders for the Arjun from the present cap of 124 units.
This, after the Army has virtually ruled out the Arjun for further orders and instead wants DRDO to use it as a base for a new tank that would find a place in its war plans. For the Army, the last nail in the Arjun coffin came after the accelerated user trials in 2008 that resulted in a massive setback after the power pack failed four times during just 1,000 km of running.
However, after the embarrassment two years agno, DRDO came up with a new theory of comparative trials to ‘prove’ the capability of the Arjun. While the Army has been forced to schedule the tests after intense lobbying by DRDO, the huge difference in the class of the two tanks has irked experts who do not see any scope for comparison between the two weapon systems.
For one, at 58.5 tons, the Arjun is more than 10 tons heavier than the T 90. The added weight and size gives the tank several advantages over the Russian machine in terms of more armour, greater capability to carry ammunition as well as extra sensors. The plan to compare a 58.5 ton machine with a 46 ton tank has been described as ‘absurd’.
The T 90’s weight is crucial to the Army’s war plans along the long Indo-Pak border, especially in the plains of Punjab. The T 90 as well as the older T 72 were ordered because they weighed below 50 ton — the load carrying capacity of thousands of canal and river crossings all along the border.At close to 60 tons, the Army would find it impossible to deploy the Arjun in the Punjab sector as well as parts of the Jammu region. The Arjun’s weight is the biggest nemesis to further orders. The cost of upgrading all bridge heads to a capacity of 60 tons, experts point out, would be considerably more than the cost price of the entire tank fleet.
The comparative trials are also being billed as a trial between indigenous and imported, with opponents of the Arjun being labeled as ‘foreign agents’. However, a point that the Army rightfully makes is that the T 90 being produced in India right now is perhaps more ‘indigenous’ that the Arjun that has 60 percent of its parts imported. The engine, tracks, transmissions and gunners sight —- that together account for 60 percent of its cost —- are all imported.
Several officers including former Army Chief Gen VP Malik have reservations over the foreign content of the tank. “I am all for self-reliance. We have to make the Arjun more indigenous than it is today,” Malik had said after the tanks had performed miserably in accelerated trials held in Rajasthan.
While they will be ‘indigenised’ in the future, tank building technology is already flowing into the country through the transfer of technology agreement for the T 90 fleet. India also has the past experience of mass producing the T 72 tanks. This also brings out the Army’s worry about the production quality of the Arjun as it goes into mass production.
Already, the first squadron of Arjun tanks that had rolled out of the Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi faced massive quality issues and had to be sent back for refurbishing. However, the biggest worry that the Army has is not the technology of the Arjun but the reliability factor given its past performance in trials as well the lack of continued testing in harsh terrain and climatic conditions unique to India. The outcome of the 2008 Accelerated Usage cum Reliability Trials (AUCRT) (crucial to clear it for bulk production), where the German engine failed four times, is still fresh in the Army’s mind.
. The navy got around to it since no one cared about it anyway so the little service was allowed its space without babu interference.
