Armoured Vehicles: News & Discussion

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 13 May 2015 06:48

The russians need to mass produce the tank to drive its price down? This is where India can help. India should immediately place an order for 1000 Armatas so that production hiccups/design flaws are ironed out and Russian army can get a cheap tank.

uddu · Post by **uddu** » 13 May 2015 08:10

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease. ... lid=118644

DRDO is presently engaged in the development of MBT Arjun Mk-II with 73 improvements (including 15 major improvements) over MBT Arjun Mk-I. Out of these 73 improvements, 53 have been found successful based on User trials. No time line for induction into Army can be fixed at this stage.

I found an article from 2010.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/1 ... 866925.ece

P. Sivakumar, CVRDE Director, said Arjun-Mk-II would have a total of 93 upgrades, including the advanced air defence gun system for firing at attack helicopters. The Army had placed an indent for production of 124 Arjun-Mk II tanks.

In phase I, 45 tanks will roll out with 56 upgrades, including the missile firing capability and the commander's panoramic sight with night vision.

In phase II, the remaining 79 tanks, with all the 93 improvements, will come off the assembly line. “By 2013-14, the first batch of around 30 tanks will go out,” Dr. Sivakumar said.

According to Mr. Sundaresh, these 124 Arjun-Mk II tanks would cost Rs.5,000 crores.

So out of these 73 upgrades, 53 is successful. So will the production for Phase 1 start now? Any reports about it?

uddu · Post by **uddu** » 13 May 2015 09:36

Asked about the progress in the development of Arjun MBT Mk-II, the DRDO official said that following the pointing out of shortcomings in its features, 53 improvements were made in the design in the first year of the development of the tank, and 85 improvements in the second year.

So is this 85 improvements above the first 53?

The maximum trial is over. Following a problem in the missile, the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), Pune developed an indigenous missile, and the Army has approved it in principle.

The quality evaluation by the Directorate General of Quality Assurance is going on, while the maintenance evaluation has started. The entire evaluation would be completed within six to nine months, he said.

So by October November we can expect some good news.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 May 2015 09:42

>>UVZ, however, insists that with mass production, it can produce a tank like no other for roughly half the cost of a Western tank. Lenta interpreted this as meaning Armata will cost "roughly 4-5 million dollars" each, or "a little bit more expensive than a T-90 tank."

I find this very hard to believe. how can a tank that features so much new opto-electronics and self defence measures cost in same range as a T90 that has none of these things. even the amt of raw metal is more as its heavier than T90 and such steel is not cheap.

I suspect they are discounting a lot of stuff that will be in a second bill - like buying a empty rafale and adding the radar, pods and weapons later in PnP mode.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 13 May 2015 10:02

Vivek Raghuvanshi Alert

India Grounds Most of Original Arjun Tanks

Most of India's homemade Arjun Mark-1 battle tank fleet has been grounded because of technical snags and lack of imported components, an Indian Army official said.

"Nearly 75 percent of the 124 tanks with the Army are grounded," the official added.

The Army has inducted 124 Arjun Mark-1 tanks developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and produced by state-owned Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi in southern India. Nearly 55 percent of the value of the tank is imported components and those supplies have dried up, the official said.

The Army official did not give details of the technical snags but said there are more than 90 issues.

"The problems in the Arjun tank are mainly confined to its transmission system, targeting and thermal sights," the official added.

"There are a number of issues related to functionality due to imported components, which seem to be bugging the Arjun Mark-1 fleet for some time now. The technical snags have reportedly led to much of the fleet remaining non operational, creating a void in the tank strength of the Indian Army," said Rahul Bhonsle, a retired Indian Army brigadier general and defense analyst.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 May 2015 10:30

nobody talks in terms of 1 or 5 issues these days....90...80...50 thats the new yardstick. idea is to scare people and rattle the bars of the cage. create a timeline of 3 yrs to solve these dozens of problems.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 May 2015 11:28

If the problems with the A-1 are genuine [quote]"Nearly 75 percent of the 124 tanks with the Army are grounded," the official added.[/quote],then it will be very easy for the CAG/MOD to verify it. What emerg4es from the various reports about our armpoured vehicles,predicted a few years ago in intl. def. journals,is that we do have a manufacturing/production problem at Avadi,where there are 3 lines of production taking place.T-72 upgrades,T-90 production and Arjun production and development.It appears that in all 3 lines,we are behind the time schedule for various reasons. A serious investigation has to take place to identify and fix the problems. If there is a lackadaisical approach by the men in charge,they should be held accountable and sent to the "Retirement Gulag"!

For the West,esp. the Zeropeans,it is going to be catch up time with the Armata. Stupid of them to tickle the Bear's backside over the UKR,whose leaders are not worth the price of a piece of used toilet paper.

The second point is what has happened to our new ICV? Upgrading old BMPs is not the perfect answer,it is only a short term solution. The Arjun designers should've earlier worked out a family of AVs based upon Arjun tech developed.The pvt. designs seem to be in limbo,so will we now look abroad for a new ICV?

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 13 May 2015 11:53

Philip,

The unstated demand in each and every one of your posts is buy the Armata and its associate combat support vehicle.

No to give you a point by point reply about the "concern" raised by you.

1) A vehicle can become unserviceable for any number of reasons, such as, no servicing, non availability of spares, due to non ordering of spairs.

2) The FICV for all intents & purposes has been abandoned. I am too lazy to type out the reasons for it. You may learn of the reasons, if you spend 30 minutes with Google and dig up the relevant reports.

But I find it interesting that both the FICV & FMBT were shelved at the nearly the same time when the reports for the Armata became available in the international arms magazines.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 13 May 2015 13:00

Austin wrote:Vivek Raghuvanshi Alert

India Grounds Most of Original Arjun Tanks

Most of India's homemade Arjun Mark-1 battle tank fleet has been grounded because of technical snags and lack of imported components, an Indian Army official said.

"Nearly 75 percent of the 124 tanks with the Army are grounded," the official added.

The Army has inducted 124 Arjun Mark-1 tanks developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and produced by state-owned Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi in southern India. Nearly 55 percent of the value of the tank is imported components and those supplies have dried up, the official said.

The Army official did not give details of the technical snags but said there are more than 90 issues.

"The problems in the Arjun tank are mainly confined to its transmission system, targeting and thermal sights," the official added.

"There are a number of issues related to functionality due to imported components, which seem to be bugging the Arjun Mark-1 fleet for some time now. The technical snags have reportedly led to much of the fleet remaining non operational, creating a void in the tank strength of the Indian Army," said Rahul Bhonsle, a retired Indian Army brigadier general and defense analyst.

LOL, order only 124 tanks. Ensure plans to locally manufacture items and source TOT in bulk remain stillborn eg German offer to shift engine production to BHEL for orders of 500 tanks. Ensure follow on is stuck in endless trials on some excuse or the other.
Order spares piecemeal and with no provision for a central ROH facility for Arjun at IA level.

Claim all tanks are grounded and hence Arjun is useless. Jai Ho Army and Jai Ho DGMF and Jai Ho Armoured Corps.

Its a scam that will run forever.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 May 2015 13:22

There is no unstated design by stealth to buy the Armata please! The IA's FMBT requirement needs to be sorted out by it as as of now,according to available info,it doesn't know what it fully wants,barring a 3-man crew,auto-loader. and a weight of around 55t(?) (which the DRDO earlier said wasn't possible) Perhaps it was waiting for the Armata to be unveiled what?

Anyway,with the orders on hand,Avadi has its hands full for the next 5 years if it can deliver on time.

The big Q which one has been asking for a few years now is what ails Avadi? It is full of orders that it cannot deliver upon,making a mockery of the "make in India" slogan of the new dispensation as well as the goal of indigenisation. In contrast,one of the successes of HAL is making 150+ MKIs locally and raising the content of indigenous material to 70%+. Similarly,all MIG-29 upgrades are being done by HAL after the first 6 were delivered from Russia with the engine also being manufactured here,and M-2K upgrades will also be done at HAL.It is for the principal stakeholder,the GOI/MOD if they mean what they're talking,to delve deep into the problem ,rectify the problems and put India's interests first.
If there is a deliberate attempt to sabotage an indigenous product,and the problems are not due for want of trying due to lack of technical skills,poor management,inability to design and develop critical items like engines ,whatever,then punish the guilty.That's what Putin is doing in Russia,pensioning off those who cannot deliver.Why can't the new GOI do the same?

However,both the IA and IAF appear to have a singularly lack of vision unlike the IN when it comes to designing and building their own requirements as far as poss. The IN's achievements are astounding (from patrol craft to capital. ships,carriers to an N-sub) when you realize how little of the resource cake it has had all these decades,.the servie rrivalries and the incredible vision of its founding legendary admirals who were chiefly responsible. In contrast,the IAF have just the incomplete LCA programme to show for,barring the HF-24 and the IA the Arjun as indigenous designs,while the IN also has NLCA prototypes flying!

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 13 May 2015 13:30

Nothing ails Avadi, it was given a half baked TOT and asked to make a full tank. It struggled big effin deal.

Arjun line has been idle for ages. I am sure that Avadi is effed up for not making the tank, without having fixed orders from its primary customer.

I am sure that Avadi is effed up for failing to upgrade the T 72. But I don't recall seeing any mention of the T 72 upg to be done by the plant.

srai · Post by **srai** » 13 May 2015 13:32

Karan M wrote:{quote="Austin"}Vivek Raghuvanshi Alert

India Grounds Most of Original Arjun Tanks

Most of India's homemade Arjun Mark-1 battle tank fleet has been grounded because of technical snags and lack of imported components, an Indian Army official said.

"Nearly 75 percent of the 124 tanks with the Army are grounded," the official added.

The Army has inducted 124 Arjun Mark-1 tanks developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and produced by state-owned Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi in southern India. Nearly 55 percent of the value of the tank is imported components and those supplies have dried up, the official said.

The Army official did not give details of the technical snags but said there are more than 90 issues.

"The problems in the Arjun tank are mainly confined to its transmission system, targeting and thermal sights," the official added.

"There are a number of issues related to functionality due to imported components, which seem to be bugging the Arjun Mark-1 fleet for some time now. The technical snags have reportedly led to much of the fleet remaining non operational, creating a void in the tank strength of the Indian Army," said Rahul Bhonsle, a retired Indian Army brigadier general and defense analyst.
{/quote}

LOL, order only 124 tanks. Ensure plans to locally manufacture items and source TOT in bulk remain stillborn eg German offer to shift engine production to BHEL for orders of 500 tanks. Ensure follow on is stuck in endless trials on some excuse or the other.
Order spares piecemeal and with no provision for a central ROH facility for Arjun at IA level.

Claim all tanks are grounded and hence Arjun is useless. Jai Ho Army and Jai Ho DGMF and Jai Ho Armoured Corps.

Its a scam that will run forever.

If it was just Arjun issue that would have been a different case. But we are seeing servicibility issues across platforms the IA uses. So the buck should stop with the user, the IA. It would seem the IA is incompetent when it comes to managing the lifecycle of a weapon system in its inventory.

member_22539 · Post by **member_22539** » 13 May 2015 14:27

^Regardless, we still gotta buy the tincan-14

vaibhav.n · Post by **vaibhav.n** » 13 May 2015 22:32

There seems to be an impression that service headquarters procure and decide on the platform its stores etc. In truth, Service HQ's can only raise indents for capability. Its policy,execution and provisioning is completely upon the bureaucracy.

The JS(O/N) is among other things responsible for; Procurement of different army stores under Revenue Head and their repair,maintenance etc including Annual Maintenance Contracts – Food Items/Ordinance/A & B vehicles/Petrol Oil & Lubricants- Central Monitoring of these procured items.

When under Capital head it would go to the JS (Land Systems).

srai · Post by **srai** » 14 May 2015 07:34

^^^

To get around the known bureaucracy, the Indian Armed Forces need to sign up-front a 20-year life-cycle support contract with the vendor providing that new weapon system. They also need to sign contract for the supply of x-amount of ammunition that weapon system requires annually and have them deliver x-amount every year for 20 years. This way regular payments can be budgeted and made without having to go back to the bureaucracy to order spares or ammunition every few years. They need to get away from placing orders in a piecemeal fashion and begin to look at the entire life of the product and plan accordingly. It will cost more upfront but at least it's not a hidden cost as it is now. More favorable deals can be negotiated in a wholesale manner rather than the current practice of negotiating from a desperate position and that too for only a small order.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 14 May 2015 09:32

Was one of the 90 issues a broken torsion bar?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 14 May 2015 09:39

or perhaps a fused headlight

when the idea is to fail someone, reasons can be drummed up...as in arjun has conventional headlight but T14 has multi mode LED lamps.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 14 May 2015 10:04

yep, "when switched on, the Arjun's AC gave a wet-baki smell" kind of issues might be in that 90 list.

But then, like any complex system rectification, these 90 will have a priority classification and costs associated with it. The issue is with the slanted reporting, compared to the T-series cassettes

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 14 May 2015 13:59

Guys the basic issue is the DGMF deliberately ordered a low number of Arjuns despite the developers et al pleading for a higher number so as to get TOT, proper spares set up and to avoid this issue. The Army was well aware of & sabotaged the numbers to be procured & moved them to 124+200 (if lucky) versus the minimum 500 odd required for MTU/Renk to set up shop in India for the powerpack, for the GCS to be made at BHEL etc. And now they claim supplies have dried up, majority of Arjuns are grounded etc. This is standard FUD baazi from the DGMF & T-series establishment within the IA. The T-90 versus Arjun trials were a watershed moment (of the wrong kind for some folk) as they showed the desi-gram-udyog tank could take on the world beating T-90 from the country whose generals etc are drilled into our Armoured Corps guys at school. So the vested interests have to strike back before the AC realizes a few folks are pulling the wool over their eyes.

Vivek Raghuvanshi, Rahul Bedi, Rajat Pandit, Manu Pubby - these guys are useful tools to get the job done & have the perception created. We are in a system where decision makers learn of stuff first from the media. This sort of media campaign has its uses and the wheeler dealers know it. The IA btw, just so that one can appreciate the brazen scale of hypocrisy involved, ordered 1300 T-90s as a start (without even getting the technical issues fixed) & then ordered 300+ more (citing urgency, when TOT was not given, basically rewarding the Russians for not giving TOT). This sort of stuff has been baked into the decision making structure and nobody has told the jarnails that this sort of stuff is no longer going to be allowed. Meanwhile, look forward to anti-gravity drives on Arjun Mk3 or wait is that the 4. That's how things are and will remain.

d_berwal · Post by **d_berwal** » 14 May 2015 22:28

vaibhav.n wrote:Berwal.....These 2 new regiments/annum that you mention are the 6 which were supposed to be raised for MSC or otherwise??

AFAIK, Hvnt read any other accretions post the 63 odd Regiments that we already have.....

well http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... armour.htm

look at 52 AR onwards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Army_Armoured_Corps

List goes on form 52 to 58 = 6 new additions and some juicewala to believe its 59 without equipment... and so on..

for rest of BR...

Look at my post 2008-2011 time period i predicted along with some more users that maintainability will be an issue for Arjun. Now we see people in BR saying IA is to blame for maintainability issues. AVDHI was not created to serve private individuals to earn profits.. it was set up to provide IA with MBT's and its logistical demands at any cost because its INDIA who will suffer if AVDHI fails!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now when it happens people here blame CAG... LOL

Over years people on BR have started using CAG for their arguments.. when it suits their arguments they say CAG is gospel of TRUTH and when it dosent they say CAG is FRAUD or has no right to say what it is saying..... and end of all of it they blame IA and its officers for it.. and brand IA as idiots.

Some learned souls on BR also go to extreme anti-IA view of to an extent to even prove IA specs are copied for marketing material and people and specially officers of IA dont know what they are doing and they are foreign stooges or anti Indian establishment and hell bent to kill Indian effort. (this view is in line with on line blog operators on IA) BR has finally fallen prey to this

None of these people has ever been in IA, least operated a MBT but All claim to be expert. For most of them Russian equipment @ x cost is dustbin and Western/ US equipment at x+X+100% is state of art and and with 100000% TOT and only purpose of these sellers is to save INDIA ...

the laughable part/development for any Armour enthusiast is to believe ARMATA is no big deal....

ARMATA is the biggest conceptional development in last 5 decades for any Armour enthusiast.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 04:34

Nice dance around and spin.. none of which answers the basic facts that Avadhi does not make the systems (and nor does anyone else) that are imported and they are imported because the Army has ordered a pathetic number of tanks which prevents those components from being license manufactured or indigenized locally. IA most certainly are not idiots. After all, they came up with a plan wherein heads I win, tails you lose. Even after Arjun aced T-90 trials, the orders for former remain at a 100 odd whereas 1600 odd T-90s are on order despite the fact its sights don't work.

John · Post by **John** » 15 May 2015 04:54

^ During cold war 120 MBT seems like pretty pathetic amount but in current era 124 MBT is quite a lot that works out to close billion dollar including support equipment. Regardless of how big the order it is one's responsibility to deliver a quality product, yes that goes even for russians. A great example is army's problem ridden Tunguska purchase which Russians ironically blamed it on small procurement.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 05:04

That's not the point at all, and claiming that current era etc is a pointless semantics spin. If 124 tanks is big, then what are 1600 tanks from Russia? Mega-order? Ordered when even the sights did not work and were not even demonstrated in trials? When the engines packed up in AUCRT yet the order went through. Meanwhile Arjun jumped through hoop and hoop.

124 tanks is NOT enough to indigenize. Period. The developers have always pointed out the minimum numbers required are 500 odd to get engine, transmission and critical tech to India. This was deliberately ignored by a DGMF which used every stunt in the book, no matter how low, to stunt the program.

Saying that "Regardless of how big the order it is one's responsibility to deliver a quality product, yes that goes even for russia." is again worthless.

A quality product WAS delivered. That quality product beat the T-90 in tests. That quality product is now languishing because spares are an issue for such a small production run!!! What exactly is so hard to understand about this?

MTU/Renk clearly said that a mininum order of 500 units is necessary for licensed production. That powerpack combination is ONLY there on the Arjun, not on any NATO tanks. Many of the Arjuns items are similarly not license produced because OEM refused to transfer TOT or it was uneconomical for such small production runs! And Army claims "TOT was not done". Of course it was not done and they know why it was not done. And those items were chosen because of Army's insistence that these were necessary for an MBT. Of course, when it came to the T-90, those requirements were relaxed. Suddenly, demanding FCS trials were no longer essential. Meanwhile, India had to jump through hoop after hoop to develop a FCS for the Arjun equivalent to that on the Leclerc. But hey, T-90 FCS was not even considered with the same tests. Lesser speed targets, A-ok.

Tunguska comparison is facile. Tunguska procurement ran into issues as have all Army procurements from Russia because Russia's service offerings as standard de facto in recent years, suck. Whether it be Smerch, or T-90, or MiG-29K, their problems are legion and rarely if ever fixed per agreement. India then pays through the nose and Russians come and do some jugaad. Cui Bono? What about all the umpteen middlemen in India "bravely" selling us overpriced spares for no benefit and their pure and driven patriotism, hain jee?

In short, IA ordered fewer tanks than was optimal (minimum production run of 500 required to make the spares local) knowing fully well what the issues would be, and is now pretending that its the tank/program at fault. While its Russian junk is scouting for airconditioners because the technology from France doesn't work within the confines of the Russian tank designed for earlier gen sights. And it was never tested in integrated fashion in Indian conditions either. And we bought 1600+ units of them without a bother. It is this crazy hypocrisy which is galling & again, cui bono? Not the Indian taxpayer. Not the sowar who has to take these into battle but thinks all iz well because higher ups made the choice. Meanwhile, Russia never gave us ERA (reneging on earlier deal), never gave us gun tech (Reneging again) despite India paying upfront for TOT. So much for that procurement!

So the T-90 was ordered in 1600 units by IA claiming hey, these are the numbers we need and Russia will provide us TOT (after all, for these numbers TOT makes sense) and Russians showed us the middle finger. But that's ok and T-90 is great.
Meanwhile, lets order 124 Arjuns, hold endless trials, pretend its not good enough and Mk2 is needed (even when Mk1 whacks T-90 in trials) and then claim, hey spares are an issue!! What brazen hypocrisy? Are the Indian public so unaware that they can't see through the lies and obfuscation by the DGMF? Or the manner in which people at that post did all they could to scuttle this program & finally hit upon this tactic - order so few that nothing will ever make sense for the program, especially local manufacture & order T-90s en masse (whether they work or not) so there is no space for Arjuns.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 15 May 2015 05:10

But you can't blame the Russians. Cause East or West Russia is the best. When people cannot accept the truth when it walks up and shake hands with you. Then what can you do.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 05:16

Pratyush wrote:But you can't blame the Russians. Cause East or West Russia is the best. When people cannot accept the truth when it walks up and shake hands with you. Then what can you do.

Ulloo samajh ke rakha hain public ko. Koi hain, chai lao culture at its worst as per an IA General who worked on these programs and was frustrated by how everything must be done by "everyone else" and the import gravy train keeps flowing. It takes an Israeli General to come to India and knock some sense into the import loving DGMF that if you have a working design work on it further and don't just keep importing. But even then, the earlier worthies do enough to sabotage future efforts and then retire & don't even stop then, using the likes of Pubby etc to keep up the campaign.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 15 May 2015 05:20

the laughable part/development for any Armour enthusiast is to believe ARMATA is no big deal....

ARMATA is the biggest conceptional development in last 5 decades for any Armour enthusiast.

Not an enthusiastic.

So, what is great about this tank? Or the Amarta system?

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 15 May 2015 05:21

d_berwal wrote:
vaibhav.n wrote:Berwal.....These 2 new regiments/annum that you mention are the 6 which were supposed to be raised for MSC or otherwise??

the laughable part/development for any Armour enthusiast is to believe ARMATA is no big deal....

ARMATA is the biggest conceptional development in last 5 decades for any Armour enthusiast.

Yes YEs you are right ..... For the Russians and Russian Armor enthusiast!!!! who finally woke up after watching their men and other countries men get shredded in the garbage tanks they have been producing and the West moved past.

Finally the Russians took a few steps to catch up

John · Post by **John** » 15 May 2015 06:07

Karan M wrote: A quality product WAS delivered. That quality product beat the T-90 in tests. That quality product is now languishing because spares are an issue for such a small production run!!! What exactly is so hard to understand about this?

Just because a product wins in trial doesn't translate into a quality product. Regardless of how big the order responsibility must fall on all parties to ensure there is spares and end user is satisfied. And besides till we get the actual report we have no idea whether the issues are due to lack of spares or other technical defects.

Added: Read the other news article which is little more detailed in the issues that IA highlighted. Tanks that are just entered service in 2013 should not be facing problems requiring components to be sent overseas for repair. This indicates either issue in assembly or components we are sourcing were not properly inspected and foreign suppliers are getting away with supplying faulty products.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 15 May 2015 06:47

New Russian tanks to get gun that can ‘burn through a metre of steel’

Hobbes · Post by **Hobbes** » 15 May 2015 07:02

Oh, one thing that seems to have been overlooked in Vivek Raghuvanshi's troll at http://www.defensenews.com/story/defens ... /70963382/:

The Indian Army was forced to buy the 124 Arjuns by DRDO so that the Avadi factory would remain functional, the official said. He added that the Arjun Mark-1 has still not been cleared by the Army for combat because at 62 tons it is too heavy.

Meantime, DRDO has developed the Mark-2 version, which has received satisfactory marks from the Indian Army in comparison trials with the Russian T-90 main battle tank. The Mark-2 weighs less than 50 tons and has 93 improvements over the Mark-1, and includes nearly 60 percent indigenous components, claimed a DRDO official.

True DDM, that. Wonder what qualifies this idiot to report for defensenews, not that they're all that great themselves anyway.

niran · Post by **niran** » 15 May 2015 11:45

Hobbes wrote:Oh, one thing that seems to have been overlooked in Vivek Raghuvanshi's troll at http://www.defensenews.com/story/defens ... /70963382/:

The Indian Army was forced to buy the 124 Arjuns by DRDO so that the Avadi factory would remain functional, the official said. He added that the Arjun Mark-1 has still not been cleared by the Army for combat because at 62 tons it is too heavy.

Meantime, DRDO has developed the Mark-2 version, which has received satisfactory marks from the Indian Army in comparison trials with the Russian T-90 main battle tank. The Mark-2 weighs less than 50 tons and has 93 improvements over the Mark-1, and includes nearly 60 percent indigenous components, claimed a DRDO official.

True DDM, that. Wonder what qualifies this idiot to report for defensenews, not that they're all that great themselves anyway.

the bold underlined words should tell the reader what hogwash is he selling.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 15 May 2015 11:47

Photos: Military vehicles in Moscow 9th May 2015

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 15 May 2015 12:05

1600 T-90s were not ordered straight away.Here are the facts.300+ ordered first in 2001 and it was 5 years later that the second batch of another 300+ was ordered.

Wik

In 2001, India bought 310 T-90S tanks from Russia, of which 120 were delivered complete, 90 in semi-knocked down kits, and 100 in completely knocked down kits. The T-90 was selected because it is a direct development of the T-72 that India already employs with 60% logistics commonality with T-90 simplifying training and maintenance. India bought the T-90 after the delay in production of the domestically developed Arjun main battle tank, and to counter Pakistani deployment of the Ukrainian T-80UD in 1995–97. These tanks were made by Uralvagonzavod and the updated 1,000 hp (750 kW) engines were delivered by Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant. These tanks however did not feature the Shtora-1 passive/active protection system though there are reports that a separate contract for shipment of a modernised version of this suite is being discussed.[16]

A follow-on contract, worth $800 million, was signed on October 26, 2006, for another 330 T-90M "Bhishma" MBTs that were to be manufactured in India by Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi, Tamil Nadu.

A third contract, worth $1.23 billion, was signed in December 2007 for 347 upgraded T-90Ms, the bulk of which will be licence-assembled by HVF. The Army hopes to field a force of over 21 regiments of T-90 tanks and 40 regiments of modified T-72s. The Indian Army would begin receiving its first T-90M main battle tank in completely knocked-down condition from Russia’s Nizhny Tagil-based Uralvagonzavod JSC by the end of 2009.[22][23]

A ₹10000 crore (US$1.6 billion) purchase of 354 new T-90MS tanks for six tank regiments for the China border has been approved[25] which would take the total number of T-90 tanks in the Indian Army's inventory to 2011 and with a total of nearly 4500 tanks (T-90 and variants, T-72 and Arjun MBT) in active service, the world's third largest operator of tanks.

India plans to have 21 tank regiments of T-90s by 2020, with 45 combat tanks and 17 training and replacement tanks per regiment, for 62 total each.[26]

On 17 September 2013, India's Defence Ministry approved the production of 235 T-90 tanks under Russian licence for $1 billion.[27]

Nevertheless,when the initial order for the 125 A-1s was placed,surely the order should've included back up support,spares,etc. for at least 5 years? Whose bungling was this? The IA should've demanded as such when the order was finalised.

d_berwal · Post by **d_berwal** » 15 May 2015 16:22

Just some facts:

ARJUN mkI will always had maintenance issues related to its HSU or RC (Running Gear), that is the main reason why MKII has a new HSU/RC (Running gear), since the design has changed AVADHI has not catered to spares of previous design HSU.

Even in AUCRT HSU had problem and shuklajiii even tried to defend it.

http://www.ijrdet.com/files/Volume1Issu ... 213_07.pdf
In Arjun MBT MK-I the running gear consists of suspension system in this system one of the critical patrt
AXLE ARM which was made by two piece configuration i.e one part is crank pin and another part is arm with stub
axle .( In MK II HSU that two piece is made into single piece by using one of the best manufacturing methods forging and
made the integral axle arm.)

Problems faced (disadvantages) of MK I HSU:
-Shrink Fittings
-welding
-down pin

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 16:35

John wrote:Just because a product wins in trial doesn't translate into a quality product. Regardless of how big the order responsibility must fall on all parties to ensure there is spares and end user is satisfied. And besides till we get the actual report we have no idea whether the issues are due to lack of spares or other technical defects.

When you don't have an idea of the topic, why are you wasting our time with such frivolous claims?
What do you think trials are for? Go look up what the IA trials include, they include the AUCRT which translate into examining how the product holds up under extended runs including the spares burn. The tank passed all those, deal with it. Either you can claim that the IA had no clue of what and how to structure trials OR accept the fact that the tank cleared all trials, including those meant to evaluate production standard tanks, evaluate the behavior of the tank over a suitably representative period which is what the AUCRT is, and is facing issues which were highlighted much earlier that they WOULD occur if the order was not upped. The production run was too less to begin with and this was well highlighted for decades and the IA did nothing about it.

Added: Read the other news article which is little more detailed in the issues that IA highlighted.

I dont need to read BS news articles to suddenly realise what rubbish issues are being "highlighted". The issues are pass the buck by the IA, plain and simple.

Tanks that are just entered service in 2013 should not be facing problems requiring components to be sent overseas for repair. This indicates either issue in assembly or components we are sourcing were not properly inspected and foreign suppliers are getting away with supplying faulty products.

Oh please. Tanks which enter service yesterday, can run out of spares if IA uses them intensively and the numbers ordered as spares are too few because the number of tanks are less & the IA doesn't stockpile enough and expects that for a small production order, limited just in time orders are enough for an EOQ. No sane supplier in the world would put up with such rubbish, least of all world class OEMs in France, Germany which supply to the entire NATO tank fleet and regard the IA's whimsical behavior as something they don't have to put up with.
Heck, the IA couldn't even get Thales et al to fix their improperly integrated TIs in the T-90 and ended up having to use its own funds for excess TIs above and beyond authorized holdings to make up for the high rate of failures.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 16:37

d_berwal wrote:Just some facts:

ARJUN mkI will always had maintenance issues related to its HSU or RC (Running Gear), that is the main reason why MKII has a new HSU/RC (Running gear), since the design has changed AVADHI has not catered to spares of previous design HSU.

Even in AUCRT HSU had problem and shuklajiii even tried to defend it.

http://www.ijrdet.com/files/Volume1Issu ... 213_07.pdf
In Arjun MBT MK-I the running gear consists of suspension system in this system one of the critical patrt
AXLE ARM which was made by two piece configuration i.e one part is crank pin and another part is arm with stub
axle .( In MK II HSU that two piece is made into single piece by using one of the best manufacturing methods forging and
made the integral axle arm.)

Problems faced (disadvantages) of MK I HSU:
-Shrink Fittings
-welding
-down pin

ROTFL, more spray and shoot and scoot

The HSU is not from Avadhi but Kirloskar. And it cleared IA trials. So either the IA is completely clueless on what to evaluate or where to evaluate what or T-90 supporters have to come up with outdated data to claim something or the other that was fixed.

Till the other day, same bunch were claiming rubbish data for the FCS. Turned out in the T-90 comparison, the Arjun outgunned the T-90. So much for that.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 16:41

NRao wrote:New Russian tanks to get gun that can ‘burn through a metre of steel’

Great, lets just order 10000 of these right away.

d_berwal · Post by **d_berwal** » 15 May 2015 16:45

@ Karan M

I think you have already made up your mind that IA is worthless and does not know what they are doing any fact put in front of you is rubbish data.

spray and shoot and scoot... fact on HSU.... ,, reply with FCS... ROTFL

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 May 2015 16:56

Dude I haven't seen a single statement from you that is anywhere near the truth on Arjun. You just fib and think everyone here was born yesterday and can't do their own digging.

HSU is a case in point. Avadhi this, Avadhi that. Avadhi is just a system integrator. It sources items from a range of industries including the private sector. Kirloskar makes the HSU.

FCS was brought up because official data now proves what BRF was saying and had dug out. That T-90 FCS is inferior & was held to lower standards in trials. You were busy trying to blow smoke on that as well.

Improvements happen all the time. So when a new design is introduced, you make FUD claims using the opportunity. In which case, how did the previous design clear trials?

Looks like you are the one claiming Army is worthless. Either it can't conduct trials worth a darn. Or, its misguided defenders, can't admit they are making up stuff.

IA is not worthless but it does tend to make flawed decisions from time to time, and in a democracy, people will point it out. You can curse everyone, call Shukla names, do what you want. Truth remains what it is.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 15 May 2015 20:04

When production run ends two years back for Mk-I, and orders for Mk-II are yet to materialize as IA has to sign off on Mk-II design, which private vendor is going to keep assembly lines open for spares? As pointed out multiple times, you either order enough spares for every single item, potentially increasing cost or order significant number of items to keep the assembly line humming so you will know the type of spares you need to order in advance. As you start using the item more, you will find out which items need to be stockpiled more.

This isn't an issue with just Arjun. SU-30MKI faced similar issues with less than 50% operational at any given time. Its increasing as the spares are being stockpiled.

When any system is designed, there is a service life for each component, and based on that the manufacturer/user stockpiles parts. However, in actual usage, other issues come up and then you decide more parts are needed.

In fact, this isn't the first time Indian forces are facing this issues. Same happened with Mig-21/23/27s as India was the sole major operator and the factories were shut down, and India either had to get used spares from former warsaw pact countries or try to indiginize them.

It is again the issue with WLR radars imported from US as mentioned by Saurav Jha. For 12 radars, getting spares is next to impossible if the production line is down.

It is not the first time Indian forces faced this issue, and they still fail to learn from it. Whether from India/US/USSR or anyone, if production line is down, the parts vendors move on to other profitable items. Wont wait for 5-10 years for them to order couple of dozens more!

IA could have ordered another 100-200 Mk-I tanks, and Avadi could have slowed production to say 30 tanks per year, so that assembly line and manfacturing line keeps humming. If orders are not predicted in advance, no one will keep lines open. And there are hundreds of vendors if not more who supply parts to Avadi.