Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT)

That lobby would scream even more if Arjun would really win. So excuse me, I have my doubts.

Yes, Arjun suspension is definetly better, as for fire control, even in Soviet times, precision of FCS in top line Soviet MBT's like T-64B, T-80B and T-80U was not worser than NATO MBT's FCS. So I doubt that Arjun is really better in this.

Optimistic You know, seeing that graphic I have my doubts.

Arjun as I said some time ago have this good situation that rearming it from rifled to smoohtbore gun should be relatively simple and cheap.

As for NERA and ERA, from what I seen on graphic it have only ERA, as for NERA, we should remember that NERA is only effective when it's thickness is rather big. This means that it cannot be applied to tank in any other form than bulky and heavy armor modules, or the Kanchan armor must be replaced by NERA, and Kanchan being a composite armor and what we know about composite armors and possibility that Kanchan is based somewhat on Burlington armor, makes Kanchan itself a NERA like protection.

So IMHO there will not be any NERA addons, only ERA.

You might belive it but, all modern tanks armed with smoothbore guns in any competition or test, were not outgunned by rifled gun armed tanks, there is also no real proof that modern smoothbore gun should be less accurate than rifled gun.

That's interesting P2P, still it should weight around 60 tons then, with unmanned turret more weight would mean that beast have incredible armor protection!

we are also informed that due to that blackbox, desi came out in flying colors in the trial, despite having best tank crews from all of IA to compete against desi maal.

Some youngsters here are impressed by his google knowledge but he really does not get all the problems and bureaucracy in IA and MOD, which are actually the biggest hurdles for indigenous arms. Why cant we make a Howitzer when we made a gun for Arjun? Because buying stuff from outside comes with kick backs. We bought the left hand drive Tatra and if that is not proof of screw ups in MOD i dont know what is. Arjun really is a great tank, yes it has bugs but when the AMX-56 was launched in France we all know how many problems it had. What IA and Indian in general dont get is that with Arms manafacturing is not like buying a Toyota car where everything comes in a well developed package.

The Chinese pretty much induct engines and radar which dont even work, they know that it takes time to run and mature as a technology. We some how dont get that bit.

The mark-2 will be good and i am not sure with the smooth bore gun? I think IA sees the T-90 haveing smooth bore and if Arjun also has Smooth bore it would just be another T-90 replacement so they want something diffrent in the Arjuns gun so they may stick with the Rifled bore for long range accuracy to supplement T-90s short comeings.

Oh it starts all over again. You don't trust these reports but we do. And i don't know how many times it has been said that latest competitive tests were carried out in presence of neutral MBT experts ; the Israelis. While there can be numerous parameters on which two different designs can be compared it is always what user had asked from designers is what matters. While Arjun can have many design flaws like flat faced turret sides, less Armour on side, gun but the fact remains that these things can be bettered in BLOCK phases if and only if user asks for it. So far they have not so no.

I use book for your information.

You know, French had only problems with software, not vehicle itself. It was just highly computerized and some sensors were oversensitive disabling vehicle when for example completely unharmfull for engine quantity of dust get inside. After making sensors less sensitive everything was fine... but this actually shows that too much electronics might not be a good idea.

I completely do not understand this strange "logic". Rifled gun is a past, period, why stick with something that have no future, that is incompatibile with ammunition manufactured world wide, that have short service life.

More, as I said, in all tests and competition, rifled gun armed tanks were actually outgunned by smoothbore gun armed tanks. Even during tests for US Army where different rifled guns and smoothbore guns were tested, conclusion was that German Rh-120 smoothbore gun was most accurate and had best penetration values.

During trails in Greece Challenger 2 with very modern FCS was outgunned by smoothbore armed tanks, even after ammunition change it's performance was not better.

Also firing conventional ammunition further than 4,000m is a waste of ammunition.

Well would be nice to know opinion of Israelis then.

As for Block upgrades, sure yeah, Americans had such approach, but the question is how adaptive is the basic design. M1 was designed with Block upgrades in mind, well in fact Block I or M1 was never seen as something more than an interim design before Block II or M1A1/M1A2 was fielded, and the long term solution was planned Block III but the question is, if Arjun was ever designed with Block upgrades in mind.

And to explain it even better, Block upgrades means that each Block is in fact new vehicle. M1 Block I is in it's structure very different to M1A1/M1A2 Block II and the Block III was even more different tanks.

Looking at Arjun Mk1 and Mk2 I do not see special differences, rather the same structure with new things attached to it.

How would you know better than us? Reading crud on the net? Have you ever been to an Aero India or Defence expo and talked with the scientists and workers in DRDO? You have no clue, you should keep quite on these issues and not bring in your teenage level of confidence.


The computrised fire control is a generation ahead of these tanks you mentioned, with the added support of the suspension and rifiled bore it can hit targets longer and with better accuracy. Lets not get into the rifieled bore vs smooth bore again. The Arjuns accuracy is excellent and the tests where witnessed by Army personal who did not object.

I am not sure of the gun, i think haveing the smooth bore would mean haveing the same stuff as T-90 perhaps that is the reason they want Rifiled gun, we are not a Nato country and we dont need to beleieve everything NATO does is the best. In joint exercises with USAF our IAF proved its metal and many a times USAF was take aback. As one Joint Army officer in said while training with Indian Army "everything they do is opposite to what we do but funny thin is it is just as effective"! This itself shows we have our ways which are different but equally effective.

Ya i am not sure what that armour is on that animation, it looked pretty thick so i thought it many be a NERA and NERA is also under R&D in DRDO, may be if they got things right i thought they may induct the local NERA. Even if it is ERA it is not bad, infantry can stay behind the tank in any incursion to avoid casualty.





Neither where rifled bores inferior, i am not sure of this whole gun thing on Arjun. Perhaps when i can meet some one in DRDO i will have a word on what is the rational behind sticking with Rifled gun. They had a chance to switch to smooth bore and they also manufacture smooth bore but yet they choose to stick with Rifled ones is some what weird, may be it is a design philosophy, i will need to get to the bottom of that.

& There are a lot of more factors important than one single test. Maybe the crews of the Arjun was just better trained than the T-90 crew, maybe they were just lucky. Unless we have full access to the data of what was tested and how it was tested a single event does not have much expressiveness.

Yes, U.S. and Russia only fight enemies who are on a technical level at least two decades behind them. India does not have this situation.

What means generation ahead? In what? Give me precision of stabilization in mrads, then we can say something about accuracy.

Having a tank with smoothbore gun using two piece ammunition and second tank with smoothbore gun using one piece ammunition makes a difference You know.

Sure, but unfortunetly to You in 1990's that was NATO that made extensive research and purchased illegaly tanks from Soviet Union to develop ammunition capable to effectively dealt with their protection.

I think You do not understand a purpose of such excercises. USAF pilots are specially limited and sometimes forced to loose, but there is a purpose in this madness, hope You figure out on Your own what is this purpose.

BTW, here are offered upgrades for T-72 tanks (probably Ukrainian modernization).





As we can see, turret, or hull or both can be upgraded with heavy ERA, making even old tank very well protected and in the end if we do not have modern ammunition designed to defeat both heavy ERA and composite armors, such old tank becomes very dangerous foe.

Currently the only countries that developed ammunition designed with heavy ERA in mind are Germany and USA, while US will probably be not willing to sell M829A2 or M829A3, Germany might be willing to sell DM53 or DM63... however this ammunition is only for 120mm smoothbore guns.

So as we can see, the problem also for India will increase, because anyone can buy cheap yet effective heavy ERA and integrate it on their tanks.

[QUOTE=Damian;487171]drdo.gov.in/drdo/drdojsp/downloadtndr.jsp?tenderName... I am going home from work will continue when i reach home later.


As i told you i am not sure of the gun there is news of smooth bore as well.
No we dont know our whole Armed forces is dumb beyond one polish internet dude. :wink:

The professionalism in Indian armed forces is in par with NATO, every nato nations testifies to that and we know what we are doing. We did not open our bars in our Radars for probing in any exercise and we turned down their request to link up with their AWACS. We are quite dumb you know, we dont shit.

Be serious... at least this time. I never said that You soldiers are dumb. But the known fact is that when US makes some excercises with someone, it is only to see what are real capabilities fo that armed forces participating in excercises with US, and US do not see any need to win in such excercises because it is not a purpose of these excercises from their point of view.

It is a very smart approach.

BTW about stabilization.

M1A1/Leopard 2A4 stabilization have such accuracy (I do not know if this is proper word):

Vertical - 0,15-0,20 mrad
Horizontal - 0,3-0,4 mrad

Dunno if in more modern variants it was improved.

For basic T-90 it is:

Vertical - 0,4 mrad
Horizontal - 0,6 mrad

So stabilization precision is not worse than in NATO tanks. However newer variants of NATO MBT's like Leopard 2A6 or M1A2SEP might be better here, but data for their stabilization is unavaiable to me.

Kalina should offer even better accuracy. 22/23 from the Russians.

There is little place for pride and patriotic reason in organisations in India when it comes down to the weaponry performance, Weaponry are selected based on there performance, There are many home made project cancelled before coz it didn't meet required level,

Arjun on other hand beat T-90S in performance that is why its running in IA, further talk words of Army chief of Indian army it does weight, not some politician in MOD of India..

Unfortunately this is all coz of some big mouths in MOD and top brass..

I dont have much information on this, but the FCS is hybrid of Elbit and Bel, If you can find about Merkava 3 FCS in 2008, you can be close to Arjun FCS tech information but it have bel input too..

No personal attacks please..

Do you have more side pics, It looks like they provide Heavy era at side of the chassis ?