But IA did give order for Arjun Mark - II ... some 124 of them ...
I understand that for some of us Indians it will be just enough that Arjun Mk2 is being inducted and IA probably is hoping for the same, to appease some of us, the vocal majority who are pressuring them about accepting indigenous products.
IA hopes to do this by inducting just a small numbers of Arjun tanks while simultaneously buying Russian tanks in the 1000s.
But that is not enough, we need to match and then surpass the numbers of Russian tanks in IA's inventory, with Arjuns.
And for the above purpose 124 is not a good enough number.
The same issues that plagued the Arjun Mk1 will again beset Arjun Mk2.
We all know what happened a few years ago.
The whole of the Arjun fleet was shut down for some time because of the non availability of spares.
As DRDO could not make a facility for the same and had to import the said spares for integration.
A tank unit does not exist in a vaccum, it needs test facilities for subsystems and structure, quality assurance facilities, spares facilities, overhaul facilities, facilities for the production of other armored vehicles based on the tank, etc and initially, these actually end up costing equal if not more than production of the tank itself.
And all of these production units cannot be sustained with just a measly order of 124.
One cannot expect DRDO to incur a loss by setting up all the above facilities and also hire 100s of engineers, technicians, etc and then the said facilities not be utilized and the workers not be employed because of the small order.
Arjuns will be costly and less self sustainable if IA doesn't choose to buy them in large numbers.
However if IA orders large numbers of the Arjun Mk2, eventually the economy of scale can be achieved, the tanks and all the services associated with it will become cheaper, the domestic military industrial capacity will improve and increase, and maybe we can even develop Arjun Mk3, like how the Israelis did it with their Merkava.
. And yes if 50 tons news is true I would distribute 50 kgs of mithai this new year. Would update the same.:santa:
