I am going by logic and knowledge of past development practises of the DRDO & Indian industry in particular. Whereas you are going by pre-decided views.
In other words you are the one making the random assumptions, while my views are not pre-decidd. Let me tell you why: Form follows function!
Take a look at modern types of ERA which provide protection against kinetic energy like Relikt, Kaktus, CLARA (with Ultrax layer), ERAWA-2, DYNA, NOZH or Duplet. They alll look different, because they use different mechanisms in order to defeat the kinetic threat.
The Indian ERA looks like Kontakt-5 and hence is way more likely to follow it's working mechanism than the working mechanisms used on other types of ERA. Maybe the DRDO engineers did make some changes to the used materials, but it still seems like a copy of Kontakt-5.
That the Indian armour designers do
copy ERA have we already seen with the Mk 1 ERA used on the upgraded T-72. It is in terms of internal layout and working mechanism a direct copy of Kontakt-1.
Performance equivalent to does not mean necessarily the same performance. It means that the minimum requirements are at the K-5 level. Nothing less nothing more. However, improvement beyond that is upto the DRDO.
It does also not necessarily mean that it is any better than K-5. And no, they did not say that K-5 level were the minimum requirements, this is another assumption from you.
