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!
So, you know little about the Indian industry, cant contest the points made, have made the assumption, that just because India had K-5, it must have copied it & now quote cliches to state that you were not the one making assumptions. Amusing!
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.
So now you have a "maybe". If DRDO were to make a boxy ERA which merely "looked like" Relikt, or Kaktus, per your brilliant exposition above, it would be equivalent to the ERAs above, because it looks similar to the above.
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.
Yes sure, that Indian designers could have independently come up with a simple ERA MK-1 which works similar to Kontakt-1, when the principles of aforesaid ERA have been known for decades now & the IA requirements were limited as well (reduce HEAT penetration alone).. is not possible.
It has to be a copy of K-1. Cant be that DRDO folks looked at some basic literature research which has several reports of similar packages from ww designers, came up with a simple design that could be mass manufactured by OFB quickly & it happened to be similar to the K-1 like many other ERA packages worldwide..
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.
No, I merely mentioned that you were the one making assumptions that those requirements were the definitive ones that it has to be equal to the K-5, and cannot be different in any manner. Of course, for you it cannot be better than the K-5 or even different in any manner, because it has to be a copy etc.
Guess what, I am going by the past record of analyzing multiple such programs & RFPs, whereas all you have on your side, is your belief system that just because it looks similar, it must be so.
The pointlessness of that argument is so staggering, that it baffles the brain.
All that must be done then is to make packages that look similar to some foreign ones & you will then claim that they are copies of those packages, even if inside they were to be empty space or something different.
