Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT)

Kunal Biswas

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Some of upgrades supposed to be in Arjun MK2

1. Missile firing capability ( CLGM / LAHAT )
2. Commanders TI panoramic sight Mk II
3. Drivers uncooled thermal imaging night sight
4. Additional ammunition
5. Enhanced ammunition penetrator
6. Effective alternative to muzzle reference sight (MRS)
7. Resin-based CCC
8. Ten-round containerised bin
9. Explosive reactive armour panels
10. Infra-red/Thermal imaging resistant paint
11. Air defence weapon remote firing
12. ALWCS (advanced laser warning and countermeasure system)
13. Roof mounted drivers seat
14. Auto tracking in GMS (gunners main sight)
15. Advanced land navigation system
16. New final drive with increased reduction ratio
17. Advanced running gear system
18. New track system
19. Mine plough
 

Damian

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Well upgrades looks promising, especially from electronics point of view.
 

Kunal Biswas

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DRDO episode on ARJUN MBT- INSIDE OUT on Discovery Channel on 8th September- Saturday at 1800 hr, 13th September- Thursday at 0900 hr and 22nd September- Saturday at 1800 hr.
Anyone recorded this program..

Its a month now..
 

ersakthivel

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Good point. Something could had been revealed if we could know the origins of Kanchan, if it was inspired by foreing design, perhaps some cooperation with other country (UK for example? or USSR/Russian Federation?), there are so many unknowns, neither known facts about ammunition avaiable for India are supporting advertisement that is done to this armor by some people.
do you know anything about kanchan armour. Then why are you constantly doubting it's ability? If you have any proof please post.
 

ersakthivel

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Good point. Something could had been revealed if we could know the origins of Kanchan, if it was inspired by foreing design, perhaps some cooperation with other country (UK for example? or USSR/Russian Federation?), there are so many unknowns, neither known facts about ammunition avaiable for India are supporting advertisement that is done to this armor by some people.
there is a deep co operation with israel in regard to arjun.IMI and other israeli industries are helping it out.
 

Damian

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do you know anything about kanchan armour. Then why are you constantly doubting it's ability? If you have any proof please post.
Kanchan was never tested against modern ammunition, so anyone who makes it some sort of super armor, or so sure that it is better than T-90S protection, is or misinformed

Doubting in these claims is justified and backed up by logic.

Actually You as Indian should be more interested in asking such questions, than me.

But as P2P rightfully made a point, there is no literature about Arjun development, that could also say something about armor development. In my country there is a whole book written by leader of a scientific team that developed different types of armor, book is very detailed with informations from tests (altough they do not contain any classified informations). In case of Arjun and Kanchan, we have nothing more than some claims, that can't be prooved by You neither anyone, and knowing what ammunition was used against Kanchan, makes it's performance nothing really impressive, because the same or similiar performance was achieved by older NATO or Soviet designs.

there is a deep co operation with israel in regard to arjun.IMI and other israeli industries are helping it out.
Which does not mean that Israelis helped with armor, it is possible, still Israelis are very touchy when it comes to their vehicles armor protection, and the only country that I can imagine, could have detailed infromations about their armors performance is USA, no one else. Just imagine the sh%t storm in Israel if any informations about their vehicles protection could leak out, especially to muslim countries. It does not mean that someone would do that intentionally, but some countries have weak OPSEC, some have better OPSEC, and when it comes to military technology and real politics, nobody will take a chances.

So if Israelis helped You with something, it does not mean it was the best they had.

Of course it does not mean that Kanchan is a bad armor, if it is good enough for threats in the region then it is good to go. Also we do not know the evolution of armor itself, simply because actually non existing or very poor sources (mostly closer to fanboyism than something credible).

If Kanchan would be tested against DM53/63 or M829A2/A3, and these rounds would be fired from a point blank range, I would be impressed, very impressed if Kanchan would not be defeated by these, however Kanchan was tested or against HEAT rounds without impressive penetration capabilities, or against obsolete APFSDS ammunition, or against HESH, in which case the test alone is complete absurd because HESH allways will be ineffective against spaced or composite armor due to the nature of it's working mechanism and against what types of armor it was designed.
 
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p2prada

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There is no chance in hell any country will provide armour information to India. Heck, even Russia denied armour ToT for an old tank like T-90S. So, forget about countries like Germany, Israel or the US providing armour inputs.

The entire Arjun tank is an entirely Indian design. Israel's only assisting in testing and on JVs for electronics (for which we definitely need assistance).

People simply tag a foreign country to some domestic project and assume it is better than what that foreign country has designed for itself. Absurd on many levels.
 

ersakthivel

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Kanchan was never tested against modern ammunition, so anyone who makes it some sort of super armor, or so sure that it is better than T-90S protection, is or misinformed

Doubting in these claims is justified and backed up by logic.

Actually You as Indian should be more interested in asking such questions, than me.

But as P2P rightfully made a point, there is no literature about Arjun development, that could also say something about armor development. In my country there is a whole book written by leader of a scientific team that developed different types of armor, book is very detailed with informations from tests (altough they do not contain any classified informations). In case of Arjun and Kanchan, we have nothing more than some claims, that can't be prooved by You neither anyone, and knowing what ammunition was used against Kanchan, makes it's performance nothing really impressive, because the same or similiar performance was achieved by older NATO or Soviet designs.



Which does not mean that Israelis helped with armor, it is possible, still Israelis are very touchy when it comes to their vehicles armor protection, and the only country that I can imagine, could have detailed infromations about their armors performance is USA, no one else. Just imagine the sh%t storm in Israel if any informations about their vehicles protection could leak out, especially to muslim countries. It does not mean that someone would do that intentionally, but some countries have weak OPSEC, some have better OPSEC, and when it comes to military technology and real politics, nobody will take a chances.

So if Israelis helped You with something, it does not mean it was the best they had.

Of course it does not mean that Kanchan is a bad armor, if it is good enough for threats in the region then it is good to go. Also we do not know the evolution of armor itself, simply because actually non existing or very poor sources (mostly closer to fanboyism than something credible).

If Kanchan would be tested against DM53/63 or M829A2/A3, and these rounds would be fired from a point blank range, I would be impressed, very impressed if Kanchan would not be defeated by these, however Kanchan was tested or against HEAT rounds without impressive penetration capabilities, or against obsolete APFSDS ammunition, or against HESH, in which case the test alone is complete absurd because HESH allways will be ineffective against spaced or composite armor due to the nature of it's working mechanism and against what types of armor it was designed.
Despite the trenchant criticism of the some army personnel over the arjun's weight issue, no one has ever said a word about the armour tech of kanchan .This deafening silence itself is the proof for me regarding the modernity of the armour. Otherwise many loose tongues will be waging like," despite the 60 ton weight arjun's armour performs less than the T-90s".

I don't need any more proof than the silence over the issue as there is a very strong import lobby which spreads all kinds of false stories about indigenous products, in particular the arjun.

And that is the only reason that INDIAN ARMY hasn't conducted a direct one on firing test between arjun and T-90.
SO why does the indian army beating around the bush by not conducting such a test? Surely they would have been hell a lot more interested than you and me on the topic. Isn't it.

Instead they conduct all type of evaluations where a group of T-90s and ARJUNs are given a seperate task and asked to achieve it. And they are only interested in finding the role of the arjuns in indian army. NOT VERY INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT WHICH HAS THE BETTER ARMOUR,WHY?
aNSWER IS OBVIOUS , EVERY ONE KNOWS.
 
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Damian

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You have incredibly mentality You know?
 
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Damian

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It is Your simplified world perception combined with demands to using simplified answers. So I told You in the past, world is not simple, neither any answer I will provide to You will be simple one.

I made a point, Kanchan was not tested against modern ammunition, it is confirmed by avaiable sources, which means that any argument that Kanchan is better than T-90S armor is just false, and wishfull thinking not based on anything credible.

Oh and one more thing, heavier armor does not mean better armor. New materials are emerging.

Fullerene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Aggregated diamond nanorod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Especially ADNR is very interesting materials as being the hardest material known to humanity.

As we all known one of the most important aspects of materials used for ballistic protection is their hardness, the harder material is, the better it is... untill a point where too much hardness makes material brittle, ADNR solves this problem, because being in the same time incredibly hard, it is also flexible material, it is not brittle as diamonds or ceramics.

I found also one more interesting read.

Scientists working on carbon nanotube body armor
http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/18/47/475701/pdf/nano7_47_475701.pdf

Researchers are working on a carbon nanotubes-based replacement for Kevlar:

The trait that makes carbon nanotubes so interesting for use in bulletproof vests is that the carbon nanotubes have excellent resistance to repeated ballistic impacts. In theory, that would mean that soldiers and police officers wouldn't need to replace body armor after taking hits and multiple hits in prolonged firefights would be more survivable than with current generation body armor.

Unlike Kevlar fibers that deform and loose effectiveness after struck, the carbon nanotube vest can withstand repeated impacts to the same spot without allowing the bullet to penetrate. The researchers say that body armor 600nm in thickness constructed form six sheets of the 100nm thick carbon nanotube yarns could bounce off a bullet with muzzle energy of 320 J.

That would be enough strength to stop low powered bullets fired from some handguns, but high velocity bullets fired from assault rifles carry much more muzzle energy than the current carbon nanotube fibers can withstand.

In article it is said that it is 600nm thick, which means the vest thickness is 0,0006mm, it is very impressive for such thin material to have such high protection characteristics.

Now imagine such armor layer that is 100mm thick, which means it will be 100,000,000nm thick.

Capabilities of these materials are just incredible.

It is interesting. Of course the technology needs to mature, and further research is needed to develop armor versions against more capable weapons and ammunition, but everything is promising.

Another advantage of ultra hard materials based on carbon is that they are relatively light.

Of course in case of vehicles such composite armor would need to be still encased in vehicles steel structure cavities, but the weight reduction is more than possible + use of other solutions for weight reduction.

This means several things.

First armored vehicles and armor itself is not obsolete, in fact there will be more and more problems to defeat such armor.

Just imagine that we replace currently used composites with ADNR based ones, we will be actually abale to put composite armor all around vehicle, without making it too much heavy. Top attack weapons won't be a big concern anymore, vehicles sides and rear will gain improved protection, as well as it's frontal arc.

Not only this, but also other platforms than AFV's like tanks will benefit from it. Today the survivability of attack helicopters or fighter planes is low when they are hit by enemy projectiles or missiles, but with new lightweight materials stronger than the ones currently used, we can increase their survivability.

Of course there are other interesting developments currently slowly inducted for armor protection use, based on nanotechnology.

In Germany there was company known as IBD Deisenroth, currently Rhinemetall Chempro, they are manufacturing armor protection based on nanotechnology.

http://www.rheinmetall-chempro.de/index.php?fid=1951&lang=3
http://www.rheinmetall-chempro.de/index.php?fid=1957&lang=3
http://www.rheinmetall-chempro.de/index.php?fid=1970&lang=3

Advanced Modular Armor Protection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unfortunetly the old brochures are not avaiable anymore, but there was also a lot of interesting read there about the materials development.

Also Japanese claims that they are using nano-crystal steel in their newest Type 10 tank.

The US Army Future Combat Systems had a 20-29 tons heavy universal combat platform designated MGV (Manned Ground Vehicle), one of requirements was to provide platform with frontal protection against 45mm automatic cannons. For a platform with such weight and very thin armor, it could not be possible to achieve required protection levels without use of advanced armor solutions, and possible nanotechnology based materials.

So what we will gain here, thanks to these materials?

-Increased survivability trough improved armor protection.
-Reduced platform weight.
-Different platforms possible implementation.
-Other benefits.

The only problems that needs to be solved is how to manufacture ADNR's cheap, efficently, in form of armor plating, and in huge numbers. But when these problems will be solved, we can have real revolution in protection means.

Ah and there is also other benefit, currently used composite armors are divided in to two types, passive and reactive, passive type is using more efficnetly it's cavity space but is also less efficent against ammunition, while reactive type to work needs some space inside it's cavity, making it more effective against ammunition, but less efficently using space of it's cavity.

ADNR could have both, better efficency in using space, more efficent in projectile defeating, and it will be lighter.

The question is how many countries is investing in to nanotechnology applications in armor protection? I know USA is, there was a lot of talk about these materials in 1990's on different AUSA's. Germany is, Japan of course, thanks to Kunal Biswas I know that India is making some steps there, I know that in my country there are probably some very early conceptual works. France perhaps, UK?

Well probably all countries with advanced industrial and scientific base.

As a side note, with such armor technology, it can be interesting to actually see a ressurection of the Dreadnought/Battleship concept in Navies of the most advanced nations, or perhaps something similiar to Arsenal Ship concept from USA.

So You see, there are materials stronger than these used today, yet lighter. Think about this, weight is not indicator of protection.
 

militarysta

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BTW: As I remember Russians don't sold their "special armour" tehnology to India. So if in Indian T-90S is the same "special armour" like in Ajrun (what is possible becuse both construcions should have best avaible armour in india due to time, military, and tehnology resons) then Ajrun should have slighty bigger armour protection then basic (without ERA) T-90S armour. Why? Becouse when for 0. degree T-90S have very thick armour (~880mm LOS) then for 30. degree is about 650-700mm LOS. So Ajrun LOS thickness will be slighty bigger and if both MBT's have the same armour then ajrun should have slighty better armour protection due to bigger LOS.
But it of course dosen't mean that Ajrun have super-dupper armour. It is the best armour avaible now in India - cose Russians don't sell their "special armour". And thos Indian armour was tested against all SC and APFSDS avaible in India, but IMHO the best APFSDS avaible was Cl Mk.2 so something on NATO late 80s. level. It's not modern munition. In SC (HEAT) thema there is slighty better situation.
 

ersakthivel

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what you are trying to say that Russians didnt sold TOT for armour, T90S which were imported from Russia had this armour.
If you ask a bit more people always say that export version of T-90 has less advanced protection than export versions to india.
SO the conclusion is

The Indian army doesnot know which tank has better armour protection armour, the arjun or T-90 they have(it doesnot matter what armour the russian T-90 has)

And it will never know.People raising questions about it have incredible mentality!!!

A citizen of india doesnot have the right to know which tank in their army has better armour!!!!!


The beauty is every intelligence agency from pakistanis to the chinese to americans would have known the T-90 armour protection level. But indian citizen may never know .

So I wont press it any further and deteriorate the homely atmosphere of this thread.
 
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Damian

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Simple citizen, writing on internet forum should be the last person to know such informations.
 

navkapu

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Hi Guys its the same concept of nano-tubes of energy absorption by the Armour leading to contraction and expansion of the Armour.this all has been posted just read it ......... kanchan Armour does the same.......

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/techfocus/2011/TFApril2011.pdf

please read ........... Kanchan will keep on undergoing changes as well its a tech India owns and will be updated


It is Your simplified world perception combined with demands to using simplified answers. So I told You in the past, world is not simple, neither any answer I will provide to You will be simple one.

I made a point, Kanchan was not tested against modern ammunition, it is confirmed by avaiable sources, which means that any argument that Kanchan is better than T-90S armor is just false, and wishfull thinking not based on anything credible.

Oh and one more thing, heavier armor does not mean better armor. New materials are emerging.

Fullerene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Aggregated diamond nanorod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Especially ADNR is very interesting materials as being the hardest material known to humanity.

As we all known one of the most important aspects of materials used for ballistic protection is their hardness, the harder material is, the better it is... untill a point where too much hardness makes material brittle, ADNR solves this problem, because being in the same time incredibly hard, it is also flexible material, it is not brittle as diamonds or ceramics.

I found also one more interesting read.

Scientists working on carbon nanotube body armor
http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/18/47/475701/pdf/nano7_47_475701.pdf



In article it is said that it is 600nm thick, which means the vest thickness is 0,0006mm, it is very impressive for such thin material to have such high protection characteristics.

Now imagine such armor layer that is 100mm thick, which means it will be 100,000,000nm thick.

Capabilities of these materials are just incredible.

It is interesting. Of course the technology needs to mature, and further research is needed to develop armor versions against more capable weapons and ammunition, but everything is promising.

Another advantage of ultra hard materials based on carbon is that they are relatively light.

Of course in case of vehicles such composite armor would need to be still encased in vehicles steel structure cavities, but the weight reduction is more than possible + use of other solutions for weight reduction.

This means several things.

First armored vehicles and armor itself is not obsolete, in fact there will be more and more problems to defeat such armor.

Just imagine that we replace currently used composites with ADNR based ones, we will be actually abale to put composite armor all around vehicle, without making it too much heavy. Top attack weapons won't be a big concern anymore, vehicles sides and rear will gain improved protection, as well as it's frontal arc.

Not only this, but also other platforms than AFV's like tanks will benefit from it. Today the survivability of attack helicopters or fighter planes is low when they are hit by enemy projectiles or missiles, but with new lightweight materials stronger than the ones currently used, we can increase their survivability.

Of course there are other interesting developments currently slowly inducted for armor protection use, based on nanotechnology.

In Germany there was company known as IBD Deisenroth, currently Rhinemetall Chempro, they are manufacturing armor protection based on nanotechnology.

Rheinmetall Chempro GmbH - AMAP product family
Rheinmetall Chempro GmbH - AMAP-B
Rheinmetall Chempro GmbH - AMAP-SC

Advanced Modular Armor Protection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unfortunetly the old brochures are not avaiable anymore, but there was also a lot of interesting read there about the materials development.

Also Japanese claims that they are using nano-crystal steel in their newest Type 10 tank.

The US Army Future Combat Systems had a 20-29 tons heavy universal combat platform designated MGV (Manned Ground Vehicle), one of requirements was to provide platform with frontal protection against 45mm automatic cannons. For a platform with such weight and very thin armor, it could not be possible to achieve required protection levels without use of advanced armor solutions, and possible nanotechnology based materials.

So what we will gain here, thanks to these materials?

-Increased survivability trough improved armor protection.
-Reduced platform weight.
-Different platforms possible implementation.
-Other benefits.

The only problems that needs to be solved is how to manufacture ADNR's cheap, efficently, in form of armor plating, and in huge numbers. But when these problems will be solved, we can have real revolution in protection means.

Ah and there is also other benefit, currently used composite armors are divided in to two types, passive and reactive, passive type is using more efficnetly it's cavity space but is also less efficent against ammunition, while reactive type to work needs some space inside it's cavity, making it more effective against ammunition, but less efficently using space of it's cavity.

ADNR could have both, better efficency in using space, more efficent in projectile defeating, and it will be lighter.

The question is how many countries is investing in to nanotechnology applications in armor protection? I know USA is, there was a lot of talk about these materials in 1990's on different AUSA's. Germany is, Japan of course, thanks to Kunal Biswas I know that India is making some steps there, I know that in my country there are probably some very early conceptual works. France perhaps, UK?

Well probably all countries with advanced industrial and scientific base.

As a side note, with such armor technology, it can be interesting to actually see a ressurection of the Dreadnought/Battleship concept in Navies of the most advanced nations, or perhaps something similiar to Arsenal Ship concept from USA.

So You see, there are materials stronger than these used today, yet lighter. Think about this, weight is not indicator of protection.
 
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sayareakd

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kanchan was tested against Isreali tank ammo, if you dont consider it modern enough we cant help it.
Problem is that everything in GOI covers under offcials secret act, in which possession of info from official record is crime, and if proven very long jail term, more sensative if it is relating to defence, therefor you wont get much info on any subject of Indian defence.
 

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