Arjun vs T90 MBT

STGN

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But the turret is not 3.5m wide over the front it can't be, hell the tank is only 3.864m wide and tracks is supposedly 3.54m from left to right a few pictures of the tank in profile tells us that the turret is not 3.5m wide. Using the MK1 eyeball Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) Pictures these pics tells us the turret is max ~3m wide and scaling down from 3.5 to 3 gives us Leo2 figures again.
STGN
 

Damian

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Yeah I agree, 1,000mm is completely unrealistic, it would made turret balance problematic as additiona volume would add significant weight, that could not be compensate by the thinner armors weight of other turret surfaces.
 

Archer

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Flaws in Arjun MK-1:

1. Gunner Sight placement.

2. Big mantel..

3. Thin side Armour Turret..
Kunal, don't buy into the rubbish posted by some of the self appointed experts. None of these are flaws per se.
1. The armor modules behind the GMS extend further into the tank then on the other side. The equivalent protection is similar.
2. The gun mantle is not a weak spot either - check its design and it becomes obvious what it is, no need to specify further.
3. The weak sides are only towards the turret rear, the front storage box as i recall was replaced with a further armor module. The Army always asked for the Arjun as a tank killer & hence its frontal arc is what was focused on, not a full 270 or 360 degree armor arc for the turret. As things stand the Arjun is expected to fight toe to toe with its turret facing forward & line abreast (thats what the Army trains for) and it has the reach advantage thanks to a better FCS+ Gun combo. Which is why its hilarious to see some of the armchair comments here about rifled guns being an issue etc etc. Fact of the matter is that way back in 2003, one of the known Arjun baiters reluctantly conceded to me - that if we had "this" - pointing to an Arjun gun on "that" - pointing to a T-72, we'd be unbeatable. Its a different story that DRDO tried that with the Tank-ex only to have the Army point out that it was not going to work on account of the substantial reengineering involved which would mean cost and time, whereas the Army wanted something "simple" and "quick". And hence the much hyped Project Rhino continued.
As usual, the fast speaking arms merchants - in this case the Poles - conned them with the Drawa-T FCS only to have that POS clunk out when trialled out in India and it was quickly replaced with Israeli TISAS only for the Army to realize even these had limitations (though they were significantly better than the DRAWA). Only now, the TISAS purchases continue even as the Army continues to dance around looking for a full FCS solution that can fit into the ergonomic nightmare that is the T-72 turret.
Every year like clockwork - one more news report about the T-72 and how it will be upgraded etc etc. Akin to wasting money.
 

militarysta

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But the turret is not 3.5m wide over the front it can't be, hell the tank is only 3.864m wide and tracks is supposedly 3.54m from left to right a few pictures of the tank in profile tells us that the turret is not 3.5m wide. Using the MK1 eyeball Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) Pictures these pics tells us the turret is max ~3m wide and scaling down from 3.5 to 3 gives us Leo2 figures again.
STGN
In that scenario - I agree.
I just need one propper Arjun mesurment.
 

Archer

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BTW: Kanchan looks like armour very cloe to the polish CAWA-2 armour (late 1990s.) If someone want I can wrote smth about CAWA-2 and it's perforamance. Mass Efficensy, thickens effciency, etc.
Unless you know what is in Kanchan (of today), how can you know that it is similar to whatever CAWA-2 was?
FYI, Kanchan is just the name of the program more or less now. Its been upgraded several times over. The Kanchan of today has nothing to do with the Kanchan of the early 90's which would have little to do with the Kanchan of the '80s. Do understand that the Arjun program does not happily add improvements with each improvement noted as such. Documentation just states the Arjun FCS as director type, image stabilized. What it does not mention is that the original Arjun FCS was analog. Todays is digital and far improved (the best the original did on the move consistently, was 70% Pk, the current does 90%+ ), the thermal imager was a Gen1. Todays is Gen3 & so forth...
In some cases, thanks to the Army's protracted trials going on & on & on - the DRDO just stopped with further improvement till the baseline was accepted. For instance the ammunition (HESH & FSAPDS) are as they were designed in the 80's and prototyped/developed way back in the early 1990's. Today better tech is available with DRDO itself but there was no point in putting an entirely new ammo line into production when the Army was still hedging its bets on the Arjun and only asked for 124 tanks. The same occurred with the engine as there was no incentive to move on from the 1400 hp powerpack.
Armour & a lot of other systems were a different bet however, since the DRDO kept developing further variants & could put them into LSP. The Arjun is regarded as the most heavily armoured tank simply because the DRDO was conservative. Instead of making fine adjustments to the armor package and then jumping through hoops each time the Army got worried over some new munition finding its way to Pakistan, they simply piled on as much as they could. To the level that there are vids online where you have Army instructors waving their hands at Arjuns and simply saying "nothing will get through that".. do you think that stopped the Army from asking for more though? Their point was next that Arjun modules were not easily field replaceable on the field of battle and ATGMs were very common and multiple strikes would degrade arrays. Hence ERA came along. Today, they are asking for active defense systems as they are not even sure that the extra armor alone is future proof.
Basically, being a completely offensive arm, the Army wants to have its armour operate independently with minimum resupply and support. The end result of limited investments into artillery have meant that tanks are the one area where India has many of, and hence have to become jack of all trades. The end result is that tanks like the Arjun become victims of scope creep. The lack of a proper technology directorate within the Army with a dedicated view of armor warfare makes it evident during such times. The US comes out with some new gizmo on its tanks and Janes will report same, means that Army will ask for it on the Arjun..
But using these constant "Asks" to develop a view of whats happening, without the context, is an effort which will go nowhere..there are Army officers who were involved with the Arjun development (it was originally the child of the Armys own EME) who have become fed up of the constant upgrades and "lets add this" mentality..
 

militarysta

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. As things stand the Arjun is expected to fight toe to toe with its turret facing forward & line abreast (thats what the Army trains for) and it has the reach advantage thanks to a better FCS+ Gun combo. Which is why its hilarious to see some of the armchair comments here about rifled guns being an issue etc etc.
It's funny when You describe this in that style when Ajrun gun don't look to be better then KBA from Ukraine (pak. T-80U) or we consider that Idnian army havent AFSDS able to kill frontally T-80UD or ZTZ-98 tank. IMHO its even more funny when we look ad avaible in India tank ammo...

Unless you know what is in Kanchan (of today), how can you know that it is similar to whatever CAWA-2 was?
In those opinnion I was based on previos post about Kanchan in this topic. And mix RHA, ceramis and light aloys plates present in those posts was base for that opinnion.
 

militarysta

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CAWA-2:

CAWA-2 -230mm thick
witness plate 100mm thick
EDIT : in case tandem SC warhed (double HEAT warhed) during test ERAWA- was placed on CAWA-2 module. So propably that's the reson of sucht hight (1000mm RHA) protection becouse layout was:
ERAWA-2 ERA + CAWA-2 module + basic T-72M1 hull armour -whole as 1000mm RHA against double SC warhed.

EDIT-2
On draw:
blue : RHA plates whit more then 300HB scale
brown: ceramic tiles
gray: Kevlar/Twaron layer as layer which "hold" ceramics tiles
light blue: intermediate RHA - layer after Kevlar/Twaron layer.

EDIT-3
CAWA-2 armour mass efficiency is about 1.60 vs APFSDS
CAWA-2 armour thickness efficiency is about 1.16 vs APFSDS
 
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ersakthivel

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http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/indian-army/9558-arjun-main-battle-tank-mbt-258.html#post654464
post no-3860 by archer, for people forever doubting what is the capability of the arjun rifled gun, and what is the penetration level of ammo,

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/Special/184-Arjun-Experiment.html
On 08 April 2005, a symposium/roundtable conference was held in New Delhi by SAPRA India which covered the Arjun MBT project among other indigenous projects conducted in India. The most stimulating segment of the Arjun MBT discussion was a speech by Lt. Gen. Niranjan S. Malik, a former Deputy Chief of Army Staff. He rubbished the claims about the tank's mobility & size and even praised the Arjun! B
can get their doubts cleared.
 
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ersakthivel

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But the turret is not 3.5m wide over the front it can't be, hell the tank is only 3.864m wide and tracks is supposedly 3.54m from left to right a few pictures of the tank in profile tells us that the turret is not 3.5m wide. Using the MK1 eyeball Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) Pictures these pics tells us the turret is max ~3m wide and scaling down from 3.5 to 3 gives us Leo2 figures again.
STGN
Turret width of 3200 mm is my estimate.
if you don't even know what is the real width of arjun turret how are you venturing to give us estimates regarding the arjun'g armor thickness?
Doesn't it sound laughable?
Most of the people who use dimensionless 3 d models have no idea about the real dimensions of arjun.
 
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ersakthivel

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In that scenario - I agree.
I just need one propper Arjun mesurment.
You don't have a single proper measurement of arjun is my contention.For example up to now you don't know what is the turret width of arjun.But estimating the armor protection levels of ARJUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was a picture already posted by Kunal biswas which explicitly stated the turret width of arjun as 3.2 meters in this forum.have you guys ever seen it.If you don't recognize something that is thrust in front of your eyes, where are you going to get proper measurements.

Once again let me repeat to all visually challenged ,geometrically challenged,dimensionally challenged people here ARJUN is lower in height ,wider in width and longer in length than leo.SO the space for armor is more in arjun .
 
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pmaitra

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Forgive me for not using blue dotted lines to extend the lines on the top of the turret I think it was getting too cluttered so I used green lines instead. But I did add some blue dottet lines to show the edges of the mantle from the front now tell me the purpose, please.
STGN
I think there is some approximation error (optical illusion in the image?) in those green lines, as pointed out by @ersakthivel. I think the model by @Dejawolf is close to accurate. My estimate would be like this below (context is turret @Damian).



Click the link below and zoom in to get a close look:
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1027/arjunmantelloshatch.png
 
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ersakthivel

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The length marked in red line for the gun plate is 11140 mm.
If we measure the gun plate's width on the screen it is 54mm on scale.
The thick blue dotted lines or 7 mm distance away from the edge of the gun plate on both sides(if we measure it with scale on the screen)
So a total of 14 mm extra on both sides.
So 54 +14 mm =68 mm is the distance enclosed between the thick blue dotted lines.
Since the 1140 mm gun plate occupies 54 mm scale length on the screen,
The distance between the TWO thick blue dotted lines should be 1400 mm to occupy 68 mm width on screen

The two thick blue dotted lines on the turret front view photo are 1440 mm apart is my estimate.

The thick blue dotted line reaches right at the center of the two crew hatch holes.

So each crew hatch hole is located 720 mm away from the center line(drawn along the length of the gun) of the gun barrel.




But if you see the photo of the Tank commander's seat from the top of crew hatch opening ,

FROM the picture posted below ,it is quite evident that the right hand side edge of the commander's seat finishes well before the center of the crew hatch circle, because you can see the opening for the crew hatch well right of the Tc seat.


the position of the vision block is marked well right of where it should have been near the crew center.

because the TC is almost inline with the gunner not sitting besides him to his right .



There is an elbow room of close to 200 (at the max )mm available for the TC from the outer right hand side edge of the Tc's seat to the inner side wall of the crew compartment.


So the inside wall of the crew compartment is 920 mm away from the turret center line.


The width of the arjun hull is 3200 mm as per the pics posted here.So from the centerline of the turret outter wall is 1600 mm away .

So 1600-920=680 mm space is available for TURRET SIDE armor till the crew hatch from the turret front.

A margin of error of about 100 mm should be factored in this calculation because of the rough estimation .

After the crew hatch center ,storage boxes start which will deduct 200 mm from this space for armor.
So it must be 460 mm along the storage boxes.

But this deduction for storage boxes may be wrong because after the elbow room besides the Tank commander the inner side wall of the turret curves inside negating any reduction of armor besides the storage boxes.

Any clarification on these calculation can be debated.
 
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ersakthivel

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Now for the front armor estimation


The red box scribbled(vision block i suppose) is actually not in front of the Tc's seat,.the position of the vision block is marked well right of where it should have been near the crew center to justify all the wrong estimates for frontal and side armor is my guess.

that is the reason why the crew hole is cut off in the 3d illustration posted by DEJAWOLF.

What is right infront of the TC's seat is the big white display panel which is just 500 mm before his face(estimation based on the length of his arm)
Since the inside hull compartment is not an exact rectangular cubicle,
it seems to be right in front of the Tc's seat because of parallax error.

So this red scribbled box is not behind the cutaway for main sight on the turret front.
It is in fact some where between the cutaway and the turret center line.

The distance between the red scribbled vision block box and the big white display panel is roughly equivalent to the depth of the cutaway for the sight on the turret front.

Since the inside hull compartment is not an exact rectangular cubicle , we have no acceptable way of knowing where the crew compartment wall starts behind the big white display.

So in theory at least nothing prevents arjun turret from having the same level of protection behind the cutaway for main gunner's sight and behind the gun mantlet as KUNAL said.

But the ammo storage sidewall is still further inside of the side wall as obvious from this picture.

So it can have as much possible armor thickness as desired by the design team is my contention.

So a direct hit on it will be quite impossible.


it is this picture posted on this thread from which I derived 3200 mm width of arjun turret to base my calculation for side turret armor,which all the contesting 3Dmodelists should be aware of .

the supposed vision block (scribbled in the red )is not right behind the gunner's main sight is my view.
The big white display box must be the one behind the sight .
 
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STGN

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I think there is some approximation error (optical illusion in the image?) in those green lines, as pointed out by @ersakthivel. I think the model by @Dejawolf is close to accurate. My estimate would be like this below (context is turret @Damian).




Click the link below and zoom in to get a close look:
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1027/arjunmantelloshatch.png
If your are referring to green line changing direction half way its not optical illusion its because the front turret roof is sloped and the rear turret roof is horizontal. So the angle in relation to the camera changes and they should not be straight. There is off cause some approximation error though I don't think its note worthy great for the purpose of the image, to illustrate the width of the area behind the mantle.
STGN
 
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ersakthivel

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The length marked in red line for the gun plate is 1140 mm.
If we measure the gun plate's width on the screen it is 54mm on scale.
The thick blue dotted lines or 7 mm distance away from the edge of the gun plate on both sides(if we measure it with scale on the screen)
So a total of 14 mm extra on both sides.
So 54 +14 mm =68 mm is the distance enclosed between the thick blue dotted lines.

Since the 1140 mm gun plate occupies 54 mm scale length on the screen,

The distance between the TWO thick blue dotted lines should be 1440 mm to occupy 68 mm width on screen.


The distance between the TWO thick blue dotted lines is the marked as green carpeted area whose width is 1400mm

The two thick blue dotted lines (picture on the top)on the turret front view photo are 1440 mm apart is my estimate.
It encloses the green carpeted area.

The thick blue dotted line (the green carpeted area's right and left border lines )reaches right at the center of the two crew hatch holes.

So each crew hatch hole is located 720 mm away from the center line(drawn along the length of the gun) of the gun barrel.

But if you see the photo of the Tank commander's seat from the top of crew hatch opening ,

FROM the picture posted below ,it is quite evident that the right hand side edge of the commander's seat finishes well before the center of the crew hatch circle, because you can see the opening for the crew hatch well right of the Tc seat.


the position of the vision block is marked well right of where it should have been near the crew center.

because the TC is almost inline with the gunner not sitting besides him to his right .
Most of his body is enclosed within the the green carpeted area's right and left border lines



There is an elbow room of close to 200 (at the max )mm available for the TC from the outer right hand side edge of the Tc's seat to the inner side wall of the crew compartment.


So the inside wall of the crew compartment is 920 mm away from the turret center line.


The width of the arjun hull is 3200 mm as per the pics posted here.So from the centerline of the turret outter wall is 1600 mm away .

So 1600-920=680 mm space is available for TURRET SIDE armor till the crew hatch from the turret front.

A margin of error of about 100 mm should be factored in this calculation because of the rough estimation .

After the crew hatch center ,storage boxes start which will deduct 200 mm from this space for armor.
So it must be 460 mm along the storage boxes.

But this deduction for storage boxes may be wrong because after the elbow room besides the Tank commander the inner side wall of the turret curves inside negating any reduction of armor besides the storage boxes.

Any clarification on these calculation can be debated.
---------------------------------------------------------------

The red box scribbled(vision block i suppose) is actually not in front of the Tc's seat,.the position of the vision block is marked well right of where it should have been near the crew center to justify all the wrong estimates for frontal and side armor is my guess.

Actually the vision block or the red scribbled box is situated between the the green carpeted area's right and left border lines

that is the reason why the crew hole is cut off in the 3d illustration posted by DEJAWOLF.

What is right infront of the TC's seat is the big white display panel ,
(Outside the the green carpeted area)
which is just 500 mm before his face(estimation based on the length of his arm)

Since the inside hull compartment is not an exact rectangular cubicle,
it seems to be right in front of the Tc's seat because of parallax error.

So this red scribbled box is not behind the cutaway for main sight on the turret front.

The cutaway for gunner's main sight is outside the the green carpeted area ,

some where between the cutaway and the turret center line.

The distance between the red scribbled vision block box and the big white display panel is roughly equivalent to the depth of the cutaway for the sight on the turret front.

Since the inside hull compartment is not an exact rectangular cubicle , we have no acceptable way of knowing where the crew compartment wall starts behind the big white display.

So in theory at least nothing prevents arjun turret from having the same level of protection behind the cutaway for main gunner's sight and behind the gun mantlet as KUNAL said.

But the ammo storage sidewall is still further inside of the side wall as obvious from this picture.

So it can have as much possible armor thickness as desired by the design team is my contention.

So a direct hit on it will be quite impossible.


it is this picture posted on this thread from which I derived 3200 mm width of arjun turret to base my calculation for side turret armor,which all the contesting 3Dmodelists should be aware of .

the supposed vision block (scribbled in the red )is not right behind the gunner's main sight is my view.
The big white display box must be the one behind the sight .
 
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militarysta

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it is this picture posted on this thread from which I derived 3200 mm width of arjun turret to base my calculation
If Arjun turret is "only" 3200mm width then armour LOS looks like that:
frontal turret armour: 900mm LOS
armour block behind main sight: 450mm LOS
turret sides at 30.: 500-520mm LOS
thin turret sides after boxes at 90: ~50mm thick
gun mantled mask 450-460mm LOS
 

ersakthivel

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If Arjun turret is "only" 3200mm width then armour LOS looks like that:
frontal turret armour: 900mm LOS
armour block behind main sight: 450mm LOS
turret sides at 30.: 500-520mm LOS
thin turret sides after boxes at 90: ~50mm thick
gun mantled mask 450-460mm LOS
I have explained the rationale behind my calculation in the post above.What is the logic behind your calculation.
Don't say it is based on pixel counts.You can explain your reasons as well.
The width of the green carpeted area in the photo below is 1440 mm, if we take the frontal gun mantlet plate's width as 1140 mm , which was posted by KUnal biswas.


So I am accurately basing my calculations on this being true.
Then these calculations explained in my last post with least probability of error leads to my conclusion,

That 1600-920=680 mm space is available for TURRET SIDE armor till the crew hatch from the turret front.

A margin of error of about 100 mm should be factored in this calculation because of the rough estimation .

And a frontal turret armor all across the frontal turret can be uniform with no shortage of armor behind the gunner's main sight as I explained in my above post.
 
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militarysta

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I have explained the rationale behind my calculation in the post above.What is the logic behind your calculation.
Don't say it is based on pixel counts.You can explain your reasons as well.
The width of the green carpeted area in the photo above is
They are two simple method to calculate this:
a) have propper gun mantled mask width
b) have propper draw and good turret (or hull) width
I recalculate whole avaible draw, and photos using knowin values, and sorry but there is no option to values given by You. Avaible options where posted in previous draws.

btw values for Leopard-2A4 are not accurate:
 
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ersakthivel

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They are two simple method to calculate this:
a) have propper gun mantled mask width
b) have propper draw and good turret (or hull) width
I recalculate whole avaible draw, and photos using knowin values, and sorry but there is no option to values given by You. Avaible options where posted in previous draws.

btw values for Leopard-2A4 are not accurate:
Without these how could dejawolf and damian and methos are posting wrong armor thickness for arjun all over the net?
Is it correct according to you?


Your earlier estimates of armor are also wrong as per your statements in the above post.

Once a debate is started you just cannot slip away after arguing for 80 pages ,
ARJUN has no worthwhile armor ,
because while it followed the protection philosophy of western MBTs,
it's designers erred in following russian armor philosophy for the placement of armor plates!!!!!!!!

all through these 80 pages and in many forums across the net.

So the above wrong determination by DAMIAN , METHOS, DEJAWOLF is goose shit .Isn't it?
,

otherwise they are at liberty to refute it.
 
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STGN

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Tells us again how you estimated 3.2 meters width?

This is of cause not 100% accurate but it clearly shows that 3.2 is way overestimated.
The tank would have some big hips if you where right.
 

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