Arjun vs T90 MBT

[sayareakd]

As a matter of fact, T-90MS is expected to cost Rs 28 Crores while Arjun will cost over Rs 40 Crores according to CVRDE.

ok lets see what we will get for Rs.28 crore, just base model, which can take ONLY Russian ammo,
No APU
No AC
No Shtora-1 countermeasures suite
No source code for fire control computer.
No gun tech if you pay to make tank in India.
No armor tech even if you pay for complete TOT.

when you order for next round of ammo, Russians will charge, 3 times, no wait 5 times the price of ammo. BTW what will be finally sold will be export version.
In war if you want to repair tank, send it to Russia. Tell enemy to wait for some time till we get back our tank. If war with China then ask the tank to be send from other side of the world, provided we fought tank war on China border.

 

[Damian]

ok lets see what we will get for Rs.28 crore, just base model, which can take ONLY Russian ammo,
No APU
No AC
No Shtora-1 countermeasures suite
No source code for fire control computer.
No gun tech if you pay to make tank in India.
No armor tech even if you pay for complete TOT.

when you order for next round of ammo, Russians will charge, 3 times, no wait 5 times the price of ammo. BTW what will be finally sold will be export version.
In war if you want to repair tank, send it to Russia. Tell enemy to wait for some time till we get back our tank. If war with China then ask the tank to be send from other side of the world, provided we fought tank war on China border.

T-90MS have APU, A/C unit, Shtora-1 is obsolete system, not needed any more, and it interferes with ERA placement, so it is better to not have it.

 

[Decklander]

Firstly Ajai Shukla is a retd Major and not a Col.
Now do you realise when line of sight targetting is not available how important is to have netcentric warfare. Someone else can illuminate the target for you. Thats what Spike & Javelin missiles do.
Arjun had the AC from very beggining.
The cost of Arjun will come down by over 35% if ordered in same numbers as T-90 this has been explained by DRDO many times.
Arjun is Indian and was under development in 2000-2001. But can you explain repeat orders for T-90 and lack of support from IA for Arjun?

I do not know if you are married. But if you are married and have no kids at this point of time, wud you put off children bcoz you have no logistics for them today?
When you induct a new weapon system you create the logistics chain much before that.
IA never wanted to support Arjun as T-90 and russians ensured great money to generals. So they never created the infra for Arjun.

 

[sayareakd]

T-90MS have APU, A/C unit, Shtora-1 is obsolete system, not needed any more, and it interferes with ERA placement, so it is better to not have it.

T90 has APU but when they sold T90S it was absent, no AC was given, despite paying for TOT we did't get what we paid for. Now ammo price has raised to 4 times it cost. It is smart move by Russians first they sell tank at cheap rate, then they know that we are in their trap, they then sky rocket the price of all things including ammo for the tank, since they know that we cant go any where. So in the end we end up paying more then Arjun tank.

 

[Damian]

Now do you realise when line of sight targetting is not available how important is to have netcentric warfare. Someone else can illuminate the target for you. Thats what Spike & Javelin missiles do.

Again wrong. FGM-148 Javelin is a F&F missile, which means you need to see a target through your CLU untill missile won't lock on it, then you fire and missile will fly to target alone. In Spike it works different because there is still cable, so you can fire it in F&F mode or guide it through cable.

And this have nothing to do with netcentric warfare.

T90 has APU but when they sold T90S it was absent, no AC was given, despite paying for TOT we did't get what we paid for. Now ammo price has raised to 4 times it cost. It is smart move by Russians first they sell tank at cheap rate, then they know that we are in their trap, they then sky rocket the price of all things including ammo for the tank, since they know that we cant go any where. So in the end we end up paying more then Arjun tank.

But who's fault is this? Russians or maybe Indian procurement system, that instead of making big international competition, with many designs to be offered, close the whole deal to two designs only.

If India wan't fair game, then should invite as many developers as possible from around the world, when competition is high, then there is bigger probability that the best choice for armed forces will be made. And will force all competitors to make more atractive proposals.

 

[p2prada]

P2P what quality issues?

He did not mention anything in detail. Just that the units are complaining about quality of the tank.

 

[p2prada]

ok lets see what we will get for Rs.28 crore, just base model, which can take ONLY Russian ammo,
No APU
No AC
No Shtora-1 countermeasures suite
No source code for fire control computer.
No gun tech if you pay to make tank in India.
No armor tech even if you pay for complete TOT.

Some are wrong and some are speculations on your part. T-90MS comes with APU and AC, we don't need Shtora. Source code for computers depends on the computer going on board the T-90. Last reports indicated we will have an indigenous computer, even Archer pointed out the same during our discussions. We received gun tech, OFB made official disclosure. Armour cannot be provided by Russian law, but we are using Kanchan on T-90, another disclosure by OFB.

This "only Russian ammo" thing can also be crappy information. It may have been true when 340 odd tanks were purchased the first time and perhaps the Russian contract would have mentioned limited ToT for such a small number. Once the 1000 tank order came, they released ToT, including gun. But this wasn't a Russian leak, it was a OFB leak. We merely do not have info on the status of this deal.

We destroyed thousands of Indian ammo because of faulty design. We banned IMI from any Indian tender, so no shells. The only imports can be Russia, we recently chose Russia, but the shell quantity at 60000 or 66000 is too low. So, it indicates something else is cooking. We only have Russian ammo today and is better than what's on Arjun, so what's the problem?

Half the information is very bad after all.

 

[sayareakd]

P2P till yesterday you didnt have info if T90S had APU or not.

you are speculating price of T90MS

 

[p2prada]

Firstly Ajai Shukla is a retd Major and not a Col.

Is that so? My bad.

When was he demoted? Before retirement or after? The last I heard he called himself a Col(retd).

Anyway, he is a bigger Arjun supporter than you are. But he also flipflops between T- series and Arjun every 5 years or so. He had a glowing report on the T-90s only last year.

Arjun had the AC from very beggining.

No it does not.

The cost of Arjun will come down by over 35% if ordered in same numbers as T-90 this has been explained by DRDO many times.
Arjun is Indian and was under development in 2000-2001. But can you explain repeat orders for T-90 and lack of support from IA for Arjun?

The Army does not buy tanks like how the Navy or Air force buy ships and aircraft.

There is one tank for all purposes. The expenses in running a tank army in enemy territory during war is too difficult and too expensive for a second type of tank to be justified. That's why only the Russians have plans for a 4th gen tank compared to other richer western economies who already have large 3rd gen tanks.

We have orders for 1600+ T-90s, add another 346 to bring the number to around 2000. We already have 2414 T-72s, many of which are expected to be upgraded over time, that's guaranteed. If we buy an equal number of Arjuns today, which is at the same level as the T-90, then we will be the laughing stock of the whole world.

Arjun is advanced only because it is a more recent development, that's it. Nothing more. All the advantages Arjun has over the T-90, can be fixed very quickly on the T-90. All the advantages the T-90 has over the Arjun, can never change, except a few parameters like changing the gun to smoothbore.

I do not know if you are married. But if you are married and have no kids at this point of time, wud you put off children bcoz you have no logistics for them today?

Bad comparison.

When you induct a new weapon system you create the logistics chain much before that.

In case of the T-90, the IA did not have to. Everything already existed. See the advantage here.

IA never wanted to support Arjun as T-90 and russians ensured great money to generals. So they never created the infra for Arjun.

It is obviously a false accusation and stems from your own ignorance about tanks.

Sir, there is no major technical superiority the Arjun has over the T-90, instead there are inferior aspects on the Arjun itself. Apart from that, Arjun did not exist until 2010. In 2007, DRDO and MoD forced Indian Army to accept a lemon at reduced GSQR specs and they publicly said all problems will be fixed during production. The Mk1 cannot fire the Lahat, it does not have better ammo, infact nobody can help here because we are using a rifled gun and unique ammo. It's current ammo is half a decade behind the older Russian ammos used on the T-90S.

Arjun has a slight electronics edge, given the Israeli involvement after 2005, but that's about it.

PS: Let's not demote the good Col.

 

[p2prada]

P2P till yesterday you didnt have info if T90S had APU or not.

you are speculating price of T90MS

It is not my speculation. Shukla said IA will be buying 346 T-90MS in a Rs 10000 Crore deal. Comes to Rs 29 Crore/tank.

 

[sayareakd]

It is not my speculation. Shukla said IA will be buying 346 T-90MS in a Rs 10000 Crore deal. Comes to Rs 29 Crore/tank.

lets wait for official figures, Russians are known to play with price and jack up now and then.

 

[p2prada]

Now do you realise when line of sight targetting is not available how important is to have netcentric warfare. Someone else can illuminate the target for you. Thats what Spike & Javelin missiles do.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, Mk1 cannot fire Lahat. This was old by CVRDE chief himself. The Mk2 will and that won't be ready until 2014 and the first regiment will take 2 years after that, looking at the piss poor production rate of 20-30 Arjuns/year.

Comparatively the current standard is 100/year for T-90 and to be upgraded to 150/year from this year. That's 3 regiments a year.

According to Shukla, out of the 1000 tank order to HVF, they have finished the first tranche of 300 tanks and are waiting for the second tranche to be ordered by the Army. So, that's 650 delivered by Russia and 300+ delivered by HVF. Around 650 tanks are left pending. And Arjun took 5 years to fulfill the order for 124 tanks. Yeah, right. Also, let's not forget HVF has been making the T-72s for over 35 years now, the T-90s would have come without the kind of quality issues that Arjun units are complaining about now.

This was never about T-90s and Arjuns. This has always been about T-90s or Arjuns. The T-90s beat the Arjun using a 10 year head start. So, no need to blame the Army for not inducting a half baked lemon. Rather you should be impressed that the Army did not cave to MoD and DRDO pressure in inducting the Arjun and instead go for something that they actually needed.

With a dedicated logistics infrastructure already present, humongous amount of experience working on a similar type of tank + an excellent backup provided by the industry for the said tank + the repeated failure of Arjun during trials, also where the electronics in 2000 was all analog and a generation behind the T-90S at the time, is the reason why the T-90 beat the Arjun by a very long shot.

Your claims of Russians paying our Generals and viceversa falls flat on the face in light of these simple facts.

Edit: I forgot to add a very important point. Since we are debating about the employability of the tanks in battle, I forgot to mention that the Arjun Mk1 is incapable of carrying a mine trawl. Perhaps this is something more important than a APU when your army is consistently on the offensive.

 

[p2prada]

lets wait for official figures, Russians are known to play with price and jack up now and then.

Sure we can, I have no problem. But it won't be at the level of the Arjun Mk2, especially since the infrastructure costs are negligible for the T-90MS.

 

[sayareakd]

Sure we can, I have no problem. But it won't be at the level of the Arjun Mk2, especially since the infrastructure costs are negligible for the T-90MS.

yeah and Russians are asking for more and more time money, reminded me of great Indian robbery.

 

[sayareakd]

But who's fault is this? Russians or maybe Indian procurement system, that instead of making big international competition, with many designs to be offered, close the whole deal to two designs only.

If India wan't fair game, then should invite as many developers as possible from around the world, when competition is high, then there is bigger probability that the best choice for armed forces will be made. And will force all competitors to make more atractive proposals.

I think it is our fault, we have allow it to happen, Russian contacts are too much deep rooted with arms dealers with big bags full of black money. Plus most of Indian officers on key posts are managed by them. They make sure that their guy get the post.

 

[p2prada]

yeah and Russians are asking for more and more time money, reminded me of great Indian robbery.

You asked me not to speculate on the price, which wasn't my own anyway. So, now I would ask you not to speculate needlessly.

 

[pmaitra]

Edit: I forgot to add a very important point. Since we are debating about the employability of the tanks in battle, I forgot to mention that the Arjun Mk1 is incapable of carrying a mine trawl. Perhaps this is something more important than a APU when your army is consistently on the offensive.

We had discussed this long time back, and this is not at all an important point, given that we already use T-55 Minesweepers.

 

[p2prada]

We had discussed this long time back, and this is not at all an important point, given that we already use T-55 Minesweepers.

You mean the ones that are phased out?

I am sure you meant the T-72s. But even then tank regiments don't always hunt in grouped packs like that. There will be a lot of scenarios where only one or two regiments will be running around with the same tank type.

We don't know the distribution of tanks within the strike forces today. What if there is a strike corps with only T-90s and no T-72s or T-55s? What if instead of T-90s there were only Arjuns? What would happen if a mine trawl is needed? Wait for a T-55? That will take days. You plan ahead after all.

Arjun Mk2 will have one. But at the same time Arjun Mk2 has far higher weight and without a change in the engine. When will this tank come? Well after 2014. And that is if the trials are successful.

If a trawl wasn't required then it wouldn't have been part of the field testing parameters in 1998, where Arjun Mk1 was attached with a trawl and the engine seized.

Like I said, one tank for all purposes. There are no specialized tanks for specialized roles, especially placing a tank like the T-55 at the head of a convoy of Arjuns in a minefield.

 

[pmaitra]

@p2prada, no I meant T fifty five.

They were used in exercise IIRC last year.

Edit: Added picture.

T-55 Minesweeper.

 

[Austin]

Recent video on T-90MS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRFg3Upzukc