No its not...ask Kozzy...It is generally known that the T-90 and T-80UM is better than the Arjun.
And in 1997 the problems surfaced. I still don't see any information regarding these problems. I can probably see that they fixed it, but how do you
know for sure?
What? Recognized by whom?
The Arjun and the T-90 are designed for different roles. A direct comparison between them without taking into consideration the operational scenario
in which they will be employed is inane.
The Arjun is by all respects a superior performing tank with superior capabilities... but it also has a significantly superior cost.
As for the problems, they were widely reported back in the day. Some unscrupulous people still refer to them a concern today
The subsequent
correcting of these problems is well detailed in the annual MOD reports, available online. The first batch of 124 Arjuns is slated to be inducted by
2008.
Originally posted by bisonn
the arjun is even so much better than the t-90 that the arjun was cancelled while hundreds of T-90s were ordered. end of story.
Bison, do you usually read by holding the book upside down, flipping to a random page, trying to make sense of the words on the page, fail, and than
triumpantly proclaim "The End!"
If so, than that is a brilliant analysis. However, garbaled understanding does not a story make. Rather than retype a response to the exact same
points, I'll simply repeat one of my posts from several weeks ago.
Cheers,
Raj
===========
As I said before, the Arjun was first brainstormed in the 80s to address Pakistan's planned aquisition of a Western heavy, which outclassed every
Indian tank at the time, and at the time, didn't have a Russian counter. The M1A1 sale was openly talked about by US offiicals and came at the time
where America poured billions in weapons for Pakistan, including high-profile a/c like F-16s. The Indians had T-55s, Vijayantas and old-model T-72s in
service at that time.
The Arjun project was concieved as a Western-style tank that would counter any Pak tank, but, because of reliabilitiy problems from Soviet equipement,
and to jump start India's own military-industrial complex, the Arjun was to be built in-house. Though it had a 20-year development cycle, the
requirements were changed almost yearly, and the DRDO was continually scrambling to change the specs of the tank.
As I also said before, the Abrams never came, and the Paks relied on knocked down Chinese tank designs. When India's economy started its boom, and
due to the events like 9-11, etc. the Indian army unveiled a new doctrine called "Cold Start", which did away with the concepts of striking and
holding corps, and restructured the Indian army for mobile, hard-hitting strike units. This tri-force integrated doctrine influenced defense
aquisition in a big way, and was one of the main reason the Arjun was limited to 2 rgmts.
The Arjun is an expensive, but powerful tank. It is a unique build that doesn't have much commonality with the rest of India's Russian-derived
armor. It requires significant additions to the IA's logisitics that, along with its price, makes it a very heavy investment.
With Indian advances in technology, and the tech stagnation of Pakistans armored divisions completely rewrote the equation. India's "Project Rhino"
T-72 upgrades more than countered Pak's fleet and aquisitions, and the T-90Ss, intially a stopgap measure due to initital Arjun delays, because they
didn't require major changes in logisitcs, and because they were a bit cheaper (though inferior, but still top-of-the-line), were inducted in large
scale.
The Cold Start doctrine and the fencing of the border and other changes in the geopolitical postition and doctrine made for the Arjun Mk.1 to be
inducted as only 2 rgmts, and the cost-savings from not having a full Arjun induction translated into big improvements in India's C3I, and
modernization infantry programs and aquisition of things like arty, rockets, etc.
Furthermore, you state that because Arjun does not have 100% major components as Indian, its a failure? While ot uses a German engine in the Mk.1,
well, the engine is still under development. Failure? If the Arjun can fire an Israeli origin ATGM, its a failure? Especially when the whole of the
rest of the weapons system, FCS, etc. are Indian? Dude, the M1A2 uses a German rifle!
And dude, if you're doing your research from Globalsecurity, no wonder you're so confused. Their Arjun page hasn't been updated in over half a
decade!
Let me give you the heads up on one of the best (and most up to date) resources on the Arjun. Autocar India magazine, India's most respected
automobile magazine, did an independant review of it as its cover story. It is considered a groud-breaking article, straight from the horse's mouth,
with independant-verification. It's considered a canon source document for defense researchers.
A PDF of the article is available at:
s90370077.onlinehome.us...
I suggest you, and any other Indian defense watchers first read that, rather than some website. Indian guys, save and make note of it. Note in
particular what the exactly foreign components are and the tank specs are in this millenium, and y'all won't make comments like "putting stuff
together from others instead of designing a new tank"
I won't debunk outdated claims.
In short, the decision was not to go with more Mk.1 versions because the money could better be spent elsewhere. An exact analogy can be made to
America's F-22 program. Initially, it was designed to replace the whole swath of America's fighters. However, program delays from changes in req's,
cost overruns cut the F-22 order down by over half. Instead, America's upgrading its F-16s, F-15s to extremely powerful new-block versions that,
while not F-22 capability and cost, are easily more than enough for the current needs. In the Indian context, replace F-22 with Arjun, and the others
with Russia's T-series.
Does this mean the F-22 is a failure? Does a delay in Arjun induction until the Mk.2 build mean failure for the Arjun? Absolutely not, when taken into
account money and doctrine. If India (or America) were awash with money, the whole of India's armored strike would be Arjuns (and the whole of the
USAF fighters would be F-22s.) That aside, even with the expense, it is a very powerful tank and bang-for-the-buck, (offering comparable, if inferior
capabilities to the Abrams, Leopard, but at half the cost -- even with the German engine.) Furthermore, Arjun spinoff-technologies make up the
majority of the T-72 Rhino upgrade, as well as in the T-90 and a myriad of other vehicles. It also literally developed the entire Indian armored
vehicle industry from scratch -- no small accomplishment!
When defense outlays and/or changing requirements require additional Arjuns in the future, they will be inducted in the Mk.2 version (ugpraded FCS,
Indian engine, etc.) Till now, no use, but hardly a failure. As the saying I'll invent goes... why have a fleet-full of MKIs when MiG-21 Bisons are
all you need?
