Place: Rajasthan
Month: March, 2010
Event: Comparative trials between Indian Arjun and Russian T 90 Main Battle Tanks
Result: Arjun emerges victorious. Surprises everyone by trouncing T 90 in almost every aspect of the trials.
Not long ago, many people had written off Arjun and had dubbed it as one of India's biggest failures. Those were the days when people would criticize Arjun at work and even when they were not at work! When Arjun was in its nascent stage (and hence not a platform as matured as the T 90), they would want India to shun this project, conveniently forgetting the fact that the legendary Israeli tank - Merkava also had many short comings to begin with, but Israel did not denounce this project. Instead, Israeli Army accepted this tank with all its limitations and continued to give its feedback to the scientists who used the same to fine tune the next batches of Merkava. That is how this tank went on to become one of the most admired tanks of the current generation. Had Israel accepted the 'brilliant' idea of the self proclaimed Indian Defence Pundits, then it would still have been importing its Main Battle Tank from a foreign country!
In their endeavour of belittling Arjun, the critics had forgotten the basic fact that even the best athlete of today must have fallen hundred times before standing on his feet for the first time. If India starts abandoning its defence projects, every time we face some problem, then we shall never be able to become a self dependent nation.
Some critics in the media have a problem with the Rs 300 crore spent on the R & D of Arjun. As per them, its an obscene amount of money! How I wish these guys did their home work before wagging their loose tongue. They should have perhaps looked at the balance sheet of Gillette, which spent nearly 4500 crore in the R & D of Gillette Mach 3 razors. Needless to say, the amount spent by Gillette on the R & D of a shaving razor is 15 times the amount invested by India in the R & D of its Main Battle Tank! Does the figure of 300 crore still look 'obscene' ? One of my friends-Mihir, who is a keen defence enthusiast once wrote:
"The USN spent $500 million on the F-111B (this in the sixties!!!) and finally rejected it. They spent $2 billion on the A-12 and had nothing but a wooden mockup to show for it. The US Army spent $5 billion on the M-2 Bradley – it was a huge headache to develop. The Crusader was scrapped after $11 billion spent. The Commanche after $8 billion.. The V-22 has been in development for the last 25+ years and is barely entering service now, after $20 billion spent in development and 30 lives lost."
Let our 'champions' in the media compare all these with the money given to DRDO, and they will know for themselves as to how deep in the water they stand !
Some people criticize Arjun for the presence of few foreign components. However, they forget that even the American M 1 Abrams Tanks have foreign components in the form of British armour, rifled gun, and a German 120 mm smoothbore gun!. They also forget that DRDO has constantly been replacing the foreign components of Arjun with their Indian counterparts. For example the track of Arjun which was earlier being supplied by Germany is now being manufactured locally by L & D. Similarly the current batch of Arjun uses imported engine and transmission. But DRDO has already started working on a more powerful 1500 HP indigenous engine. We are also developing our own transmission.
Many critics have been criticizing Arjun's weight. As per them, at 58.5 Tons Arjun is overweight! So let us have a look at the weight of some contemporary tanks which are considered to be the best in the business:
American Abrams M1A2 ===> 69.54 tons
German Leopard 2 ===> 60.79 tons
French Leclerc ===> 54.5 tons
Israeli Merkava ===> 65 tons
Russian T 90 ===> 46.5 tons
Even a casual glance at the above mentioned statistics is more than enough to inform the readers that barring the French Leclerc & the Russian T 90, all the other tanks of the world are heavier than Arjun. So does Arjun deserve the criticism on the issue of weight? Moreover, one must never compare Arjun with T 90 because Arjun provides far superior protection to its crew than the T 90. Its worth mentioning that in one of the tests, Arjun demonstrated its crew protection abilities by withstanding a shot from the T 72 at point blank range! Such level of protection does come for a price. Having said that, one must note that despite a higher weight, the pressure exerted by Arjun on ground is lower than the pressure exerted by T 90.
The amount of controversies and flak received by Arjun from its own people is something which no other weapon system of the world must have ever received. At one point of time, the coffin of Arjun was about to get its final nail, when Arjun's engine reportedly failed in one of the trials. Many supporters of Arjun cried fowl at this reported failure. Some of them hinted at a possible sabotage. No one knows what's the truth. But this compelled DRDO to install a Black Box type device inside Arjun as a precaution.
Undeterred by all the criticism, the makers of Arjun were so confident of its abilities, that they started pressing for comparative trials between Arjun and T 90. Unfortunately for them, the people at the helm of affairs would find some excuse or the other to run away from the comparative trials. However, after years of dilly delaying, Arjun was given a date with the T 90 and it rose from the ashes like the mythical bird Phoenix, by outclassing T 90 in almost all the parameters. Taken aback by the results, the Indian Army ordered more Arjuns for its fleet. DRDO is now working on the Mark II version of Arjun which shall be an improvement over the version of Arjun that took part in the comparative trials. But the biggest gain of the Arjun project will be visible in the Future Main Battle Tank, which shall be designed by DRDO by using its decades of experience & knowledge gained during the development of Arjun.
Related Reading:
(1). Arjun tank outruns, outguns Russian T - 90
(2). Arjun Experiment
(3). Arjun: India's Main Battle Tank (MBT) from T 80 to Generation Next
(4). Piercing the Army's armour of deception
Related discussion:
http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#CommMsgs?cmm=748139&tid=2544426200563600458
Month: March, 2010
Event: Comparative trials between Indian Arjun and Russian T 90 Main Battle Tanks
Result: Arjun emerges victorious. Surprises everyone by trouncing T 90 in almost every aspect of the trials.
 |
| India's indigenous MBT - Arjun |
In their endeavour of belittling Arjun, the critics had forgotten the basic fact that even the best athlete of today must have fallen hundred times before standing on his feet for the first time. If India starts abandoning its defence projects, every time we face some problem, then we shall never be able to become a self dependent nation.
Some critics in the media have a problem with the Rs 300 crore spent on the R & D of Arjun. As per them, its an obscene amount of money! How I wish these guys did their home work before wagging their loose tongue. They should have perhaps looked at the balance sheet of Gillette, which spent nearly 4500 crore in the R & D of Gillette Mach 3 razors. Needless to say, the amount spent by Gillette on the R & D of a shaving razor is 15 times the amount invested by India in the R & D of its Main Battle Tank! Does the figure of 300 crore still look 'obscene' ? One of my friends-Mihir, who is a keen defence enthusiast once wrote:
"The USN spent $500 million on the F-111B (this in the sixties!!!) and finally rejected it. They spent $2 billion on the A-12 and had nothing but a wooden mockup to show for it. The US Army spent $5 billion on the M-2 Bradley – it was a huge headache to develop. The Crusader was scrapped after $11 billion spent. The Commanche after $8 billion.. The V-22 has been in development for the last 25+ years and is barely entering service now, after $20 billion spent in development and 30 lives lost."
Let our 'champions' in the media compare all these with the money given to DRDO, and they will know for themselves as to how deep in the water they stand !
Some people criticize Arjun for the presence of few foreign components. However, they forget that even the American M 1 Abrams Tanks have foreign components in the form of British armour, rifled gun, and a German 120 mm smoothbore gun!. They also forget that DRDO has constantly been replacing the foreign components of Arjun with their Indian counterparts. For example the track of Arjun which was earlier being supplied by Germany is now being manufactured locally by L & D. Similarly the current batch of Arjun uses imported engine and transmission. But DRDO has already started working on a more powerful 1500 HP indigenous engine. We are also developing our own transmission.
Many critics have been criticizing Arjun's weight. As per them, at 58.5 Tons Arjun is overweight! So let us have a look at the weight of some contemporary tanks which are considered to be the best in the business:
American Abrams M1A2 ===> 69.54 tons
German Leopard 2 ===> 60.79 tons
French Leclerc ===> 54.5 tons
Israeli Merkava ===> 65 tons
Russian T 90 ===> 46.5 tons
Even a casual glance at the above mentioned statistics is more than enough to inform the readers that barring the French Leclerc & the Russian T 90, all the other tanks of the world are heavier than Arjun. So does Arjun deserve the criticism on the issue of weight? Moreover, one must never compare Arjun with T 90 because Arjun provides far superior protection to its crew than the T 90. Its worth mentioning that in one of the tests, Arjun demonstrated its crew protection abilities by withstanding a shot from the T 72 at point blank range! Such level of protection does come for a price. Having said that, one must note that despite a higher weight, the pressure exerted by Arjun on ground is lower than the pressure exerted by T 90.
The amount of controversies and flak received by Arjun from its own people is something which no other weapon system of the world must have ever received. At one point of time, the coffin of Arjun was about to get its final nail, when Arjun's engine reportedly failed in one of the trials. Many supporters of Arjun cried fowl at this reported failure. Some of them hinted at a possible sabotage. No one knows what's the truth. But this compelled DRDO to install a Black Box type device inside Arjun as a precaution.
Undeterred by all the criticism, the makers of Arjun were so confident of its abilities, that they started pressing for comparative trials between Arjun and T 90. Unfortunately for them, the people at the helm of affairs would find some excuse or the other to run away from the comparative trials. However, after years of dilly delaying, Arjun was given a date with the T 90 and it rose from the ashes like the mythical bird Phoenix, by outclassing T 90 in almost all the parameters. Taken aback by the results, the Indian Army ordered more Arjuns for its fleet. DRDO is now working on the Mark II version of Arjun which shall be an improvement over the version of Arjun that took part in the comparative trials. But the biggest gain of the Arjun project will be visible in the Future Main Battle Tank, which shall be designed by DRDO by using its decades of experience & knowledge gained during the development of Arjun.
Related Reading:
(1). Arjun tank outruns, outguns Russian T - 90
(2). Arjun Experiment
(3). Arjun: India's Main Battle Tank (MBT) from T 80 to Generation Next
(4). Piercing the Army's armour of deception
Related discussion:
http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#CommMsgs?cmm=748139&tid=2544426200563600458
2 comments:
love it.
Thank you
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