Arjun (Main battle tank)

[Bootie]

The Arjun is a third generation main battle tank developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), for the Indian Army. The tank is named for Arjun, a character in the Indian epic, Mahabharata.

The Arjun features a 120 mm main rifled gun with indigenously developed APFSDS ammunition, one 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun, and a 12.7 mm machine gun. It is powered by a single MTU multi-fuel diesel engine rated at 1,400 hp, and can achieve a maximum speed of 70 km/h (43 mph) and a cross-country speed of 40 km/h (25 mph). It has a four-man crew: commander, gunner, loader and driver. Automatic fire detection and suppression, and NBC protection systems are included. All-round anti-tank warhead protection by the newly developed Kanchan armour is claimed to be much higher than available in comparable third generation tanks.

In March 2010, the Arjun was pitted against the T-90 in comparative trials and performed well. Subsequently delays and other problems in its development from the 1990s to the 2000s prompted the Indian Army to order vast numbers of T-90S tanks from Russia to meet requirements that the Arjun had been expected to fulfill.[SUP]

[/SUP]Army placed an order for an additional 124 tanks on May 17, 2010 and 124 Arjun Mk-II Tanks on August 9 2010.


The Arjun entered service with the Indian Army in 2004. The tanks were first inducted into the 43rd Armoured Regiment which was later built up to regiment strength in 2009, while the latest induction has been into the 75th Armoured Regiment on 12 March 2011.[SUP][/SUP]

 

[Bootie]

 

[Lighthorse]

One of the main problems with India, as with many other countries is corruption throughout their defense procurement system. Here an article from StrategyPage.com

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20111228.aspx
India And The Mystery Rifle

December 28, 2011: A year ago, the Indian military announced that it would solicit a new assault rifle design, buy 44,000 of them and then have more of the winning design built under license in India. But the process has moved very slowly and many Indians, inside and outside the military, suspect that the much hated corruption in the procurement system is at work here.

India has been increasing spending on equipment for its ground forces over the last decade but these efforts have been uneven. Some of this has been caused by corruption. Like many other nations, India has long had problems with kickbacks and favoritism in defense procurement. But it's been worse with India, which ranks 87 (out of 180) in an international survey of least corrupt nations. Despite increasingly vigorous anti-corruption efforts, India is moving in the wrong direction on this list. India has responded with a major effort to halt corruption in defense matters but this has stalled some procurement efforts.

There more to this article, if you wish go to above link.

 

[Unknown]

Can't help myself but somehow this "Arjun" to me looks like a poor Leopard 2 clone....

 

[Sempai]

...and his specifications are almost the same.

 

[Unknown]

Yes, absolutely - thought the same when I was reading the technical details. So what is it - only a perky copy of our "Leo" or a secret weapon deal between Germany and India...?

 

[Sempai]

Would suppose they bought a few and produces the remaining ones under licenses. And so they gave it a new name. But it seems they got only the A4 version.

Greetings

 

[Unknown]

Ah yes - I see. But what an awful work - the camo painting and the additional fuel barrel is hurting my eyes! Auauauauauauaua !!!

 

[Sempai]

Yeah, looks a bit as would they be in the situation as our forefathers were - as they had to merge russian and german tank technique because of the lack of supply.

 

[Louis]

Removing or replacing broken images.