Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

The problem for India and Chinese weapons procurement is that the PRC and Indian relationship is borderline hostile on both sides. I mean less then a few months ago there was a boarder dispute flare up and both sides were talking war. Going from that to buying tanks from China is not very realistic.
The Arjun series seems okay as a tank for flat plains but almost no MBT are going to be able to take all the terrain types of India. 68 tons is about the norm for a modern western MBT to get lighter you need to start making tradeoffs of size, crew and armor.

Equation said:

A heavy tank in weight of any kind doesn't necessary mean it is all bad. It's just not as fuel efficient and lack range but it is at least pretty robust.

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Not really. If you compare the range of an Abrams to a T72 They get about the same range. The reason being that Abrams has a fairly large fuel cell because of the larger size well T72 is actually smaller than you think. Resulting in a smaller fuel cell as more of the tank is dedicated to the autoloader.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

The problem for India and Chinese weapons procurement is that the PRC and Indian relationship is borderline hostile on both sides. I mean less then a few months ago there was a boarder dispute flare up and both sides were talking war. Going from that to buying tanks from China is not very realistic.
The Arjun series seems okay as a tank for flat plains but almost no MBT are going to be able to take all the terrain types of India. 68 tons is about the norm for a modern western MBT to get lighter you need to start making tradeoffs of size, crew and armor.

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The problem is the bridges in India can't take 68 ton for sure Remember tank has to be carried to the battle field using Tank transporter. Another thing is dimension, this tank is huge add the transporter and small road in India . And you might get stuck
The bridges in western Europe is much stronger built and better built.
So yeah I can understand why the army refused to order more

Hendrik_2000 said:

The problem is the bridges in India can't take 68 ton for sure Remember tank has to be carried to the battle field using Tank transporter. Another thing is dimension, this tank is huge add the transporter and small road in India . And you might get stuck
The bridges in western Europe is much stronger built and better built.
So yeah I can understand why the army refused to order more

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Actually Hendrik Most bridges can't take the weight of full modern Main battle tanks even in Europe generally only 40% of Bridges can take a full weight MBT. Even the PLA VT4 not likely to have a better time.
In weight and scale what The Indians might need is a Light tank with a good gun either 125mm or 120mm low recoil.

Also consider that the Indian army still has thousands of T90 and T72 Tanks in various types, I mean they are not exactly lacking in Tanks.

Unless India wants to give up self-sustainability, the military should continue to purchase domestic weapons in small batches. If they stop, it will be harder to build the industry as time goes on. Already some of the weapon system is too complex for a mid sized country.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Actually Hendrik Most bridges can't take the weight of full modern Main battle tanks even in Europe generally only 40% of Bridges can take a full weight MBT. Even the PLA VT4 not likely to have a better time.
In weight and scale what The Indians might need is a Light tank with a good gun either 125mm or 120mm low recoil.

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Actually average bridge can take 30 ton tank load with no problem. And VT5 is around 30 ton. DOT standard is around 40 ton

Formula law[

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CMVs are required to pass through at the borders of most states and some large cities. These weigh stations are run by state DOTs, and CMV weight and size enforcement is overseen by the FHWA. Weigh stations check each vehicle's gross weight and axle weight using a set of in-ground , and are usually where a truck's compliance with the formula is checked.


Truck axle groups are used to calculate compliance with the formula. Any two axles must comply with the results of the formula, but axle groups 1–5, 1–3, and 2–5 are most critical. This truck is not in violation of the formula.
FMCSA regulation §658.17 states:

• No vehicle or combination of vehicles shall be moved or operated on any interstate highway when the gross weight on two or more consecutive axles exceeds the limitations prescribed by the following formula:

{\displaystyle w=500\left({\frac {\ell n}{n-1}}+12n+36\right)}

• w = the maximum weight in pounds that can be carried on a group of two or more axles to the nearest 500 pounds (230 kg).
• ℓ = spacing in feet between the outer axles of any two or more consecutive axles.
• n = number of axles being considered.

Two or more consecutive axles may not exceed the weight computed by the bridge formula, even if the gross weight of the truck (or the weight on one axle) is below otherwise legal limits. Although this means that any two axles must comply with the formula, experience has shown that axles 1 through 3, 1 through 5, and 2 through 5 are critical and must be checked. This means that the axle group which comprises the entire truck (known as the "outer group") and the interior axle groups (known as the "tractor group" and "trailer group") must also comply with the bridge formula. If these combinations are found to be satisfactory, then all of the other axle groups on this type of vehicle will usually be satisfactory.

Hendrik_2000 said:

Actually average bridge can take 30 ton tank load with no problem. And VT5 is around 30 ton. DOT standard is around 40 ton

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I said VT4 not VT5, and I gave an estimate 40% of Bridges in general. VT5 is a light tank that is a different category of Tank. If you want to count that then you start with Type 59G, T55, CV90120T, PL01 concept, FNSS PT Pindad Modern Medium Weight Tank.
In summary how many MBT weigh in at under 40 tons????? one T64 and some upgunned T55 variants that's it. and even then they are leaning to 40 tons class.
Sure there are a few in the 40 ton weight Class T84, T90, Type 10, PT91,Type 96, T72... but other than the Type 10 ( and some argue that as a light tank) most of these are the base weight without armor add ons or older versions.
So the problem is not unique. All MBT happen to fit in that excessively heavy category including VT4 and Type 99 and Type 96. Both Versions of the Arjun the Mk1 at 59 tons and the Mk 2at 68 happen to fit this to.

Arjun was always a limited order, the Fact the T90S Bhishma was being Ordered in massive numbers alongside small batches of Arjun was pretty much proof that the Indians never meant to make it their main line MBT. They ordered something like 1200 units of the Russian tank.

kurutoga said:

Unless India wants to give up self-sustainability, the military should continue to purchase domestic weapons in small batches. If they stop, it will be harder to build the industry as time goes on. Already some of the weapon system is too complex for a mid sized country.

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Indian self sustainability though is a bit dubious. there track record is shaky, Arjun uses Israeli and Russian Technologies as well as some oddities in a modern MBT. The main gun is a 120mm rifled gun, this gun is mostly out of fashion. The British who still use it tested it against the Nato Standard 120mm and found it wanting, the only reason they did not change the Challenger 2 was that the Ammunition stores in the Challenger 2 Would have required a massive redesign.
As I pointed out above the Indians only intended a small number of Arjun tanks. Ordering large numbers of T90S at the same time. The Indian Insas is considered a deeply flawed rifle, Although based on a number of proven systems the AKM, FAL, HK designs, yet Quality control and manufacturing materials proved wanting with on again off again replacement programs.

I mean it seems like licensed production seems to do better for them.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Actually Hendrik Most bridges can't take the weight of full modern Main battle tanks even in Europe generally only 40% of Bridges can take a full weight MBT. Even the PLA VT4 not likely to have a better time.
In weight and scale what The Indians might need is a Light tank with a good gun either 125mm or 120mm low recoil.

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Thanks for infos but I remenber Tiger II, 70 tons have problems during Battle of the Bulge

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Indian self sustainability though is a bit dubious. there track record is shaky, Arjun uses Israeli and Russian Technologies as well as some oddities in a modern MBT. The main gun is a 120mm rifled gun, this gun is mostly out of fashion. The British who still use it tested it against the Nato Standard 120mm and found it wanting, the only reason they did not change the Challenger 2 was that the Ammunition stores in the Challenger 2 Would have required a massive redesign.
As I pointed out above the Indians only intended a small number of Arjun tanks. Ordering large numbers of T90S at the same time. The Indian Insas is considered a deeply flawed rifle, Although based on a number of proven systems the AKM, FAL, HK designs, yet Quality control and manufacturing materials proved wanting with on again off again replacement programs.

I mean it seems like licensed production seems to do better for them.

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I am always dubious of any blanket statements that states or implies an entire nation or people could not do anything so long as they have the will and resources for it.

The bottlenecks to Indian indigenous projects are many, but other than the Catch22 one of design experience, there isn’t a huge amount of difference between indigenous development and licence production, unless that licence production is the bare minimum needed to meet political requirements and there isn’t really any substantive local content or assembly involved (ie they are just re-assembling from ready made knock down kits).

The good news is that if India can do high content and value added licence production, then they are already well on their way to having a local industry base capable of indigenous development and production.

The flip side is that if all their numerous licence production programmes are not delivering the kind of technical and human capital advances in their indigenous arms industry as one would expect from access and exposure to top of the line foreign tech, tooling and training, then there is something fundamentally wrong with how India is doing their licence production programmes, in which case it’s a colossal waste of time and money, and they would be better off in not paying through the nose for local production and just buying off the shelf and instead investing those saved billions to just build a load of LCAs and Arguns and what not.

That imo, will do more to boost indigenous Indian industry more than 10 Rafale local assembly deals and probably still save them money compared to just buying the Rafales ready made from France.