Arjun MBT - will the controversy end?

The issue about Arjun MBT is as old as the blogosphere itself. No defence blog is complete without the talk of the Arjun MBT (Main Battle Tank). I am also picking up the same old story but with a view to make fellow ordinary Indians stand up to the cause in any small way they can. It is not to gather any kind of support for Arjun, neither against it but to put things in their right perspective. But it sure is an effort to create more awareness and support for the indigenous development programmes.

Fellow bloggers are aware of the controversy surrounding the Arjun MBT & for the newbies – Arjun MBT is portrayed as a failure by (a section of) the media, defence experts & even the Indian Army. The Pakistanis especially are very vocal about it. They leave no chance (they create one if they don’t get one) to tarnish the image of Arjun MBT.

It all started in 1972 after the Indo-Pak war when the Indian govt. thought to have a tank of its own. The task was assigned to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) with early 1990s set for introduction of the MBT. Though the project was to make a totally indigenous tank except for the powerpack (engine), Arjun relied heavily on foreign components. Even now it is reported to have upto 60% of foreign components.

The project took a long 36 years in the making with huge cost overruns. An approximate Rs. 300 crores were spent instead of the Rs.15.5 crores originally allotted. But it was not all DRDOs fault. The Indian Army too kept changing its requirements (technically called the GSQR – General Staff Qualitative Requirements) as time passed & major developments took place all over the world. DRDO in turn tried to match everything it can in the changing GSQRs, either by developing in-house or getting it from outside. But after all that, what DRDO came up was a world class battle tank. And if you go by the specs, Arjun MBT can arguably be called the best MBT in the world.

So what is the controversy, the newbies may ask. So I am putting the most controversial aspects here along with the respective facts.

Let’s start by the most contentious issue – weight. The Army says the Arjun MBT is over-weight. Yes it is if you compare this 58.5 ton (originally meant to be 40 ton) tank with the Russian T-90S (Indian acquired version is called Bhishma) which is 46.5 ton approx. But when you look at the class Arjun belongs to, it is on par (even better) with other contemporary tanks in its class like the American Abrams M1 (69.5T) or the German Leopard 2 (62.3T) or the Israeli Merkava (65T). If you consider its actual ground pressure (weight per sq. cm of ground) it actually is even lighter than the T-90S. It is also said that there are no roads or bridges that can support the extra weight. I don’t understand - if we can carry 47 tonnes can’t we strengthen our bridges to carry 10-12 tonnes more? Tomorrow if Russia comes up with a heavier tank what will the Army do? What if Pakistan purchases Abrams? Will they not then buy heavier tanks or will stick to the T-90S because of the lack of roads/bridges.As for the chances of the heavier Arjun sinking during battle in the desert – you decide – Abrams M1 is 10 tonnes heavier & exerts more ground pressure (15.4 psi compared to Arjun’s 11.9) but performed well in the Gulf War.
Same holds true for Arjun’s dimensions & the argument that it is not possible to carry it with the current railway carriages. Are we not even capable of developing special transporters if the current ones don’t suit us? Of course we do & therefore these arguments hold no ground. After all we changed the whole railway system to broad-gauge from meter gauge and trust me that was a herculean task compared to this. And how much does it exceeds the limit – 6 cms on the side of the railcars.

The other thing that was much publicised was over-heating. Yes it did overheated & therefore caused a lot of problems, even the electronics blew away because of the excess heat. But things were improved by the DRDO. Not only did they succeeded in bringing the heatup to acceptable levels, they also hardened their electronics to sustain high heat, all this with no extra cost to the army. Contrast this with the T-90S which also has a heatup problem but the solution Russians offered was to install air-conditioners adding more cost to the tanks.

Next comes the Fire Control System. It was erratic in the beginning with a 20-80% first hit rate. But with Israeli help it is now state-of-the-art with an extremely high hit probability. Arjun has demonstrated extremely satisfying firing characteristics in all situations be it moving to static, static to static & moving to moving. It is supposedly the only tank that can fire on moving targets while on the move.

Coming to survivability – Arjun was also criticised for having a bigger silhouette than T-90S therefore attracting more enemy attention & thus more hits. But Arjun was not designed to avoid enemy hits. Unlike its Russian counterparts which are designed to escape the eye of the enemy Arjun was designed to survive the enemy. Russian tanks are not good at surviving if hit by enemy fire. Their best protection is to escape it. You can see pictures (and read the article too) of the T-90 tanks devastated by enemy fire at Ajai Shukla’s blog – Broadsword. But Arjun MBT survives enemy fire. Trials have shown that Arjun with DRDO developed ‘Kanchan’ armour survives all explosive rounds including the APFSDS (Armour Peircing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot). So to say that there is no tank ammunition currently available to destroy the Arjun will not be all wrong. T-90S has ERA (Explosive Reactive Armour) protection but it doesn’t saves the tank from FSAPDS. And by the way Arjun too supports ERA as an add-on.

Crew protection in Arjun is far better than in Russian tanks (actually they have almost nothing for crew protection – their design actually worsens it). Arjun has its ammunition separated from the crew compartment & stored in water-tight containers. It has automatic fire detection and suppressing system that automatically activates within milliseconds in case of a fire. While in the T-90S the crew sits over the ammunition compartment, so if a mine explodes beneath the tank, it results in the tank ammunition exploding & thus destroying the tank & killing the crew. NBC (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical weapons) protection is standard, which is also there with the T-90S.

Now let’s talk of the Arjun MBT features & their respective advantages.It has an automatic transmission (absent in T-90S) which is helpful during shoot and scoot operations. It has a capability to fire the Israeli LAHAT (Laser Homing Anti Tank) missile, which is considered the deadliest anti-tank weapon. It also extends Arjun’s firing range to approx. 8 kms. It has an in-house developed hydro-pneumatic suspension system that adds to crew comfort & reduces fatigue. The crew commander has an independent panoramic sight along with the gunner’s main sight with day & night capability and can engage targets in emergency. Arjun has been tested to drive under six feet water (also called fording) for 20 minutes.

But the best of all features are the APU & BMS. APU is Auxiliary Power Unit which powers the tank even when the engines are off. So the Arjun can engage an enemy even when in silent “watch mode”. BMS, short for Battle Management System is a specialty of the Arjun MBT which facilitates tactical command, control and communications between the tank and rest of the team, which is further enhanced by inclusion of GPS (Global Positioning System).

If we consider all this, we wonder why Arjun has been given such a bad name. We were developing a sophisticated piece of military hardware and that too for the very first time, so problems were bound to surface. Even the technologically superior countries have a long list of failed/delayed projects. So why this hue & cry? Why has DRDO being ridiculed everywhere as failing to deliver? Is it all DRDO’s fault or is the arms lobby behind maligning the project? Well the blame lies somewhere in between. DRDO is to be blamed for undervaluing the project & not going with it in a systematic way. They were averse to foreign assistance/collaboration for many years. It is only when they couldn’t fairly succeed they sought foreign help. Same was the story in respect to the LCA Tejas. But now better sense has prevailed in DRDO and they are in active involvement with the Israelis, Russians, French & even the Americans.
But the arms lobby, which includes (as media reports suggest) people from the establishment, have also tried its best to sabotage the project with constant disinformation campaign. Physical sabotage of the Arjun MBTs on trial was also reported in the media but remains unconfirmed.

But the online award goes to the Pakistanis who have left no stone unturned in carrying out a disinformation campaign against Arjun & almost all Indian defence developments including the LCA & the missile programme vis-a-vis Pakistani programmes.

I would like to also say something about the Pakistani defence programmes and the propaganda machinery here. Imagine a country which has nothing substantial to claim as indigenous development – not even something as small as a car – boasts of successful developments of high-tech military hardware. Can you imagine missiles being inducted without tests, labelled as home grown? Fighter aircraft (JF-17), cruise missiles(Babur), nuclear programme, Al Khalid MBT all developed by Pakistan indigenously without a single reported failure and that too in a record time frame. It took US almost 30 years to develop its F-16s while Pakistan did the JF-17 in 4 years. But the fact of the matter is nothing is developed by Pakistan but sourced from China, Ukraine, North Korea & even Russia.
I’ll soon be coming with a post regarding all this Pakistani “indigenous development” so let’s leave it at that.

In the end the good news is that Chief of Army Staff Gen. Deepak Kapoor has written to the Defence Ministry appreciating the Arjun MBT thus paving way for further inductions. I am eagerly waiting for the comparative trials between Arjun MBT and T-90S Bhisma, which the Army has been shying away from. I also want the media, which is so hysterically active when it comes to silly issues, pays attention to this & similar issues & creates a mass awareness so as to deter the lobby which has been constantly opposing efforts to defence indigenisation.

I would like to appreciate the Indian Navy here for going all out for indigenous development and also to a greater extent the Indian Air Force (IAF). The Indian Army sure needs to catch up.

A request to fellow bloggers:
Please comment if you can. Not only it gives an insight about how & what others think, but has an appreciation value attached to it too, which helps improve the posts & instills more passion.
Thanks & Regards
SmarterOne

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